Installing NT 4.0 & WIn98 on the same machine, could use some help!!!!

[CourtDOG]

Hello, well what I want to do is to install Windows NT 4.0 Workstation on my computer along with Windows 98. I have only one hard drive, and I do not plan on buying another one. Right now I have a 6.4Gig HD running Win98 in Fat32. This is what I'd like to do:

Format my HD and then partition it into the following;
create the following drives
C:\ 300MB in FAT 16 for booting the O/S's
D:\ 4 Gig for WIN98 in FAT32
E:\ 1700MB for NTFS Workstation 4.0

Can anyone tell me if this is possible, or not? If it is or not, can you give me ay suggestions or tips so I can sucessfuly do this dual boot. I'm doing this as I want to put Workstation on to practice with, yet I wnat to keep WIN98 as my primary O/S. Thanks a lot

 

[Poof]

I have a tri-boot (98/NT/SuSE Linux) & several duallys (98/Mandrake, 98se/Red Hat, win2k pro/win2k advanced server). What you're describing is a bit tricky but do-able.

First - since 98 is not that sophisticated, you'll need enough space to install it (system files) on C:... so you might consider making C: bigger. Also the installer needs enough space to expand the compressed cab files (those temp files will be deleted afterwards though). 98 also needs contiguous partitions to be able to access them, so the FAT16 C:, FAT32 D: is cool. NT can install to a different partition (the NTFS one I assume), but won't be able to do anything with the D:. It should be able to read C: though (and you could transfer files between the two OSs that way).

Also, make sure you install 98 *first*. When you install NT later, it will modify the mbr (master boot record) on C: and create a boot.ini file that will allow you to choose the OS. The boot.ini file will be located in \%systemroot%\ (or what you would define as E:\ - note that that drive letter might change depending on what drive letter your CDROM is assigned). Boot.ini is read-only by default, so if you ever need to modify it (ie., to change the default name that shows up at boot time for Windows 95/98 from the word "Windows" to "Windows 98", you'd need to make it writeable.

Anyway... try this:

C: - 500MB (FAT16)
D: - 4GB (FAT32)
E: (or whatever) - 1.5GB (NTFS)

I may come back and edit this if I find it confuses me!