Win2k on XP Partition Install Advice Needed

[BeefcakeVA]

In short, I have XP Pro installed on my one and only partition that exists on my 60GB 60GXP (NTFS partition). I want to install Win2k for learning purposes. If I install Win2k onto the primary partition will it interfere with XP? I'll be upgrading my hardware in the next several months and am not really interested in reformatting before then, so I'd like to avoid a clean sweep and reinstall if at all possible. Any advice on an appropriate course of action would be very welcome.

Edited to make title a little more concise.

 

[teknodude]

Eeek! It's possible...but I highly recommend against it as WinXP and Win2K don't play too well together on the same partition You can do it, but I doubt it'd really help you to learn Win2K too much if it screws up!

You can...

1) install Win2K on the same partition with XP - to heck with any incompatibilities!
2) stick in a small hard drive as a slave, just to get you started in learning. then when you get round to upgrading, format and partition your HDD.
3) go for the worst and format and repartition your HDD!

At the end of the day it's up to you! Good luck :-D

teknodude

 

[BeefcakeVA]

I actually do have an old 20GB ATA33 drive that I could install. I think I'll go ahead and put Win2K on that drive then. For future reference, how many GB should I allocate to a dedicated Win2k partition? Thanks again for your advice. I appreciate it greatly.

 

[teknodude]

ATA33 - wow that's gonna be slow! But it should do the trick

At the end of the day it depends on what you will be using Win2K for as to how much you allocate to it. If Win2K will be your main OS then you will probably want to allocate more to it than WinXP.

If you run Win2K on your 20GB drive for a while, then decide it beats the pants off WinXP (who knows - again it depends on your usage) I would suggest when you upgrade, you partition your 60GB HDD something like 40GB Win2K and 20GB WinXP.

My personal preference would be to buy a second HDD of good size (say 40GB) and stick Win2K on that. In my opinion that keeps it nice and organised, and makes things simple when you want to switch stuff around.

Let me know what you decide to do, I'd be interested to hear what route you take

Oh, and make sure you format all partitions as NTFS so you can share data between both Win2K and WinXP

Have fun!

teknodude

 

[BeefcakeVA]

Good deal. Thx much for the advice