Power Quest Bootmagic Question

[wjsulliv]

Can Power Quest Bootmagic switch active partitions?

I.e. could I setup 2 primary partitions, one with 98 and one with Me and use Bootmagic to pick which one to load?

If not, how could I use Bootmagic to load 98 and Me side by side on the same physical drive?

 

[grrl]

That's the purpose of BootMagic. After bootup you will get a screen listing all OSs you have installed. You just choose which one you want to run.

YOu can also make one the default or primary and have BM run that one automatically - after waiting a couple seconds in case you want to choose a different one.

 

[wjsulliv]

Thanks. I knew switching partitions was a main functionality of bootmagic, but wasn't sure it would switch active partitions.

 

[arsbanned]

AFAIK, 98 and Me won't play well together on the same disk. They both want to be the Primary OS on the Active partition. I could be wrong. It happened once, I think. 😉

 

[wjsulliv]

Win98 and Me each need their own active partition. Hence why I was going to use bootmagic to switch the active partitions.

Partition magic basically allows me to hide the other partitions from each other so I don't have problems

 

[arsbanned]

Hmmmm. Really. OK. I'll take your word for it. 😉
So, 98 and Me will share a boot record? You're going to have two C partitions on one drive?
OK. Color me unconvinced.

 

[SilentRunning]

Originally posted by: arsbanned
AFAIK, 98 and Me won't play well together on the same disk. They both want to be the Primary OS on the Active partition. I could be wrong. It happened once, I think. 😉

You better make that twice now. 😛

I have been running a setup with three instances of Windows 98 and one of Windows ME with boot magic for a couple of years. There are two copies of 98 and one of ME on the first drive and one of 98 on the second drive.

Since the partitions are hidden when not active, all OS partitions on the primary drive are in fact the C: partition.

 

[wjsulliv]

Paritition Magic hides the other primary partitions from each other. Thus, at any one time there is only one drive active that doesn't know any other partitions/drives exist, a single c: drive.

To install each OS you have to change to that as the primary active partition. Making that switch keeps the boot record on that partition (the OS can't find anywhere else to install it too). Bootmagic can see the hidden partitions and trigger a change in which partition is active.

So you can create something like this:
C:\Win98
C:\WinMe
C:\Win2000
C:\WinXP

Where each one can't see the other and thus there are no conflicts and bootmagic switches which one is set to active and thus which one boots.

 

[arsbanned]

Huh. So Bootmagic hides the parititions on the fly? In the case of 2000 and XP, they can be installed on any drive (no C: requirement AFAIK) but that is news to me as far as running mulitple copies of 98 on the same hard drive.
Thanks for being gentle. 😀

 

[CQuinn]

BootMagic will automatically set any "conflicting" partitions to be hidden when it switches
between OSes. You can change that option in its settings.

The Windows (98 and ME) versions won't share a boot record, BM controls which boot
record gets control as is switches between partitions, hiding the ones that are not needed.

Also, Windows 98 and ME don't have to be installed on C:, they just need a C: primary
partition to boot from AFAIR.
(if you know the tricks to get them set up that way, usually its easier to just have different
partitions for each)