BleepingComputer.com: Dual boot system WinXP with Win98SE or WinME

Hi guys/gals.

I need a bit of advice of you WinXP experts. I bought a new computer last week which has a 500GB drive. I installed WinXP Pro 2002 SP2 on it which formatted the drive to NTFS. Now when Windows started up I thought I would set a small partition so I could install Win98SE or WinME on it. I set an 8GB partition and called it G: The reason being I have an old scanner which is only suitable for Win9x/ME/Win2k and not WinXP. Strange if Win2k is a WinNT system then why not WinXP. Plus I can still use the old programs that won't run on WinXP.

Anyway I've done web searches for dual-boot systems and most talk about installing Win9x/ME before you install WinXP. Now I've tried both of my boot disks Win98 and WinME (from bootdisk.com) and neither of them recognise either of my DVD writers as drives. I know you can set the boot sequence to read the CD-Rom first but I would like to format the drive and scandisk for errors before I do. When I boot with the floppy I can't change to G: as it doesn't recognise it as a drive even though I formatted it as FAT with WinXP.

The other problem is because its a large drive Fdisk can't be used initially to set 2 partitions so I can put WinME on and WinXP on the other.

Any assistance would be appreciated of you dual-boot guys.

Keithuk, on Jul 30 2009, 08:30 AM, said:

Where on the drive is the partition? I think that to use it for Win9x version it needs to be at the start of the drive.

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This wouldn't be a MusTek brand scanner, would it... I know it well and its problems with Windows 2000/XP

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Yep. Windows always installs its own boot sector, overwriting any existing bootloader therein. A newer version of Windows will know about loading older versions but an older version won't know how to load a newer version. So, you'll either need to install Win9x first then XP or run the fixboot utility from the XP Recovery Console after installing 9x.

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I'm not sure why it won't see the DVD drives, but it may be that those versions of Windows are simply too old to have DVD support... maybe if you got a cheap second hand CD-ROM drive and use it temporarily?

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You can try GParted instead, a lot easier and full featured IMHO.

Thanks for your input Andrew. Sorry I couldn't get back sooner I've been busy.

Amazing Andrew, on Jul 30 2009, 04:45 PM, said:

I'm not sure, its where ever WinXP puts it.

Amazing Andrew, on Jul 30 2009, 04:45 PM, said:

Its an Artec AM12U + scanner.

Amazing Andrew, on Jul 30 2009, 04:45 PM, said:

I'm not sure why the DVD's aren't recongised. Whether is because they are both SATA drives?

I downloaded gparted-livecd-0.3.4-11.iso and gparted-liveusb-0.3.1-1.zip back in April but I haven't tried them yet. So is the iso file for making a bootable CD and the zip file is for a USB version?

I also downloaded Partition Magic 8.0 but I haven't tried that one yet on this computer.

You need SATA drivers in your Win98 bootdisk.

ISO images for booting off SATA DVD drive. You burn then onto CD, then boot off this CD. Once you are in, replace CD with Windows one, its your game - play it like you want.

http://www.answersthatwork.com/Download_Ar..._SATA_CDROM.zip

Romeo29, on Aug 1 2009, 11:40 PM, said:

Thanks Romeo but what do you do with Win98SE_Boot_CD_US_SATA_CDROM.iso? I've used Nero ImageDrive and loaded the iso file into it. There are 1,529,856 bytes but I can't see anything. Every other iso files that I've loaded before shows all files. You don't just burn an empty folder do you?

Because ISO file is just a pure boot image

It uses GCDROM.SYS Dos driver for loading SATA/IDE DVD/CDROM. Yes GCDROM.SYS can load both IDE and SATA DVD drives. If you can grab a copy of GCDROM.SYS from the depths of the internet, you can replace it in usual Win98 boot disks's oakcdrom.sys driver and enjoy loading into SATA DVD drive

For information about GCDROM.SYS: http://help.fdos.org/en/hhstndrd/base/gcdrom.htm
(it works on FreeDOS and MSDOS both)

However, if you do not want to go through all that trouble, just burn that image and enjoy booting into DOS, change Win98 CD and start setup Although, if you look at it, 700MB of CD would be ruined for burning a 1.5MB ISO!

Doubt it? Check the ISO image on Virtual PC or Virtual Box.

Happy computing

Romeo29, on Aug 2 2009, 03:20 PM, said:

I got Gcdrom.sys of my new computer motherboard CD. I've had Oakcdrom.sys for years thats what I use in my Win98SE boot disk.

Ok after a bit of configuring with the Config.sys and Autoexec.bat I've the Gcdrom.sys to recognise both DVD players though they are named C: and D: thats because it can't see the C: NTFS drive.

Now the other thing is as I've said. When I first built WinXP I thought I would put a small partition on this 500GB drive before we start installing stuff. I did that and formatted it FAT, is an 8.4GB drive. Now its recognised in Windows but I still can't find it in DOS.

Do you mean I've got to find Virtual PC or Virtual Box to see if this iso file is any good?

I downloaded VS2008Express that is one large iso file when uncompressed. iso size 916,122Kb uncompressed its 2.68GB. At lease you can see the files that you want to burn to a CD. The later version is only 766,506Kb.

I ran Partition Magic 8.0 and that can't see the G: drive I made.

Thanks again Romeo.

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Yes. You can test any bootable ISO on Virtual PC to see if it really works. Really good when slip-streaming service packs in XP CD.

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What kind of partitions do you see from within XP? (right-click on My Computer, select Manage. In opening Window select Disc Management.)

Well if Partition magic cannot see the partition, then most probably it does not exist. There is not much we can do here.
I am not familiar with Partition Magic, but I know you can re-size existing partition (reduce its size) and in the freed up space create a new FAT32 partition.

This post has been edited by Romeo29: 02 August 2009 - 09:02 PM

Romeo29, on Aug 3 2009, 03:00 AM, said:

Yes I use Disc Management to make the partition initially and its still shown in there as

Volume - Hard Drive2 (G:)
Layout - Simple (same as NTFS drive)
Type - Dynamic
Status - Healthy
Capacity - 8MB
Free Space - 8MB
% Free - 100%
Fault Tolerance - No
Overhead - 0%

Windows Explorer shows a 8GB G: drive and I can drag and drop and copy files to it.

Romeo29, on Aug 3 2009, 03:00 AM, said:

Well when I read out partitioning drives on XP it said something about you can drag a bar to represent the size of the drive you want to make. Well I didn't see this bar so it makes an 8GB drive only.

Something confusing is going on there. Lets find out the partition structure of your hard disk.

1 Open command prompt window from Start Menu > Run Type cmd and press Enter
2 Type diskpart and press Enter
3 Type list disk and press Enter. Notice the disk number of your hard disk. In most cases it is 0 (shown as Disk 0)
4 Type select disk=0 and press Enter (Use the disk number you found in previous command, if it is 3 then type select disk=3)
5 Type list partition and press Enter. Please paste the information shown in here.
6 Type exit to close diskpart.

Hate to tell...but that partition you just listed and see in Disk Management...is the ordinary 8MB (not GB) partition that is created when creating a primary partition. It's an admin partition that has no significance for any user wanting to store data.

My suggestion...would be to do the desired install of operating systems in the right order (oldest operating system first).

FWIW: I don't recall needing a boot disk with Win 98SE, but my memory is not so good . Seems to me that you should be able to just use the CD to partition/format any partition for Win 98SE/Me. I could be wrong, it's been awhile that I even thought about those two.

Louis

hamluis, on Aug 3 2009, 03:05 PM, said:

Thanks for your input Louis.

Ok there might be some mix up on the drive size but my main problem is partitioning the drive in DOS so I can but Win98SE or WinME on it. When I installed WinXP I didn't see any part saying partition drive it just installed it on the 500GB drive.

No matter how big this 8MB drive is I still can't see it in DOS.

I shall have to try GParted to see if it will set the partitions before install.

I know that the Win98SE and WinME CD's are bootable I was just saying I could format and scandisk the drives before install.

Thanks again both of you.