Can I dual boot two Win98's?

[Felecha]

I generally understand what dual booting means - two separate logical partitions each with its own OS, but it's always in terms of two different. My own computer is a dual boot Win98/Linux. Could I partition one my daughter's 40GB HD into two, with Win98SE on both, so as to create a second isolated world for her to install her video editing software and do her thing?

She just got a digital video camera, and Adobe Premiere 6.0, having taken a summer school course in just that, and came home on fire with enthusiasm, so we decided to grant her wish to get her own stuff. But she learned technique, and not so much about hardware and software concerns. I have a friend who is into it, so I called him and he was saying that a lot of DV people keep a computer JUST for editing. They won't allow anything else to be installed on it. He himself has had problems at times with getting IRQ's to work right, this and that. And he occasionally has had crashes and had to reformat. So I'm getting concerned that she risks not only trouble with getting the editing to work right if she tries to use her present computer as it is, and if it goes down, everything else goes down. So I thought this morning that if the HD has a separate partition, that would be much better.

It's a 650mhz HP 9680c Pavilion, 128 RAM. I have Partition Magic. I presume we could run the HP Recovery CD and ask it to reinstall Windows and just point it to the new D drive. I just wondered if any part of the process would get confused if it came to the boot loader and found two identical options there.

Thanks

 

[AndyHui]

Yes, you can as long as they are on 2 different partitions.

The easy way is to use a 3rd party program such as Boot Commander.

Otherwise what you can do is simply swap around the MSDOS.SYS: Install the 1st Win98, and then make a copy of MSDOS.SYS. Install the second Win98, and also make a copy of MSDOS.SYS.

The only difference in the two files is the [Paths] section.
[Paths]
WinDir=C:\WINDOWS
WinBootDir=C:\WINDOWS
HostWinBootDrv=C

Then you can copy the correct MSDOS.SYS and then reboot when you want to switch. Probably not as convenient as a proper boot manager though.

 

[Felecha]

Thanks. I thought so. Partition Magic has its BootMagic loader, which I know how to use.

F

 

[gemstone]

"two separate logical partitions each with its own OS"

Primary partitions, not logical. I have 2 win98se partitions, one for me and one for the kids games which acts up all the time. When it does I just restore it from a copy on a hidden logical partiton and it is as good as new. They just have to install their games. My partition is never touched by anything that happens in theirs. Adding hardware would affect the original drive and IRQs but not software.

I use PM, only from dos though and bootmagic.

"I presume we could run the HP Recovery CD and ask it to reinstall Windows"

If this is anything like a Compaq restore disk, it will take out the whole drive not just the partition. This is why I have to have a hidden copy on the drive itself.

 

[Felecha]

Sorry - primary partition is what I meant.

I believe the HP Recovery does ask if you want to restore just the System or the whole thing formatted and then restored. What I would call a reinstall of Windows vs a format/reinstall. Her machine actually did fall over dead two weeks ago, I suspect from too many Internet goodies and games. When I finally got her to agree to give up hope and jump off the cliff, I was too busy to deal with it, so she did the Recovery CD and reported the next morning that it had hung in the process. I had told her I hoped the CD had the two options, and she should at least see if it did. In that conversation she said the simple reinstall option didn't work, so she chose the full format next, and even that hung up. I then did an fdisk for her to delete the partition, and started the format from the recovery CD, and went off to work and she told me later that it had then succeeded in Recovering. So she now has a pretty clean machine, which seems to me to be a good time to try the two partition idea.

"When it does I just restore it from a copy on a hidden logical partiton and it is as good as new."

Can you tell me what you copied and how? I presume you would be meaning to make a third partition, making it logical. How do you copy the Windows back in later? I'm guessing that you simply copy and paste the Windows folder from the new D drive to what would be the E drive at that point? I would think you'd have to be able to set it visible so it would show in Windows Explorer to copy it over? The E would only have to be large enough to hold Windows? I know PM has the hidden option, but I have not used it except one time when I was having trouble with my laptop, which dual boots to 98se and ME. That time I could only switch from one to the other by getting to PM from a floppy and changing one or the other from Active to Hidden. I'm fuzzy on my memory of what was fuzzy even at the time. I've done this stuff enough to follow directions, just not enough to be fluent in it. I think I have the idea, but would really appreciate detailed guidance.

 

[gemstone]

Yes, an extended logical partition that you will copy your original windows partition into and then hide it so nothing will touch it. You won't see it in My Computer. Shrink it down to the minimum size needed. Mine is about 700mb. Don't install BootMagic. It won't let you have it installed on 2 partitions.

I only use PM in dos. If one of your primary windows partitions screw up then, in dos, just delete it, copy your restore partition to the unallocated space and then you will have to resize it back to its original size. Set whatever primary partition you want active. Install BootMagic on one of the Primary drives so you can choose which partition you want to go into(no floppy needed)and your done.

I can do a full restore in 7 minutes.

 

[Felecha]

I get it. You don't copy in Windows Explorer, you copy the partition itself using PM. I've never done that, but I opened PM and see it's something that PM can do. Makes good sense.

Thanks, that was clear.