How to correctly create a dual boot and partition the HDD \ VOGONS

How to correctly create a dual boot and partition the HDD

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First post, by DustyShinigami

DustyShinigami Offline

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I've decided I want to make a dual-boot with Windows 95 and 98. I know many would ask the question 'why'?, but in truth, 95 was the very first version of Windows we had, so there's the nostalgia, but it's also to have plenty of flexibility and customisation at getting games to run properly. For some weird reason, the very first CD-ROM game we ever had with our first 95 PC - Dr. Drago's Madcap Chase - just was not installing to Windows 98. I have no idea why because on my test build, it did work without a hitch. When I came to install it on my current setup, it just stops responding when you try to run the installer. I tried uninstalling some drivers and software - tried a range of things - and it just wouldn't work. It's a WinG game and I've read some of those can be picky, even under Windows 98. I tried installing the drivers for it, but it still wouldn't work.

So, I figured, for some awkward games, I would have Windows 95 and 98 on the system. Just in case. However, I've never created a dual-boot with old versions of Windows and hardware before and I'm a little confused. Do you have to create an Extended Partition in FDISK in order to partition the C drive? And if so, how do you format it? Initially, I had a partition set up with about 10GB and installed Windows 95 to that. It installed and booted fine. However, I'm a bit unsure how I would get Windows 98 on the second partition, using the rest of the unallocated drive space. Creating an Extended drive worked, but I'm lost on how that would be formatted and how you would select it to install Windows 98 to. I booted the 95 boot disk using my Gotek flashfloppy drive, but typing format c: looks to format the whole drive. And if I just create an Extended partition and boot the Windows 98 installer, wouldn't that just install to the first partition and overwrite the 95 install?

Thanks

OS: Windows 98 SE
CPU: Slot 1 Pentium III Coppermine 933MHz (SL448)
RAM: Kingston 256MB 133MHz
GPU: Nvidia 16MB Riva TNT/128MB Geforce 4 Ti 4200
Motherboard: ABit AB-BE6-II Intel 440BX
HDD: C, D - IDE 1, CD-ROM - IDE 2, E - IDE 3

Reply 1 of 5, by wierd_w

Posted on Yesterday, 20:17

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Fdisk wont let you create multiple primary dos partitions, which is what you need.

Vintage tools that do include things like partition magic and pals.

But, to do this right, each operating system needs to be a primary partition. MBR type partition tables only have room for 4 of these.

Old, vintage tools should set this up correctly.

You'll need a boot manager on the MBR that is multiboot aware.

There's a number of these that's too long to list.

Reply 2 of 5, by DustyShinigami

Posted on Yesterday, 20:56

DustyShinigami Offline

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wierd_w wrote on Yesterday, 20:17:
Fdisk wont let you create multiple primary dos partitions, which is what you need. […]
Show full quote

Fdisk wont let you create multiple primary dos partitions, which is what you need.

Vintage tools that do include things like partition magic and pals.

But, to do this right, each operating system needs to be a primary partition. MBR type partition tables only have room for 4 of these.

Old, vintage tools should set this up correctly.

You'll need a boot manager on the MBR that is multiboot aware.

There's a number of these that's too long to list.

Okay. I'll see if I can get Partition Magic. Thanks. Is it possible to install 98 first and then 95? I ask because I've just re-installed 98 on its own at the moment.

Reply 3 of 5, by BaronSFel001

Posted on Yesterday, 21:05

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I got a copy of System Commander for this very purpose (I like how they purposefully copy the Windows interface).

System 20: PIII 600, LAPC-I, GUS PnP, S220, Voodoo3, SQ2500, R200, 3.0-Me
System 21: G2030 3.0, X-fi Fatal1ty, GTX 560, XP-Vista
Retro gaming (among other subjects): https://baronsfel001.wixsite.com/my-site

Reply 4 of 5, by chinny22

Posted on Yesterday, 23:55

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For Fdisk and you wanted a 10GB c:\ drive:

You would create a 10GB Primary Partition,
Rest of the drive space you would create an extended partition, and within the extended you can create logical drives which would become D:\, E:\ etc
fisk also has no way of resizing drives meaning any existing data will be lost

This works well with 1 version of Win9x and all of the NT variants (NT/2k/XP, etc) but as wierd_w said as soon as you want 2 different versions of Win9x things get a bit more complicated.
I also used partition magic back in the day and worked well, but think newer more flexible tools exist that allow you to keep any existing data. However I avoid setup's like this for this exact reason!

Reply 5 of 5, by DustyShinigami

Posted on Today, 00:29

DustyShinigami Offline

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Rank: Oldbie
Posts: 1190
Joined: 2024-10-10, 18:52

chinny22 wrote on Yesterday, 23:55:
For Fdisk and you wanted a 10GB c:\ drive: […]
Show full quote

For Fdisk and you wanted a 10GB c:\ drive:

You would create a 10GB Primary Partition,
Rest of the drive space you would create an extended partition, and within the extended you can create logical drives which would become D:\, E:\ etc
fisk also has no way of resizing drives meaning any existing data will be lost

This works well with 1 version of Win9x and all of the NT variants (NT/2k/XP, etc) but as wierd_w said as soon as you want 2 different versions of Win9x things get a bit more complicated.
I also used partition magic back in the day and worked well, but think newer more flexible tools exist that allow you to keep any existing data. However I avoid setup's like this for this exact reason!

Thanks. Yeah, that's what I figured. I did it as you outlined. I assigned 10GB for Windows 95 on partition 1 and then made an extended partition with a logical drive for the rest of the space. But then noticed that it wasn't asking me where to install Windows 98, so figured it would just overwrite everything already there.

Once I've got the basic essentials back on I'll investigate Partition Magic. 😀

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