Is Dual Booting really worth it? Need help with a dual boot problem

[mikef208]

I currently have Win ME and Win 2K on my system. I love the stability of Win 2K and find myself hardly ever using Win ME. I had decided on using both because I was under the impression that not a lot of soft/hardware was compatiable with Win 2K. As of right now I only have one game that does not support 2K and it appears all my hardware does. So i guess what I am asking is, is it worth it for me to keep both OS's on my system?


Okay here is my new problem. I decided to stick with the dual boot, but I was having problems with ME and was forced to reformat and reinstall it. But now becuase of that i lost my ability to choose what OS I want to boot into. So can someone tell me how to fix it. Also when i start my computer I get a non system disk error, with no disks in at all, and when i press any key it boots into Win ME, why is that.

 

[IamDavid]

I was the same way for a while, I had 3 OS's. 98SE, 2K and Linux. After a month I never used anything but 2K. So I erased the other 2 and have been happy ever since.

Except now that XP is out I'm doin it again.

 

[RickH]

I have two installs of Win98 on two separate drives in one box. One for me and one for the Kido. Her version has a simplified desktop with no way she can create trouble. If you have little kids try it. R.

 

[nortexoid]

i use win98se for one game - counter-strike...mainly because i can't stand not using a3d (since win2k screws right up w/ a3d enabled in CS)...so basically, i keep an entire OS for one game - and i do believe it's worth it simply because i have the hdd space...

if u're cramped for hdd space, then get rid of your other OSs, otherwise, what's the point of getting rid of it?...keep it...even if u do haev some sort of hdd cleaning fetish...

 

[MasterHoss]

Yeah, mikef208, I did the same thing for the same reason. I still force myself to boot into WinMe to play games (although I think I get better performance playing UT under Win2k than WinMe).

Anyway, I was trying to take room up on my effectively 60 gig HD. Oh well--when WinXP comes out...I'll repartition and reformat--just 1 OS.

 

[Quickfingerz]

IMO, NO, unless you use Windows 2000 and Linux as your dual boot.

I see no reason to switch back and forth between OSes if you don't have the hardware support. If you have games that run ONLY on a win9x system then I say you might consider dual booting with win9x.

 

[(M)]

I did it for a while & finally got so tired of the hassle of rebooting that I got rid of all my unsupported hardware. I don't use software that does not work in Windows 2000 - any company making software which does not work in W2K or hardware without W2K drivers (in July 2001) DESERVES to go out of business IMHO.

It's called support, my friends. Companies which refuse to offer it do not deserve a dime.

 

[flavio]

HEY!

I do believe there is a FAQ on this

 

[Noriaki]

Depends on what the game is and how much you play it I guess...

I dumped Win98SE and Linux in favour of just 2k (they I dumped 2k in favour of XP, but that's another story).

 

[mikef208]

Okay here is my new problem. I decided to stick with the dual boot, but I was having problems with ME and was forced to reformat and reinstall it. But now becuase of that i lost my ability to choose what OS I want to boot into. So can someone tell me how to fix it. Also when i start my computer I get a non system disk error, with no disks in at all, and when i press any key it boots into Win ME, why is that.

 

[mikef208]

It is my understanding I need to edit the boot.ini file, but what do I need to change it to, and whay am i getting the system disk error?

 

[Athlon4all]

I've always had a dual boot configuration ready to install a 2nd OS like Linux, or XP, and of course 2K. What Boot Manager were you using? Boot Magic I probably can help you with, I've always used it. Do I understand that you can boot Win Me, but no Boot Manager comes up? Probably what happened is that the Boot Manager code in the mbr was erased during Win Me install, reinstall the Boot Manager in Win Me and then re set it up. Boot.ini will not matter if you aren't getting the OS Loader V5.0 when the PC boots.

 

[mikef208]

I don't know, i used partition magic to partition my drive, then installed ME, then 2K, and Win2K setup the boot manager itself. I was able to boot into ME after I reinstalled, but now I can't, I keep egtting an Invalid System disk error.

 

[Athlon4all]

You should reinstall the Win2k boot manager by just booting Windows 2000 setup, and then choosing Automatic System Recovery, then Repair, then you just want to select Repair Boot Sector or somethin like that. If that doesn't work, then reinstall Win2k over your currently installed copy, nothing will be lost and the boot manager will be put back in place,