Dual Boot Problem with XP/98

[Earwax]

I'm trying to do a dual boot with WinXP and win98. I have a 75 gig drive split in three partitions. I installed win98 first on a 10gig partition, drive E:. I then installed XP on a 15 gig partition drive C: (which I believe is the active drive). I haven't been able to access win98 since I installed XP. I modified my boot.ini file to look like this:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows 98 Second Edition" /fastdetect

I've determined that win98 is on partition 2, but when I select the option during bootup I get a file missing error. I've checked and the file is a dll related to XP. I don't think the boot.ini file is written correctly to boot win98 off a separate partition. Anyone know what's wrong? I got a feeling something needs to be changed in the second OS option in teh boot.ini file but I'm not sure what. Also i'm not sure about active partitions and what not. I appreciate any help.

Thanks.

 

[bacillus]

let me guess, you put xp on a NTFS partition!
for dual booting using the xp bootloader C needs to be fat/fat32!

 

[bacillus]

not at my dual boot pc at present but iirc fastdetect should only be in the xp professional line

 

[Earwax]

Both my partitions are fat32. But I do think the boot method (fast detect) if it is only for XP is probably screwing something up. I just don't know what to replace it with. I've never dual booted off of separate partitions before.

 

[Spleenus]

When I dual booted with ME/XP (which is virtually the same) I had ME installed on the C drive. After that I then installed XP onto the D drive/partition and it all worked fine from there presenting u at bootup a choice of what OS to boot into.

C - Win ME
D - Win XP

Ur problem I'm guessing at is maybe that for some reason having XP on the C drive causes it to boot in automatically or that the timer which counts down while u select ur OS is set at too small a value and so it instantly selects XP.

Not sure, but hope it sorta helps.

 

[mgpaulus]

Try changing the
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows 98 Second Edition" /fastdetect
to be
c:\="Microsoft Windows 98 Second Edition".

That's what I had when I installed XP on C: and Win98/98SE/ME on my D drive. 98 still put it's
bootloader on the C Drive, and then somehow "jumped" itself to the D drive.

 

[Earwax]

I tried using both:

c:\="Microsoft Windows 98 Second Edition".
and
e:\="Microsoft Windows 98 Second Edition"

but the OS failed to boot. I think spleenus might be right, 98 might have to be on the C:\ partition or active in order to boot. I was hoping there was a way around this because I really don't feel like formatting both partitions and reinstalling for the third time in 3 weeks. I'm getting too good at it

 

[bacillus]

this is what I have with win98 on C & xp on D:

[boot loader]
timeout=10
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect
C:\ = "Microsoft Windows"

 

[bupkus]

I have a dual boot with w98 as C: and XP pro as E: (NTFS) and I cannot find the boot.ini file. I've searched via XP's search where I have the search include in system and hidden folders.

 

[sechs]

Windows98 needs to be on the first primary active partition on the boot drive. It sounds to me like you did that, and then changed the active partition, on which XP is installed. Now Windows98 is unbootable.

You can try installing a third-party boot loader program which will hide and activate partitions so that Win98 thinks that it's on the first primary active partition, or you can reinstall Windows XP so that it correctly recognises Windows98 and sets up the dual boot for you.

 

[JustStarting]

can't you get around these problems by just installing the OS'es on separate hdd's? that way, you could boot XP (nfts) and still use the data from 98 (fat32). with the prices of hdd's lately, it would seem to be easier.

 

[faZZter]

I was running win 98/ XP pro dual boot. I had win98 on first primary partition (FAT32), XP pro on second primary partition (NTFS). They both shared the other partitions (fat32) for storage and whatever. The easiest way to do this IMHO is to use partition magics "boot magic." It just gives you an icon to click on, asks which partition to boot from and reboots the selected operating system. Couldn't be easier.