[Jason B]

I have a dual-boot of ME and XP, on a 60Gb drive, split in half. Here's the deal. It's my mother's computer. She likes ME, (don't ask) and I love XP. The modem is not compatible with XP, so I have to do all of my internet use from ME. It's being really dumb, and it won't let me add any user accounts, and I dont want to frig with it. I have a spare 4Gb drive, and I formatted it, and put 98Se on it. I tried putting 2000 Server on it earlier, and it frigged XP somehow. So I put the 4 Gb as the primary, and installed 98 on it. Well, now I need a new boot.ini, so I can do a tri-boot. Here is my current one:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="If Heaven is an OS, this is it. (XP)" /fastdetect
C:\="If Hell is an OS, this is it. (ME)"


What do I add to it to add 98 to the OS choice screen? Thx for the help.

[adamvjackson]

OK, so making sure that I understand this correctly: You have a 4GB drive, primary on ide1, with win98... ide2 has 2 partitions, ME, and XP....

The boot.ini below is based upon what I understand to be correct, I could be mistaken. The default OS will be 98SE.

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\="Windows 98SE"
multi(0)disk(1)rdisk(0)partition(1)\="Windows ME"
multi(0)disk(1)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Windows XP" /fastdetect

Again, I could be wrong.... Anyone else care to comment on the above boot.ini?

[Jason B]

No. Sorry if I put it wrong. I set the 4 Gb as the primary, just to install 98 on it, but now the 60 is the primary, and the 4 is the slave.
But with what you have just given me, I think I can figure it out now. Thx man. I'll let you know either way.

[snakefoot]

Quote:

No. Sorry if I put it wrong. I set the 4 Gb as the primary, just to install 98 on it, but now the 60 is the primary, and the 4 is the slave.

Don't think Win9x/Me likes to be on another HDD than the Primary.

[Immortal]

98/ 98SE MUST always be on the primary, or it wont like it, ME doesnt need to tho.

[adamvjackson]

Generally speaking, the order in which I seem to have the best luck, is start with the oldest os, and go from there. Immortal, snakefoot, I am in agreement with your posts.

[DosFreak]

It doesn't matter what partition/HD 9x is on. All that matters is that IO.SYS,MSDOS.SYS,COMMAND.COM reside on the primary boot partition.

[snakefoot]

Quote:

It doesn't matter what partition/HD 9x is on. All that matters is that IO.SYS,MSDOS.SYS,COMMAND.COM reside on the primary boot partition.

I have tried installing Win9x on a third primary partition on the Master HDD, and added it to the Win2k bootmenu on the first primary partition on the Master HDD(where the bootsect.dos got placed) using bootpart.

So if having a master and slave HDD then Win9x can be installed on the Slave HDD if it contains a primary partition without complaining ?

[DosFreak]

Yes,

Let's say you have a HD with 2 partitions

C:
D:

You install 9x to D:.

Then IO.SYS,MSDOS.SYS,COMMAND.COM will be placed on C: while 9x is on D:. An entry is placed in MSDOS.SYS by 9x which points to the D:\Windows directory so it knows where to start Windows.

[snakefoot]

Quote:

Yes,

Let's say you have a HD with 2 partitions

C:
D:

You install 9x to D:.

Then IO.SYS,MSDOS.SYS,COMMAND.COM will be placed on C: while 9x is on D:. An entry is placed in MSDOS.SYS by 9x which points to the D:\Windows directory so it knows where to start Windows.

Ok I was thinking about keeping Win9x entirely for it self without infecting other partitions with it files besides it own

In my early days as multi booter I had a lot of trouble when having several OS's on the same partition (Probably because I didnt know what I was doing but that is another story ). But since then I have always made sure to keep the OS's strictly apart.

[DosFreak]

My system:

OS DRIVE

C: BOOT Partition 2GB FAT16 SWAP FILE
D: NT4 4GB NTFS
E: NT4APPS 10GB NTFS
F: 98 4GB FAT32
G: 98APPS 10GB FAT32
H: 2000 4GB NTFS
I: 2000 APPS 10GB NTFS
J: XP 4GB NTFS
K: XP APPS 10GB NTFS
L: Stuff 18GB FAT32


With this configuration I can reinstall any OS I want without worry. If the MBR does become corrupted then I simply run the 2k/XP recovery console and do a fixmbr.