Omarkoman wrote on 2023-04-13, 20:42:

I installed Windows 98SE but when I click start and restart in DOS it hangs on black blinking cursor so cant get to DOS environment. I dont want to run games in Command prompt window.

What's the size of your HDD, C drive, and the file system you installed Win98SE on? DOS can only handle 2GB under FAT.

Omarkoman wrote on 2023-04-13, 20:42:

How can I now get Windows 98SE environment setup without stuffing up my DOS setup ?

I'm not quite sure your "stuffing up" means here; if you have a C drive no larger than 2GB then you can install Win98SE on it without much trouble; a standard, fresh Win98SE installation takes less than 300MB. After that you have to add "BootMulti=1" and "BootMenu=1" under [Options] in MSDOS.SYS to allow booting into DOS. You might also need a larger D drive (either physical or logical) to store additional programs and/or personal data.

Omarkoman wrote on 2023-04-13, 20:42:

Should I just use two different SD cards as I am using IDE to SD card adapter ? its not the most friendly setup as I would have to have the case open to access the adapter.

You might want to grab something like this (plus an SD to CF adapter if you don't have and don't plan to acquire any CF card) so you don't have to open the case whenever you want to switch the card.

yeah maybe I can use this as I dont have spare 3.5" slot :

https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/402599142993

still gives easy access.

You are saying I can install windows 98SE, yes I can but wont it then boot into Windows ? How do I get it to boot to DOS with all the settings I have setup for my sound etc?

Omarkoman wrote on 2023-04-13, 21:12:

yeah maybe I can use this as I dont have spare 3.5" slot :

https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/402599142993

still gives easy access.

This is what I have on my two DOS/Win9x builds. 😉 Much cheaper than StarTech's.

Omarkoman wrote on 2023-04-13, 21:12:

You are saying I can install windows 98SE, yes I can but wont it then boot into Windows ? How do I get it to boot to DOS with all the settings I have setup for my sound etc?

After installing Win98SE,

1. Make sure your Windows Explorer displays hidden files and system files (via Folder Options)
2. Open MSDOS.SYS under C:\ with Notepad
3. Add "BootMulti=1" and "BootMenu=1" under [Options]
4. Save the file, then reboot

ok thanks, I saw that actually on one youtube.

but was worried if I install windows 98SE it will get rid of my autoexec and conig.sys setup ...

swapping SD cards might be easiest though ? or not really?

In your case swapping SD cards might indeed be the easiest way to be able to use two different systems. Just pop in the card with the desired system and there you go.
You could also use a boot manager, I use XFDISK for that (not using SD cards, though, but a hard drive). I can select which OS to boot, XFDISK takes care of hiding the partitions from one another, so Win98 can't see the DOS partition and vice versa, they all think they're the only operating system on the computer.

Omarkoman wrote on 2023-04-13, 21:31:

ok thanks, I saw that actually on one youtube.

but was worried if I install windows 98SE it will get rid of my autoexec and conig.sys setup ...

No, they'll be renamed as *.DOS under Win98SE.

Omarkoman wrote on 2023-04-13, 21:31:

swapping SD cards might be easiest though ? or not really?

Having multiple systems would be easier. 😉

thanks guys, swapping cards it is then ... im so excited 🤣 ... its been nearly 30 years ! Im reliving the days of my childhood when I was a computer geek ...

about to order a dreamblaster X2 for my SB16 ... cant wait!!!

one more question, I noticed when I plug in the SD to IDE adapter on the same cable as my original IDE HDD, neither get detected. Main drive is selected as Master, there are no switches on the SD IDE board.

So I am using the 2nd channel where optical drive is but it means I am losing the CD Drive

any way to get both mechanical IDE HDD and the adapter to work on same IDE cable?

Any idea why is it not booting from the sd to ide adapter? I did a fresh install of ms dos 6.22z

It just sits there.

Nvm, did fdisk /mbr and sys a: c: and all working

Strange DOS install didnt do it automatically

Omarkoman wrote on 2023-04-13, 23:52:

Nvm, did fdisk /mbr and sys a: c: and all working

Strange DOS install didnt do it automatically

In addtion to /mbr, have you checked if the primary partition is set active?

yes, defo active ... Im getting larger SD card so will be redoing all this, setup 3 x 2GB partition to fit all my games 🤣 ... for DOS ...

for Win98 still working it all out and how my Voodoo2 will work as well as what glide games I want to install ...

That CF card reader from ebay also has the primary/slave jumper which may work out better in the long run as well

dormcat wrote on 2023-04-13, 21:40:

Having multiple systems would be easier. 😉

I'm not so sure, it requires more space, maybe a KVM switch, etc. 😁

dormcat wrote on 2023-04-13, 21:15:

After installing Win98SE, […]
Show full quote

After installing Win98SE,

1. Make sure your Windows Explorer displays hidden files and system files (via Folder Options)
2. Open MSDOS.SYS under C:\ with Notepad
3. Add "BootMulti=1" and "BootMenu=1" under [Options]
4. Save the file, then reboot

This is missing step 1.5 which is to remove the read-only attribute from MSDOS.SYS. Also I put it back after saving the file, but I can't recall if that is actually necessary.

Anyway I can confirm that dormcat's instructions work (and it's what I did back in the olden days, but I'd forgotten the details). If you're not confident perhaps you should try this multi-boot setup in an emulator of some sort, in a clean virtual machine/disk image, to see how it works without having to worry about losing your files.

A drawback of swapping cards to boot is that you can only see what is on the card that is currently inserted, and they're not hot-swappable - you need to power off first.

Of course there is the benefit that if you're not trying to boot DOS 6.x from it, your C: can be FAT32 and hence larger.

Hi, I've described here Abit KT7A (KT133A/VIA686B), Athlon XP Mobile 2500+ a dual-boot system where the partition type for DOS 6.22 gets changed from 06 to 60, preventing Win98 from messing with it completely. The only change, besides changing the type, is to patch IO.sys to recognize type 60. In addition you will news a MBR loader that allows you to choose your OS, here I used https://metadata.ftp-master.debian.org/change … 1.2.1_copyright

I actually made a guide on how I do it, it works like a charm for me. I use this method on both my Windows-capable retro machines (DOS + Win95 and Win98SE + XP).

gen_angry wrote on 2023-04-15, 11:57:

I actually made a guide on how I do it, it works like a charm for me. I use this method on both my Windows-capable retro machines (DOS + Win95 and Win98SE + XP).

Great video. This might come in handy for me very soon.

There may be reason to dual-boot DOS 6.22 and Win98 SE, but "I want to be able to run games in DOS environment only and also in Windows 98SE" is not a strong enough reason to mess with it, in my opinion.

BootGUI=0 in MSDOS.SYS, and, if necessary, separate startup settings in CONFIG.SYS for pure DOS and for Windows (the latter will run WIN manually at the end of AUTOEXEC.BAT) is enough to achieve the end-goal.

No reasonable game has issues with "DOS 7" (the DOS of Win9x). A few may have issues with FAT32 partitions, but you can allocate a FAT16 partition for them.

cde wrote on 2023-04-15, 10:23:

Hi, I've described here Abit KT7A (KT133A/VIA686B), Athlon XP Mobile 2500+ a dual-boot system where the partition type for DOS 6.22 gets changed from 06 to 60, preventing Win98 from messing with it completely. The only change, besides changing the type, is to patch IO.sys to recognize type 60. In addition you will news a MBR loader that allows you to choose your OS, here I used https://metadata.ftp-master.debian.org/change … 1.2.1_copyright

gen_angry wrote on 2023-04-15, 11:57:

I actually made a guide on how I do it, it works like a charm for me. I use this method on both my Windows-capable retro machines (DOS + Win95 and Win98SE + XP).

Thanks, those are interesting solutions!

For anyone who isn't clear on the technical details here, these both involve hiding the Windows partition from DOS and vice versa, but there are some differences if I understand correctly:

In cde's method, Windows 98 always uses the FAT32 partition type (this wouldn't work if you used FAT16 for the Windows partition), and DOS 6.22 always uses the non-standard partition type 60. Windows 98 will ignore the DOS partition due to its non-standard partition type, and DOS will ignore Windows 98 due to the FAT32 partition type not being known to it. However, DOS 6.22 will also ignore its own partition - due to the non-standard partition type number - unless you patch IO.SYS. The "mbr" boot loader just lets you pick which pick which partition to boot from.

In gen_angry's method, when DOS is booted, its partition has its standard partition type, and when Windows is booted, its partition has its standard partition type, but in both cases the partition for the other, non-running operating system has been assigned a hidden partition type number. The boot loader lets you pick which partition to boot from, but then before booting it, it changes the partition types of both partitions so the one you're booting has a normal type and the one you're not booting has a hidden type. Since both operating systems see their own partition with the normal partition type, no patching is required, and they could both use the same partition type (e.g. both FAT16) if you wanted, and they could both be DOS, or both be Windows, and you're not constrained only to operating systems for which you know how to patch them to support non-standard partition types. I think this style of the boot loader hiding partitions was something that OS/2's boot loader did too, and something which many modern boot loaders support.

I used to switch between Windows 95 and DOS on the same partition and don't recall any issues though, so I wouldn't use those sorts of solutions for this particular situation. Windows 95 was designed to work as well as possible in this setup. You just can't run disk tools from DOS, e.g. don't use a DOS defrag tool unless you want to lose all your long file names. And yes, I imagine that just running things from DOS 7 would work too, and would be even easier.