You can't, basically, unless your NTFS partition isn't taking up the drive's entire capacity, in which case you can simply stick a FAT32 partition in what's left over. It doesn't sound like that's the case, though.

You could get a small secondary drive and FAT32 that. I wanted to have my second drive as Win98/FAT32 but then discovered that Win98 would only run on C: so setting up a second drive as D: with it on wouldn't work. Basically you have to install Win98 on a FAT32 drive then upgrade to XP retaining 98/FAT32... messy.

Ice

virtual: A decent bootloader can fix that easely. they can just map the partitaions so win98 will think it runs from C.

VirtuaIceMan wrote:

You could get a small secondary drive and FAT32 that. I wanted to have my second drive as Win98/FAT32 but then discovered that Win98 would only run on C: so setting up a second drive as D: with it on wouldn't work. Basically you have to install Win98 on a FAT32 drive then upgrade to XP retaining 98/FAT32... messy.

I don't have it clear... 😕

* If you have a first drive with NTFS and a secondary drive with FAT32 and you start WindowsXP you will have a C: (NTFS) and a D: (FAT32).

* However, if you start with a MS-DOS boot disk (MS-DOS 7) you will only have one drive C: (FAT32), since the NTFS partition will not be visible with this operating system.

Anyway, for me the best solution is to use a program like Partition Magic to create a FAT32 partition, to install Windows 98 in that partition and to use a boot manager to chose which operating system to start (with this solution you would have into account some limits, like the 1024 cylinder, which could make the new partition unbooteable under Windows 98 ).

Maal656 wrote:

* However, if you start with a MS-DOS boot disk (MS-DOS 7) you will only have one drive C: (FAT32), since the NTFS partition will not be visible with this operating system.

Yes, this is true. It shouldn't be an issue.

Anyway, for me the best solution is to use a program like Partition Magic to create a FAT32 partition, to install Windows 98 in that partition and to use a boot manager to chose which operating system to start (with this solution you would have into account some limits, like the 1024 cylinder, which could make the new partition unbooteable under Windows 98 ).

Last I checked, PM is as unable to resize an NTFS partition as any other partition manager, hence my original answer. There may well be apps out there that claim to be able to do this; but I wouldn't trust them, as it's asking for trouble. Basically if you're going to have an NTFS partition, you need to plan around it at the outset, otherwise it'll bite you in the arse.

Well, nobody offered for you to reformat you disk drive (of course backing up all necessary files onto cd) and then reformatting with the Windows XP disk and telling it to format certain partitions as NTFS and FAT32 and so forth. (I believe it was on my Windows XP cd that it could do this) 😀. At least that's what I did to my computer last year. (I need to redo it though and make a better partition layout. Also Incorporate Linux into the picture and so...)

Targaff wrote:

Last I checked, PM is as unable to resize an NTFS partition as any other partition manager, hence my original answer. There may well be apps out there that claim to be able to do this; but I wouldn't trust them, as it's asking for trouble. Basically if you're going to have an NTFS partition, you need to plan around it at the outset, otherwise it'll bite you in the arse.

I think you are wrong... I'm not 100% sure but if I remember rightly some months ago I resized a NTFS partition in order to make place in my primary disk for a Windows 98 partition. It took a lot of time to move the entire NTFS partition but It didn't give me any problem (of course, it was a "high risk" operation").

I've tried to confirm this in http://www.powerquest.com/partitionmagic/features.html but it's not clear...

...I'll try to check if I'm right or not...

Note: I have the Powerquest Partition Magic 8?, not the version currently sold by Symantec (Norton)...

With DOSBox, VDMSound and Microsoft Virtual PC, I can't really think of a reason why anyone would need a Win98 machine 😀

Pro Rally 2001
Extreme-G2
M25 Racer

There's 3 for me heh!

Ice

Well, it's a new PC. I have no problem reformatting the entire drive. I just want to format one part as NTFS and one as FAT32. How do I do that?
Also, if I set my NTFS partition as c: and my FAT32 partition as d: will I'll be able to use d: drive when I boot up my PC with a MS-DOS boot disk. Will the DOS system recognize it? I mean, can't I set that up in my BIOS?

I just want to format one part as NTFS and one as FAT32. How do I do that?

Easiest way is b start with a Win98 (or above) bootdisk. On it you'll find a utility called 'fdisk' which is used to partition disks. Create the FAT32 partition and install Win98. You can then install XP into the other partition (formatting it as whatever format you'd like). The WinXP installer will modifiy the (what it refers to as the) system partition adding files like the NTLDR, etc.

Also, if I set my NTFS partition as c: and my FAT32 partition as d:

Partitions are not drive mappings. You cannot set the drive id like that. Windows will always find the first bootable partition and call it C: WinNT (inc Win2K and WinXP) and above do things differently and so you may end up with a C: or a D: as the system partition.

will I'll be able to use d: drive when I boot up my PC with a MS-DOS boot disk. Will the DOS system recognize it? I mean, can't I set that up in my BIOS?

Win2K and above have full support for FAT32 so yes
. Again, nothing to do with BIOS or partition information! You can set the drive id of the FAT32 partition to be anything you want in this boot which will have no affect when booting Win98.

There are plenty of online help documents on this subject. I recommend a Google search 😀

The trick here is to create 2 primary partitions. AFAIK fdisk cannot do this. I'd create NTFS partition first, then FAT, the partition the remaining space as NTFS logical drive. WinXP goes to first NTFS partition (which will then be labeled C:), Win98 obviously to the FAT partition (which again will be labeled C: by win98, since NTFS will not be readable). You will also need a bootmanager (something like lilo or grub) to choose between the OSes. This way both operating systems are completely independant. The second option is to have only 1 primary partition (FAT) install both XP & 98 onto it and use Microsoft OS chooser to boot.
Windows98 will not boot off logical partition (and XP neither? OS/2 could boot from logical drive 😁) so the FAT drive has to be a primary partition. I believe even if you choose a different partition for XP, it will set some boot files (ntldr) to your primary partition anyway...

edit: The original post of this thread did not mention Win98 😁. I guess the same would apply if you want a bootable MS-DOS partition. If you boot from a bootdisk, then I guess a primary partition is not nescessary). Although some people don't like it, I had most success with Partition magic to resize and to create the partition table as I like it...

I would save myself a lot of trouble and just resize the NTFS partition and make a FAT32 partition in the newly created empty space. Yes, there are utilities that can easily and reliably do this. Partition Magic is one, but I prefer Acronis Partition Manager (mostly because it is cheaper). It used to be available seperately, but now only seems to be available as part of this package. I would still recommend it, though, as the package deal includes a boot manager and other good utilities to have.