For everyone to read the email I've sent to pearl jam, I'm posting it, right here and right now!
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Hi!
(First, I hope you can read this message, I switched over to HTML formatting for this one to be able to draw the table! It would have been chaotic otherwise..... :-P)
Finally I get to replying.... I had to learn hard for an exam I wrote today.
No problem, I'll try to help you, be my guest! :-)
Do you mean you can't see the NTFS partitions under DOS after you exit PM5? I guess I've misunderstood you, but who knows? If this is the case, what exactly did you mean? Otherwise: this is completely normal, you can only see and access NTFS partitions under WinNT/Win2000, not under DOS or Win98.
Or did you mean you can't see the NTFS partitions from within PM5? That would be bad, as I can't imagine what reasons this could have...
Well then, let's take a look at your partitions again:
HD1:
C: primary NTFS
G: logical NTFS
HD2:
D: primary (??) FAT16
E: logical FAT16
F: logical NTFS
Your problem, as you want to install Win98 on your system, is that Win98 *needs* its boot partition to be FAT16 or FAT32. Obiously you're currently booting from C: which is a primary NTFS partition. Where is your \WINNT directory? Is it on C ;(
The simplest solution in your case would be to convert the C: NTFS partition back to FAT16 (FAT32 would be even better to get a smaller cluster size) (as far as I know PM5 can do this). Then you can install Win98 on D: or E: (i.e. specify D:\WINDOWS or E:\WINDOWS as the Win98 dir during setup). It only needs "C:" (in general!) to be FAT16/32 to store its boot files there: IO.SYS, MSDOS.SYS, CONFIG.SYS, AUTOEXEC.BAT and stuff like that.
But beware, if your \WINNT directory is on C:, it's not a very good idea to convert that partition to FAT. NT/Win2000 works on a FAT drive, but it's far from optimal (security and performance reasons). Now if THIS is the case, then I suggest reinstalling Win2000 (and Win98) and repartitioning like this (this is about my preferred way to set up pure Win2000 machines or mixed Win2000/Win98 machines):
Letter (W2k) Letter (W98) on HD # File System Size Description
=============================================================================================================================
C: C: 1 primary NTFS 0.5 to 1GB Only the boot files of both OSes are here,
and you should place your swap file here, too***.
D: - 1 logical NTFS 1GB**** Install your \WINNT dir in here, that makes the
\Documents and Settings dir also go here, and the
\Program Files dir, too. But install all your other
programs in another partition, because here's not
too much space!
E: - 1 logical NTFS rest of HD1 Install your Win2000 apps here, and all your other
Win2000 stuff.
-* D: 2 logical FAT32 0.5 to 1GB Install your Win98 \WINDOWS dir here. (This will
also put Win98's \Program Files dir here.)
-* E: 2 logical FAT32 ~1/2 of HD2 Put your Win98 apps here, and other Win98 stuff.
F:** - 2 logical NTFS rest of HD2 If you really want, you can put another NTFS partition
here, like you have done now.
* You don't need to give drive letters to these partitions under Win2000 if you don't need to access them from there. Or give them higher letters like M: and N:!
** You might want to give this partition the letter F: instead. F: is much more continous, and it is not used under Win98 in this configuration, so it won't confuse you.
*** You should ALWAYS use a permanent swap file with the minimum size being EXACTLY identical to the maximum size, under Win2000 as well as under Win98!! It should not be less than 256MB large, best value for normal to heavy apps/games usage is 512MB, only use 1024MB if you do some really hardcore stuff like editing or rendering
huge images or compiling Quake levels. After you've decided how large your swap file will be, add about 50MB to gain the final size of the C: partition (remember, there need to be some additional files on this partition: the NT/Win2000 start files (BOOT.INI, NTLDR, etc.), and the Win98 start files (IO.SYS, MSDOS.SYS, CONFIG.SYS, etc.); and you might want to install the Win2000 Recovery Console, then it takes an additional ~7MBs on C: -- you can do this from within Win2000, just run X:\I386\WINNT32.EXE /CMDCONS, where X: is your CD-ROM or where your Win2000 install files are located.)
**** You should
really give Win2000 a whole 1GB, I know it's much space, but in the future you might regret it if you don't. The \WINNT\SYSTEM32 dir will keep growing, and you might want to temporarily store some files (downloaded files, or others) on your desktop (which is kept in your profile under "\Documents and Settings", also on this partition) from time to time! It really hurts if you get "Out of disk space" errors. :-P
To further explain this disk layout: it's always a good idea to keep the Win2000/Win98 installation dirs in a different partition than all your important data and apps, i.e. D: is just the Win2000 installation and its basic dirs, and E: is the apps and your data (similar for Win98).
Another advantage of this layout is that the drive letters under Win2000 vs. the drive letters under Win98 have the same meaning: C: is just boot and swap drive, D: is OS, E: is apps and data.
And I suggest that you use a 4kB cluster size for all your partitions to reduce wasted space. And remember that NTFS does NOT support compression, encryption or even defragmentation on partitions with a cluster size larger than 4kB!!!
Ok, these were the best hints and tips I could give (this is very similar to how I have set up my system, or at least how I would have set it up if I were in your sitiuation).
To summarize:a) if your \WINNT dir is not on C:, then convert C: to FAT32 with PM5,
b) if your \WINNT dir IS on C:, and you don't mind running Win2000 from a FAT32 drive, then also convert C: to FAT32 with PM5, and then install Win98 on the partition that is D: under Win2000 (should become D: under Win98, too!),
c) if your \WINNT dir IS on C:, but you don't want to run Win2000 from a FAT32 drive (I recommend that you don't do it!), then unfortunately you need to reformat (and repartition) your drives (I recommend the above layout). I know it's hard work, but after a month or so, you'll be really glad that you have done it, because it runs so fine! :-)
Please don't hesitate to contact me if something's unclear or you want to know something else!
nova.
PS: Whew! That table did take a lot of work to get it looking right!
[This message has been edited by nova (edited 19 February 2000).]
