Triple boot (98/2000/XP) while ensuring SSD alignment \ VOGONS

Triple boot (98/2000/XP) while ensuring SSD alignment

Topic actions

Post a reply

First post, by Swiego

Posted on 2019-11-14, 00:44

Swiego Offline

Rank Member

Rank: Member
Posts: 166
Joined: 2019-09-03, 05:34
Location: SF Bay Area

The title kind of says it all in a nutshell.

I’d like to setup a CF SSD with three partitions that let me triple boot between W98, W2K and XP on one PC. I have definitely confirmed that there is a difference in benchmarked performance when creating a partition from the W98 boot disk fdisk.exe vs. creating a partition using my Windows 10 box then installing W98 to that partition. I’d like to understand if the following scenario would be acceptable:

1) Wipe out partition table, etc. from CF
2) Connect to Windows 10 PC, create three partitions
3) Move back to vintage PC, then install W98SE on first partition... then W2K on the second... then XP on the third.
4) —> all three OS partitions should be in alignment

Reply 1 of 4, by agent_x007

Posted on 2019-11-14, 10:42

agent_x007 Offline

Rank Oldbie

Rank: Oldbie
Posts: 1544
Joined: 2016-01-19, 11:06

Short answer : Yes.

Don't try to install Windows 98 on NTFS partition (or on non-DOS standard cluster size for FAT32).
Don't try to install Windows 98 on non-industrial* class modern CF card (they won't boot DOS/Win98).
*Can be hacked to make it work, more work for you though.

Making 98/2k/XP work at the same time, can be a pain.

Reply 2 of 4, by AvalonH

Posted on 2019-11-14, 11:36

AvalonH Offline

Rank Member

Rank: Member
Posts: 142
Joined: 2004-07-29, 13:51
Location: DOS

Connect SSD/CF to a modern PC and Partition and format (fat32) with Win10. The first partition will start at sector 2048 and will be aligned for an SSD/CF/Modern 4K Hard Drive with (512e emulation).
Don't worry about compatibility with older operating systems. DOS7.1/Win98/WinMe boot and work as normal with the first partition on sector 2048 and you will get the maximum speed and less wear on the SSD.

128GB SSDs are now so so cheap I used them with an IDE to SSD adapter as a boot drive for DOS7.1/Win9x, instead of CF and SD cards.
Summary, do not use Win98/ME fdisk or XP diskpart to partition. It will use sector 63 for the first partition, causing non-aligned sectors and you will see a 30%+ slowdown, more so when writing to the drive. Everything will still work of course, just slower and a drive with non aligned sectors will reduce the life of the SSD/CF.

Reply 3 of 4, by douglar

Posted on 2019-11-14, 18:14

douglar Offline

Rank Oldbie

Rank: Oldbie
Posts: 1390
Joined: 2019-11-04, 15:37

SSD's are nice, especially if you get a sata controller with good bios extensions. I've also had good luck in the pre-pci world with a $5 pata-->sata converter and a $15 64GB refurb ssd from newegg. The cup half empty is that the 504MB drive limit on most computers of that age make 64GB overkill. But the glass 1/2 full says that with that much slack space, lack of trim isn't ever going to be an issue!

I was considering a compact flash for some of the older systems with old bios / no PCI, and this thread has good information. I really need to catch up on my dual boot knowledge. Is there a good FAQ for that around here? My install attempts to make a dual boot Win98 / Win7 box were not successful. Using the boot managers with windows 7 didn't seem straight forward to me.

Also, the dynamic drive overlay link in this thread ( EZ-Drive Dynamic Drive Overlay )seem all 404. Is there any freeware dynamic drive overlay software ? It would be nice if the volumes supported by the overlay were accessible from the old boot computer as well as when the drive travels sneaker-net over to the Win10 computer with internet access.

Reply 4 of 4, by Methanoid

Posted on 2020-05-13, 10:42

Methanoid Offline

Rank Newbie

Rank: Newbie
Posts: 10
Joined: 2020-05-06, 15:53

AvalonH wrote on 2019-11-14, 11:36:
Connect SSD/CF to a modern PC and Partition and format (fat32) with Win10. The first partition will start at sector 2048 and wil […]
Show full quote

Connect SSD/CF to a modern PC and Partition and format (fat32) with Win10. The first partition will start at sector 2048 and will be aligned for an SSD/CF/Modern 4K Hard Drive with (512e emulation).
Don't worry about compatibility with older operating systems. DOS7.1/Win98/WinMe boot and work as normal with the first partition on sector 2048 and you will get the maximum speed and less wear on the SSD.

128GB SSDs are now so so cheap I used them with an IDE to SSD adapter as a boot drive for DOS7.1/Win9x, instead of CF and SD cards.
Summary, do not use Win98/ME fdisk or XP diskpart to partition. It will use sector 63 for the first partition, causing non-aligned sectors and you will see a 30%+ slowdown, more so when writing to the drive. Everything will still work of course, just slower and a drive with non aligned sectors will reduce the life of the SSD/CF.

How will that work 98s 128/137GB limit? eg. If I have a 240GB SSD and wanted to give 20GB each for 98 & 2000, 80GB for XP and 100Gb for Win7, if the partitions are in that order will 98 be "okay" with that?

Go to top of page Go to top of page

Back to General Old Hardware

Main menu

Common searches