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Multiple OS drive partition limit?

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First post, by Syntho

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I have a system that I'm designating as an all-in-one machine. I want it to have DOS6.22, W95 and W98. I have a 2GB drive in it now with DOS6.22 but I also have a spare 20GB drive that I'd like to put those Window OSs on.

As far as I know W95 can address 32GB hard drive sizes (and partition sizes too?). If I put W95 and W98 on the 2nd drive, I'll just split it evenly down the middle and have two Primary partitions with each respective OS. The problem is that I think W95/98 are both FAT32 so I'm not sure how it's going to work when I need to switch to different operating systems. If I have two FAT32 partitions on the 2nd drive, will DOS6.22 even be able to read that drive in a command prompt so that I can boot into a Windows OS manually?

Reply 1 of 3, by Solo761

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DOS 6.22 can't read FAT32 so no on that question. But even if it did I don't think you would be able to boot into Win95 or Win98 manually from DOS 6.22. These OS's have their own DOS version, 6.22 isn't base for them.

Reply 2 of 3, by Syntho

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Would I be able to set up the 2nd hard drive as I said, and just change the the boot drive in the BIOS? 6.22 can't recognize the file system, but maybe it can at least sense the two partitions/drive letters on it.

Reply 3 of 3, by davidrg

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Why would you want DOS to give the Windows partitions drive letters if it doesn't understand the filesystem and can't do anything sensible with them?

You will need some kind of boot manager to what you're trying to do. There are some suggestions here.

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