BleepingComputer.com: Dual Boot Problems

Hello BC! I have decided to make a dual-boot Windows 98/Windows Vista system. I have created and formatted a FAT32 partition, which Windows Vista recognizes currently as drive I: . The partition for Windows Vista is currently drive C: . The problem I am encountering is that the Windows 98 boot CD will not create a ramfile on drive I, but rather on drive C, and it promptly whines about it not being a FAT partition, and thus refuses to run setup.
How can I change this?

Thanks

I set up a dual Boot of WIN98SE and XP Home years ago, Mate.

Vista, I believe only works on NTFS? Whereas XP Home and Pro work on either Fat 32 or NTFS.

Therein may lay your Problem? Particularly if you already have Vista onboard? Vista would automatically have used NTFS then formated accordingly.

Usually on a Dual Boot, you start with a Blank HDD, create Several Partitions, Format First Partitition as FAT32, usually called C: Drive and then leave the others alone. Install WIN98SE, Update and get it completely working.

After that it is Windows XP, or Vista's turn.

Windows XP can be installed on the next Partition whether it is FAT32 Formated or NFTS Formated and the same applies once again, It will become D: Drive with an option at Start up to Boot into either one.

Then you can either Boot into WIN98SE or WINXP.

Windows Vista is totally different and can only use NTFS, (As I believe) for the Example? Vista can now be installed onto the third Partition, same as the two previously installed ones at E: Drive and Updated as previously. But the difference is, Vista has no compatibility, really with FAT 32. (I must add that I am only working on Theroy now, not Practibly Knowledge. Others will know more than me on this.)

Now to Operate the System should be three choices, WIN98SE, WINXP, WINVISTA at Start up.

Whether WIN VISTA works with the other two, I will leave it up to more Learned Members than me, however I do know that XP will Work with 98SE, from experience.

Thank you for your reply
So, does Windows 98 SE installation refuse to look at any drive but C: for its destination installation?

Precisely!

When doing a dual boot situation the OS needs to be installed in the order of oldest first!
Either seperate partitions or drives. That is the way I always do it.

To my knowledge, 98 will not boot from any drive but C

I dual boot 98 & XP. 98 is on the C drive. Two cdroms become D & E.
XP is installed on F. XP does not care what drive it boots from.
98 does. It must boot from C

Having used 98 since inception, that is my experience

OK - thank you. I think I'll be reformatting my computer again and doing it as stated above. However, I do have a slight problem, and that is with driver support. I am unsure of whether or not Windows 98 will support my Nvidia 8400GS graphics card. I can't seem to find any driver download for it.

I would not advise installing Vista and Win98 as dual boot. Win98 sees only Fat16/32 partitions and Vista can be installed only on NTFS.

Yes there are workarounds, but if you want to run win98 a better option is using Virtual PC, Virtual machine etc.

Just a curiosity question.
Why do you want to boot 98 & Vista?

I am also very interested in the Answer as well.

Vista has basically nothing left to match up to WIN98SE from what I can honestly see. XP could in a very Nice way, but I feel WIN98SE/Vista is just going to be very frustrating, to say the least.

You also may have Problems now if Vista has formatted in NTFS, as it is very difficult to go backwards in Formatting. From FAT 16 to FAT 32 is fine, but not from FAT 32 back to FAT 16 and I am sure the same will apply to NTFS to FAT 32. Others may have a work around for that one?

Romeo's Idea is a really good one in using Virtual Drives, they stand alone.

if your using windows 98 for browseing and music i rather have windows 98 lol
but if its for newer software and games windows vista may be a better choice
get xp/vista
cant you just make one drive C: and one drive whatever by disk partitioning

Glunn11
OK - thank you. I think I'll be reformatting my computer again and doing it as stated above. However, I do have a slight problem, and that is with driver support. I am unsure of whether or not Windows 98 will support my Nvidia 8400GS graphics card. I can't seem to find any driver download for it.

this is a good site for those kinds of things
http://www.msfn.org/board/Windows-95-98-98SE-ME-f8.html
ask them as they make all kind of things for 9x like modifing drivers to make them install and have support for pci e

starcraftmaster, on Apr 30 2009, 11:02 AM, said:

When I had my Nvidia Geforce2, MX/MX400 card I downloaded drivers of Nvidia but when I did a rebuild a lot later the drivers were corrupted. I went back to Nvidia but they weren't available anymore.

Nvidia have there own forum you could ask any questions Nvidia Forums they will tell you where you can download drivers. I put a question about drivers and someone gave me a link.

I've been watching this topic for a few days now. @Glunn11 you say Vista made this partition and called it I: ? Well I I've always understood it it will create a drive with the next free drive letter. If your main drive is C: the partion should be D: and depending on how many CD Roms you have they will be E: and F: So to name it I: means your system already has D, E, F, G and H in use for something. As already been said Vista uses NTFS only if its made an I: drive then that will be NTFS formatted which is no use for Win98SE. It won't create the ramfile for the same reason

Now I haven't heard you say the size of this C: drive but I would try starting up with a boot disk inserted with the updated Fdisk.exe on it. See if it recognises I: drive and size if it does just delete this partion and create a new one with Fdisk then restart and format it FAT32 for Win98SE.

Hello everyone, and thank you for your plentiful replies. I apologize for not getting back to you earlier.
Here is the course of action I have taken.

1. WIPED my computer. I had a virus (stupid mistake on my part for getting software from a third party) on Windows Vista and kind of wanted a fresh start, anyways.
2. Installed Windows 98.
3. Installed Windows Vista.

Windows 98 absolutely refused to recognize my Ethernet, sound, and video adapters, as well as my CD drive, but, nonetheless, I was able to get it to run quite nicely after bypassing the insufficient memory error caused by having more than 1GB of memory.

After I installed Vista, Vista booted by default, and I do not get an option. I kind of expected this behavior.

I am doing a dual-boot so I can run older games of mine that absolutely refuse to run in Vista. I do not have a copy of XP laying around. Previous posters have mentioned Virtual PC, but from what I understand, this is incompatible with Vista Home Premium.

Glunn11, on Apr 30 2009, 11:12 PM, said:

So have you formatted and installed Vista and Win98?

How did you setup the FAT32 partition? Did you use Vista again?

You haven't said how big your hard drive is?

Glunn11, on Apr 30 2009, 11:12 PM, said:

You will probably need drivers for the Win98SE Ethernet card. If you know the make and model of your sound card and graphics card you could download these of the manufactures web site or DriverGuide. You have to join before you can download anything but thats no problem you don't get any emails or spam of them.

There is a problem running 1GB Ram on Win98SE the maximum is normally 500MB but I'm runnning 639MB without any problem and the extra is recognised and usable. You can do a little mod by changing a value in the System.ini. I can't remember the exact mod you would have to Google for it.

If Virtual PC doesnt work, open source Virtual Box would run for sure.
http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Guest_OSes

if VirtualBox doesnt work, take you pick from this list : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of...irtual_machines

The workaround way of dual boot of win98 and vista is
1. Create 2 partitions on hard disk first one should be FAT32. A better approach would be using two hard disks, one for Win98 and other for Vista.
2. Install Win98 on first.
3. Install Vista on second. This would make you not be able to boot into Win98. After power on computer would boot straight into Vista.
4. Use Win98 CD to boot, cancel the setup. Type C:\Windows\Win to start Windows98
5. Install .NET 2.0 and EasyBCD on win98. You need to copy NTDETECT.COM and NTLDR from a WinXP installation to C:\
6. In EasyBCD select to Reinstall Vista boot load manager. EasyBCD should create a file c:\boot.ini
7. Reboot. Done.

Warning: This workaround is not supported by Microsoft and may render your PC unable to boot into Windows.

EasyBCD: http://neosmart.net/dl.php?id=1
.NET 2.0 x86 : http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details...;displaylang=en

Thank you, Romeo. I will give that a shot.

As to the other information, the hard drive is 160GB - 10 GB being reserved for FAT32, which I made using a GParted live CD. The RAM is no longer an issue - I did find the workaround.

Well, booting into Windows 98 didn't work so well. I think I'm going to give a virtual machine a shot. Thanks

EDIT: I've gotten a virtual machine running for Windows 98 and have gone through the CD setup process successfully. I am using VMWare Player. However, when it finishes configuring once you reboot with the hard drive, it freezes during the detection of plug-and-play hardware.