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Reply 20 of 43, by oeuvre

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Generally, install 98SE first then partition + install XP. Or install XP on a separate drive.

Alternatively, use System Commander. Been using it for a while now, works like a charm.

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Reply 21 of 43, by ultra_code

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Hey oeuvre.

It's funny. Looking up System Commander on Wikipedia I saw VCOM, who also made Copy Commander and Partition Commander, which coincidentally(?) my dad, after cleaning up some of his old stuff, gave me a relatively good copy of Copy Commander ver.9 with the original box (which on it says "Partition Commander Special Edition" was "included", but if it is on the same disc as CC or if it came on a separate disc which is now not in the box I cannot say).

oeuvre wrote:

Generally, install 98SE first then partition + install XP. Or install XP on a separate drive.

If you mean to do a "vanilla" (as I will call it) dual-boot system, yeah, but I am trying to attain that "each OS has their own C drive", which is why I am posting again to this topic. I finally did a little test of what schmatzler laid out (using Free FDISK that ships with FreeDOS), and man it is magical compared to the original FDISK provided by Microsoft. It correctly detects the size of the HDD I am using, and skips the annoyingly slow "checking drive integrity" bullcrap that takes forever. And, the reason I tried it to make sure it did do what schmatzler said it did, it does support multiple primary partitions! I was able to create a 80GB primary partition for Win98 "in the front" as the first partition, and then the rest of the space (150GB) for a second primary partition for XP! Finally, to make sure it was all about that "active" status, I set the second primary partition as active, and the XP setup disk manager said that second primary partition would be the C drive! So now I am installing Win98 for hopefully the last time on this time-waster of a machine, and then will install XP, choose a boot manager, and then enjoy!

Oh, and of course create a new topic dedicated to it. 😀

Shout out to schmatzler! Thanks for this ridiculously simple solution!

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Reply 22 of 43, by jholt5638

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KT7AGuy wrote:

1 - Win98SE can only see one primary partition at a time. Since you're installing Win98SE to a primary partition, the only other partitions it will be able to see are extended/logical partitions.

2 - Win98SE can't read NTFS. While you can install WinXP to a FAT32 partition, (don't do it), it will still need to be a primary partition. See #1 above.

I have to disagree with both these statements. For as long as I can remember setting up dual boot Win9x and NT I've used multiple primary partitions and have never had trouble with 9x actually having a problem accessing both or even all four primary partitions on the same drive. For the second one there are NTFS filesystem drivers for 9x/DOS. Two such drivers come with the Win98SE USP 3.57 one by sysinternals and the other I believe is Paragon. DOn't know much about the Paragon driver because I've never had any problems with the Sysinternals one.

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Reply 23 of 43, by dr_st

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I briefly tried the Paragon driver on Win98 SE, to access NTFS-formatted flash drives, and noticed that while read worked fine, every time I tried to write something to the NTFS partition on the flash drive, it ended up corrupted (as "lost clusters").

Looks like the free version of NTFS98 (by Sysinternals) only allows read anyways.

In pure DOS mode, I've used NTFSDOS Professional once or twice, successfully.

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Reply 24 of 43, by schmatzler

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the_ultra_code wrote:

Shout out to schmatzler! Thanks for this ridiculously simple solution!

Glad I was able to assist. I refined this method over many years just to be able to install Windows 98 very quickly if something broke and get rid of this annoying D: drive in Windows. Some drivers and programs simply won't install without a C: drive or copy over their files onto the wrong partition.

Now I have AntiX Linux and Windows 98 running on my retro machine in dual boot. It's very easy to get Windows 98 working again if it breaks for some reason: I just copy the files back and forth between the partitions to make backups and restores. 😎

(Wish I had known all this 15 years ago, though.)

"Windows 98's natural state is locked up"

Reply 25 of 43, by ultra_code

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Oh, schmatzler, one more question. When you install and setup Boot US, do you just have it so each OS can see the other's partition, or do you hide the partitions from each other?

Thanks!

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Reply 26 of 43, by schmatzler

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I've set it up so each OS can see all partitions.

Windows XP automatically sets up Windows 98 on the D: drive and I think it would work vice versa with an NTFS driver, but I never needed it that way around.

With AntiX Linux, I can skip the BootUS step. It automatically sets up a nice boot manager when I install it after Windows 98. Even adds Memtest automatically.

"Windows 98's natural state is locked up"

Reply 27 of 43, by ultra_code

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Success!

After obtaining an OEM copy of Windows XP Professional SP3 from eBay for the low-low price of $99.95 ( 😅 ), I got around to installing XP and then setting up Boot US, and man, that is the simplest boot manager installer I have ever seen (then again, I have ever only tried to install two boot managers in my life, Boot US being the second 😀 ). Just downloaded the Boot US x86 installer from their website, installed it under XP, set up the boot manager on the MBR, and blam!, I can boot into Win98 and XP!

Here's some proof (proof that fills me with glee!):
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Again, thank you so much schmatzler! I do not think I can say it enough.

Any who, now that all of the OS-related stuff is set up, it is just a matter of setting up apps and such and updating XP before I make my second Retro Gaming Machine topic here on VOGONS.

Again, thanks to everyone here for helping me out!

Last edited by ultra_code on 2018-11-05, 17:58. Edited 1 time in total.

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Reply 28 of 43, by Woolie Wool

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the_ultra_code wrote:
Hello VOGONS members! […]
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Hello VOGONS members!

I have a question that I think is harder to answer than it sounds: What is the correct, best way to set up a dual booting environment that includes Windows XP as well as Windows 98 SE?

As far as I know, what you are supposed to do is complete the first "half" of the Win98 install, then install WinXP, and finally finish up with Win98. The problem I have with that is this: In order to do a Win98 install, you have to first format the hard drive with the DOS utility fdisk, but as far as I know, that partitioning "takes up" the entire capacity of the disk space. So, I therefore ask, how do you use fdisk to create a specifically sized partition for Windows 98 (like 80GB or 40% of a hard drive's capacity, for example)?

If someone could provide a detailed guide as to how to do this, that would be great. Thanks in advance!

I recommend just installing 98 onto a single partition, then booting into a GPartEd live CD, shrinking the partition down to size, and then creating your additional partition(s) in the unallocated space. Finally, install Windows XP onto the second partition. NTLDR will handle the choice between 98 and XP at boot just fine. The solution in this thread strikes me as needlessly complicated.

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Reply 29 of 43, by schmatzler

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Woolie Wool wrote:

The solution in this thread strikes me as needlessly complicated.

Every time I try to shrink or expand a Windows 98SE partition with gparted, the OS will not boot afterwards.

If it works for you, I am very impressed.

NTLDR will handle the choice between 98 and XP at boot just fine.

That may be true, but NTLDR only adds the 98 partition (during setup) if it is marked as active (or bootable). This has the annoying side effect that XP will recognize its own drive as the D: drive. I certainly don't want this as it creates all kinds of problems, like installers putting their files onto the wrong drive or simply refusing to install.

"Windows 98's natural state is locked up"

Reply 30 of 43, by KT7AGuy

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schmatzler wrote:

That may be true, but NTLDR only adds the 98 partition (during setup) if it is marked as active (or bootable). This has the annoying side effect that XP will recognize its own drive as the D: drive. I certainly don't want this as it creates all kinds of problems, like installers putting their files onto the wrong drive or simply refusing to install.

This here is the whole reason why I use other "needlessly complicated" boot loaders such as PLOP. I don't want XP on drive D:, and I don't want the OS's to see each other. That's just sloppy.

As schmatzler mentioned, when WinXP can see Win9x as C: and installs itself as D:, it has the highly annoying habit of copying and installing some files to the C: drive. I like to keep things nice and clean.

Reply 31 of 43, by KCompRoom2000

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KT7AGuy wrote:

This here is the whole reason why I use other "needlessly complicated" boot loaders such as PLOP. I don't want XP on drive D:, and I don't want the OS's to see each other. That's just sloppy.

As schmatzler mentioned, when WinXP can see Win9x as C: and installs itself as D:, it has the highly annoying habit of copying and installing some files to the C: drive. I like to keep things nice and clean.

Sure, why not reinvent the wheel by telling everybody (incl. Microsoft) that their current solution sucks and your idea is much better! /sarcasm

But seriously, I've been doing my multi-boot environments the regular NTLDR way for my whole life now and I've yet to encounter a problem. As for installers choosing to install programs to the C:\ by default, the solution there is to either pay close attention to the installer's settings before moving on (learnt that lesson when unpacking nVidia drivers), or cut and paste the folder/files to your D:\ partition. As for programs going apeshit when being ran on a drive other than C:\ (TBH I've yet to encounter that issue, any citations there?), blame bad programming skills, at least that gives me an excuse to fire up whatever is on C:\ (in my case: Windows 98) to use such programs so it's not just there for gaming.

The problem with 3rd-party boot loaders is there are so many of them, and the majority of them cost money so it can be tricky to find one that's free (shareware trials need not apply).

Reply 32 of 43, by KT7AGuy

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Wow. I'm sorry this ruffled your feathers so badly. I just prefer to keep my operating systems separated and independent of each other. I also don't like it when my peas touch my mashed potatoes.

While I agree that PLOP is indeed a bit complicated, it is also free and will do anything you want from a boot manager.

Reply 33 of 43, by KCompRoom2000

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KT7AGuy wrote:

Wow. I'm sorry this ruffled your feathers so badly. I just prefer to keep my operating systems separated and independent of each other. I also don't like it when my peas touch my mashed potatoes.

I'm so sorry that my sarcastic comment hurt your feelings. I didn't mean to offend anyone there, I just felt like adding a touch of sarcasm to my post, that's all. 🤐

I respect that some people have different solutions for multi-booting Windows and other operating systems. In fact, I was curious about alternative boot loaders (mainly GAG boot manager and XOSL) for a while then. I naturally stick to the way it's intended to be done, but I don't mind other solutions depending on the outcome.

Reply 34 of 43, by dr_st

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I am one of the "minimalists" that prefers to use the built-in boot loaders that ship with operating systems, rather than 3rd party solutions. At least when staying within one OS family (i.e., Windows with Windows or Linux with Linux), it's always possible to get things to work without 3rd party boot loaders. However, I cannot deny that sometimes it requires substantially more tweaking, as in KT7AGuy's example with the drive letters.

And, once you go mixing OS flavors (Linux, Windows, maybe something else) on the same system, the built-in ones may not be fully adequate.

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Reply 35 of 43, by schmatzler

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KCompRoom2000 wrote:

Sure, why not reinvent the wheel by telling everybody (incl. Microsoft) that their current solution sucks and your idea is much better! /sarcasm

Well...during the last few centuries, Microsoft has made a ton of bad decisions. 😜

And I don't know, but I think watching every install process closely and tidying up behind badly written setup programs seems much more hassle than just creating two partitions and changing their active state to install two operating systems on one drive. It's not rocket science.

"Windows 98's natural state is locked up"

Reply 36 of 43, by ultra_code

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dr_st wrote:

I am one of the "minimalists" that prefers to use the built-in boot loaders that ship with operating systems, rather than 3rd party solutions. At least when staying within one OS family (i.e., Windows with Windows or Linux with Linux), it's always possible to get things to work without 3rd party boot loaders. However, I cannot deny that sometimes it requires substantially more tweaking, as in KT7AGuy's example with the drive letters..

I agree with you there, regarding wanting to say with the provided boot loaders, but in the case of trying to dual-boot Windows 98 SE and XP (while trying to have each OS reside on "their own" C drive), the one provided by XP just did not cut it for me. 🙁

I think Win98 does not have that same drive "fluidity" (whatever partition Windows is installed on is the C drive), unlike every other Windows OS starting with XP., and because of that, trying to attain that to-each-their-own-C-drive configuration with Win98 and XP with XP's default bootloader is impossible, if not near impossible (I'm unsure, but I doubt it is possible).

Hence, going with a third-party boot loader is, to say the least, highly recommended to get that setup, as I found out. 😀

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Reply 37 of 43, by dr_st

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I think you are right that there is no way to get Win98 to assign drive letters in an order that does not align with the physical partition order of the disk. I think there should be a way, however, to install 98 on the first partition, XP on the second, and modify XP to treat itself as C. Or you might install XP first, on an NTFS partition, and put 98 on the second partition, that would be the only FAT32 partition. Would that work? Would 98 even see its own partition this way? And would it try to assign drive letters to partitions it cannot see?

Like you, I am not sure; but I doubt it's worth the hassle in any case, hence to achieve what you wanted, probably a 3rd party boot loader is better.

BTW, FWIW, I don't think that Win98 (or any 9x OS) cares much about its partition. On my 98 SE system, the bootloader and startup files (Io, Msdos, Config, Command, Autoexec) are on drive C:, while all the Windows directories are on drive G: (for no good reason), and no program I installed ever had any issue with it. But maybe some would be confused, if there had been another
\Program Files\ on a drive before G? I don't know.

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Reply 38 of 43, by ultra_code

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dr_st wrote:

Or you might install XP first, on an NTFS partition, and put 98 on the second partition, that would be the only FAT32 partition. Would that work? Would 98 even see its own partition this way? And would it try to assign drive letters to partitions it cannot see?

Well, I have been told that the Win98 partition has to be the first one physically on the disk, but maybe that is not the case (maybe I'll see if that is the case in the future in a virtual machine *shrug*). However, if you were to install Win98 after XP, I think then it would be 100% necessary to install a third-party bootloader, so you could even get into the XP installation, because I do not believe that Win98's bootloader would recognize the XP installation.

In regards to what partitions Win98 can see, Win98 cannot see NTFS partitions. Whenever I booted up into Win98 and checked the disks it saw, the NTFS partition for XP was not listed. Now, maybe if Win98 was installed after XP physically (Win98's partition is after XP's), maybe Win98 might get confused as to why there is all of this hard drive space that is being taken up by a partition of an unknown format, but even then I doubt Win98 would try to assign a letter to an unknown partition it does not even recognize.

Just my two cents. 😀

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Reply 39 of 43, by sMogyi

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To all who end up here, like I did: Everything written here is pure gold, but has -had for me at least- some small misisng elements: 'primary partition & active partition'.
Based on this topic and these 3 articles:
(1) http://www.multibooters.co.uk/multiboot.html
(2) https://retrocomputing.stackexchange.com/ques … 98-xp-dual-boot
(3) https://jeffpar.github.io/kbarchive/kb/171/Q171444/
I managed to make a clean dual 98-xp boot machine, where non the OS-s see the other's C: driver, and both boots its own C, magic.
A)
You need 2 primary partitions, which can not be done by fdsik. I used xFdisk for this, copied to a 98 boot floppy. This can go as the very first elemen into (2)'s link steps. Oh, and don't instal Xp from 98. That's just bad, because of reasons later. Use CD or USB and boot from it.
B)
Before installing any of the OS's, you shall set the target partition 'Active'. This can be done with ordinary fdisk. If you forget it and insall XP after 98 -it wll install just fine- you'll get dual boot, but with MS's bootlader and that son of a... bootloader is going to be installed on the 98's partition. Meaning: XP is going to need 98's partition to boot. And no later installed third party boot-manager will be able to overtake. The reason is simple: Xp is going to serach for ntldr, which is present on a different partition than Xp itself. Because Boot-Us only sets the Active partition, but doesn't change anything in the OS's setup.
C)
After booth OS-s are installed on a separate primary partition and durring install time both OSs thought "I'm on the only Active partition", you can install boot-us from Xp.
Now thinking back, after a week of suffering, it's super simple.