Yeah it does exist, it's a hard drive caddy.

Startech still produces a vintage looking one, but they are easily obtainable second hand where I live.

EdmondDantes wrote:

So I was thinking of doing a dual-boot setup, but well I wonder stuff. […]
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So I was thinking of doing a dual-boot setup, but well I wonder stuff.

The setup I had planned was Win98SE + WinXP.

My initial thought was to create three partitions: One for XP, one for 98, and one general data partition. The WinXP would be formatted in NTFS but the others might be FAT32 (I'm waffling on this for the data partition since I may want to put DVDs on it).

Now.... I'm imagining that if I were to boot Win98SE, it would only see itself and label itself the C:\ Drive. But what would XP do? I ask because I like to install programs to C:\ and I don't want Win98 stuff installing to XP's drive or vice-versa.

I have a dualboot 98 and XP setup on an Athlon XP 2800+.
Both are FAT32, and I don't have a general data partition.

My Win98 setup is on C:
XP on D:

I've had ZERO issues with this. XP ignores the C: completely (other than set the NTLDR for dual booting). And Windows 98 ignores the D:.
I was thinking of adding another physical disk to act as a common data disk, but since shared single game installs don't usually play nice, I decided to just segregate my games between the two OSs.
If a game runs better under 98, then I install it on C:, if XP, then on D:.

The problem isn't with Windows.
It's with some programs that simply ignore where Windows is, and use default "C:\ProgramFiles" folder for installation (unless you change it by "advanced" installation and enter folder path manually).

agent_x007 wrote:

The problem isn't with Windows.
It's with some programs that simply ignore where Windows is, and use default "C:\ProgramFiles" folder for installation (unless you change it by "advanced" installation and enter folder path manually).

Do you have examples of this?

My understanding was that they used the "ProgramFiles" and "ProgramFiles(x86)" environment variables;
and since Windows 98 is already on "C:", then even legacy software would be ok as it would default to "C:\Program Files" anyways.

Folder "ProgramFiles(x86)", doesn't exist in Windows XP 32-bit or Win98.
When Windows XP is installed on partition "D", and there is a Windows 98 installed on first drive partition ("C") of the same drive; some programs that are being installed under Win XP on such system, will default to "C:\ProgramFiles\xxxx" code path instead of "D:\ProgramFiles\xxxx".
I usually don't install Win XP and Win 98 on the same drive, to avoid this problem (and few others).
It's an annoyance at worst though (for me at least, since you simply have to manually check install path for everything).
I don't remember exact programs that do this on installation (I didn't used this particular combination in years).
I THINK Service Pack 3 (?) install created temporary files/folders on C:\ drive with Win98 (even when Win XP SP2 was on D:\).

agent_x007 wrote:

Folder "ProgramFiles(x86)", doesn't exist in Windows XP 32-bit or Win98. When Windows XP is installed on partition "D", and ther […]
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Folder "ProgramFiles(x86)", doesn't exist in Windows XP 32-bit or Win98.
When Windows XP is installed on partition "D", and there is a Windows 98 installed on first drive partition ("C") of the same drive; some programs that are being installed under Win XP on such system, will default to "C:\ProgramFiles\xxxx" code path instead of "D:\ProgramFiles\xxxx".
I usually don't install Win XP and Win 98 on the same drive, to avoid this problem (and few others).
It's an annoyance at worst though (for me at least, since you simply have to manually check install path for everything).
I don't remember exact programs that do this on installation (I didn't used this particular combination in years).
I THINK Service Pack 3 (?) install created temporary files/folders on C:\ drive with Win98 (even when Win XP SP2 was on D:\).

I guess its something to watch out for; but I don't recall having seen such issues in XP personally.
I have however seen issues with XP x64 where some software gets installed in "Program Files (x86)" but expects "Program Files" such as older versions of WinZip which includes DLLs it tries to find (unsuccessfully) at load time.

Windows 98 will see the "C:" the same way as DOS would do.
The order of the drive letters depends on the BIOS/partition settings.

Windows XP will default to use the "C:" drive for its system partition.
Except, if for some weird reason, Windows Setup did mess things up during installation.
Windows XP determines the drive letters by the parition/HDD IDs in its registry.

EdmondDantes wrote:

I could swear I've heard of a device like this which exists for precisely this reason (IE something that allows you to just
push a button and wham the hard drive slides out) but I don't know what it's called. Does anyone know what I'm talking about?

I hope so, that's a removable drive bay. 😀 Alternatively, if both drives are configured to cable-select and if the BIOS uses auto-detect,
you can change the primary/secondary HDD by flipping a mechanical switch. http://www.stefanv.com/electronics/ide_dual_boot.html

Thanks. Bookmarking this topic.

Also, is there a caddy like this for Laptop IDE drives... but which will let them install in a desktop? I have two laptop IDE drives I otherwise have nothing to do with and this just seemed like a good use for them (I'm also thinking that laptop hard drives, being smaller, might generate less heat).

You could just get a converter like this and put in the excess space of the caddy like appiah4 mentioned
https://www.startech.com/uk/Cables/Drive/IDE/ … Adapter~IDE4044

just FYI when dual booting multiple windows versions, for DOS/9x they should always be on the first HD or partition and be installed first. Then NT OS'es.

Or you could use a 3rd party boot manager like System Commander 7

If you are using IDE not SATA ...
Then I can vouch for one of these ..which do show up on Amazon ..
ROMTEC-RX-910T6
switch between hard drives ..not OS on partitions.
Of course ..it has limitations in that you cannot hot swap the drives...
..requiring boot down > switch > re-boot
rgds
VS

Just thought I'd update.

So I wound up searching on Google and finding a previous post on this very forum that mentioned something called Plop Boot Manager. So I used it, following the example instructions (except installing 98SE instead of Vista, obviously) and before too long, had a functional dual-boot system that I was happy with.

Freeware software is awesome.