partitioning and multiple OS

[Rbot]

Hi all,

I tried installing multiple windows operating systems on an old PII.
Essentially, on separate partitions, I installed DOS 6.22 (C drive) then
windows 98se on E drive (D drive is a separate hard disk) This was working fine. I could load up either system.

But then I installed Windows 2000 on F drive. (D,E, & F) all being logical partitions on the same hard disk. Win2K installed fine on F, but the problem is that win98 seems to have disappeared.

I'm not sure if win2k installer actually deleted it or if it simply can't recognize the other system.

Any insight or suggestions would be much appreciated. :confused:

[Paul Komski]

(D drive is a separate hard disk) This was working fine. I could load up either system.
How were you choosing between C (DOS on Primary) and E (Win98 on Logical) originally?

What was set as the boot option when you installed Win2K and do you now get a dual boot menu that takes you into DOS or Win2K.

There is a conflict in what you have reported: "(D drive is a separate hard disk)" - v - "(D,E, & F) all being logical partitions on the same hard disk". It is important to understand the exact hard drive setup and partitioning to give the most meaningful advice.

[Paul Komski]

How does the structure differ from this and is Win2K on NTFS?

HDD0= |__C pri-fat DOS__|__E log-fat Win98__|__F log-??? Win2K__|__G log-??? NoOS__|

HDD1= |__D pri-fat NoOS__|

[Rbot]

Thanks for your reply Paul.

My apologies, you're right. I had meant to say C, E, F are logical drives and
D is a separate hard drive.

To answer your question, at first I was using xosl boot loader, and then I tried boot magic.

When I loaded win2K everything changed.

It's been a while since I used the system, but today I checked it again.


As far as I can understand, the drive configuration now looks like this:

A: floppy
C: MSDOS 6 (logical drive)
D: Storage (separate HD)
E: CD Rom Drive
F:Windows 2000 (logical drive same HD as C)



I don't fully understand how it ended up this way. Somehow it seems that I lost one of my logical drives when I loaded win2K -- I think that the letters got shifted around too.

But it works fine if I load Win2K directly. However, at boot up it gives a choice: Win2K or windows (doesn't specify a release version), and if I choose windows, I end up with a prompt screen and a bunch of errors and warnings

Here are some examples::

windows has detected a registry configuration error...

the following file is missing or corrupt -- E:\windows\setver.exe
error in configuration file, line 1

error in configuration file, line 2 (himem.sys)

missing or corrupt files

...\dblbuff.sys


High Memory Area is not available
additional low memory will be used instead

unable to continue loading windows



I somehow get the feeling that I might have to start over from scratch and reinstall everything. Any opinions would be appreciated.

Thanks for your interest :)

[Paul Komski]

The first thing that will be confusing is that Win2K assigns drive letters differently from DOS and Win98 and that the values stick thereafter. I suspect that BootMagic hid the Win98 partition.

Boot into Win2K and RClick MyComputer and choose Manage. Go to Disk Management and see if the "missing" Win98 partition is actually there but with no drive letter assigned to it.

If it is there please also double-check that it is on a logical partition since it sounds like it would be on a primry partition. It is most unusual to install Win98 directly onto a logical partition. It can be done (usually with some trickery) without using a primary partition but if done using windows one would normally be booting to a dos-based C: drive (marked as the active or boot partition) and then customising the installation so that the Windows files and folders are installed onto another (including logical) partition. One then actually boots to the C: partition which loads Windows sitting on the other partition. Also if BootMagic had been able to directly boot up Win98 it must have been on primary partition since Boot Magic can only boot primary partitions. When it does this it hides any other primary partitions.

The second thing to know is which was the active partition when Win2K was loaded. I suspect that this was the C: drive and that could be confirmed by seeing if boot.ini is on the C: (MSDOS) drive or on the F: (Win2K) drive. This could be a hidden file so check that hidden and system files are unhidden using your folder options in Win2K.

My final worry is that you are confusing the term logical partition. It is true that any partition on a drive is a logical partition or volume in the sense that it is made in software but when talking about the different partitions on one HDD it is more usual to restrict the term logical to those partitions inside an extended partition; an extended partition being a specialised primary partition. I now am getting pretty sure about this since you have most lately called the C: drive a logical partition which would, in your circumstances, be impossible.

To recap: I think you have just hidden your Win98 partition (also explaining the errors you are getting from your new dual boot menu) and installed Win2K via the DOS partition. If that is all that has happened we should be able to rectify things.

PS Since you have BM I guess you also have Partition Magic. Please confirm since if so you have all the utilities to diagnose and probably correct your situation.

[Rbot]

Thanks again Paul,

I'm not sure I follow everything you said, but I did check on the disk manager in my computer and, lo and behold, there was win98se but with no drive letter assigned. Further fiddling showed that the partition has a hidden status.

Right now it looks like this:

D: partition basic Fat32
F: partition basic Fat
MSDOS 6 C: partition basic Fat
E: partition basic CDFS (cdrom w/ disk)
win98se partition basic Fat32

It also came back to me that I'd had problems before with boot magic. Instead of giving 2 options to load either MSDOS 6 or Win98, it gave only one option that read "Win98 or MSDOS" as a single boot item, and then it wouldn't load properly, so eventually I had to disable BM.

In answer to your question, Yes I have PM, but I believe I had installed it on win98; so now I can't access it since the OS won't boot. But maybe I'll try to re-install it tomorrow?

The reason I'm trying to understand the problem now is that I'd like to install win2k on another system that's also running win98, and I don't want to run into the same difficulties. The other system, though, has win98 installed directly on the C: drive, since it's the only OS on the machine right now. So I would imagine that it might be somewhat more straight forward.

Any advice as to how to proceed in that case would also be greatly appreciated.

Thanks so much for your time and insight...

[Paul Komski]

The first thing to do is to unhide the Win98 partition. So reinstall Partition Magic onto Win2K. Then RClick the relevant partition and choose unhide from the advanced sub-menu. There are other ways we could do this but that would be the simplest way. It would also mean you could directly run the PartitionInfo program found from the Start button and which you should find in the PartitionMagic Section. Please run it then click Save As and save a copy to a text file on your HDD. Then copy and paste the contents of that text here so that I can get full info about your current system before attempting to get back you DOS 6.2 option.

There are two basic methods of organising a multiboot pc. The microsoft way and the 3rd-party boot manager way. Both have advantages/disadvantages and some understanding of what's going on is helpful. It is best to stick to one or the other and not mix the methods, which is partly why you have now run into problems.

The microsoft way involves always installing the OSes in the order of their historical creation. Thus DOS before Win98 before Win2K (but with no XOSL/BM/Other boot manager). The microsoft way involves (a) manipulating files in the root of the active partition on the first bootable HDD and (b) changing the partition boot sector of that partition each time one of the MS OSes is installed or reinstalled. One of the main problems with the microsoft way is that if you want to reinstall/repair one of the earlier OSes later on this will screw up this multibooting system - in particular because the wrong partiton boot sector will then be in place.

It would thus be very easy to use this method on your other system since Win2K is newer than Win98. You would just boot to the CD and install Win2K. That installation could be onto any partition even though the boot processes will remain on the Win98 partition. Those processes will create some new files (possibly hidden etc) in the root of the C: partition but notably a boot.ini file which contains the instructions for the boot menu you will get on boot up thereafter. It also changes the boot sector of the C: drive to its own one and makes a copy of the old boot sector as a file called bootsect.dos; it then uses that file to boot up Win98 when you select that as the option from the boot menu.

Using a 3rd-party BootManager is IMHO better (because it means you are more flexible in the future) but does need that you have more than one partition and to understand about hiding/unhiding. The only two I recommend are XOSL and BootIt-NG because they can cross over to installations on other HDDs (when you have more than one of course) and because they can boot installations on logical partitions. Installing onto logical partitions is more advanced and I wont get into that here. To clarify this latter point let me say that installing Win98 or 2K or XP onto a standalone logical partition is what I am referring to here and not to using the C: drive as a common boot partition from which to launch Windows actually sitting on another partition; that is the microsoft method.

To make life easy/simple with XOSL first create enough PRIMARY partitions for the number of OSes you are intending to use. Three will normally be adequate and leave you the possibility of adding any number of LOGICAL partitions for data or whatever later on. When you add/edit each new boot entry ENSURE that you hide all the other PRIMARY partitions (the ones that have or will have OSes installed onto them). This ensures that the OSes never interfere with one another and avoids all such conflicts. Use the logical partitions to hold things that you want to access from all the OSes. If you need a fuller explanation of hiding/unhiding from XOSL please post back.

PS I see you now are referring to basic and not to logical partitons. It would be helpful to know that you understand the difference between primary and logical partitions; basic is not a term in common usage in this regard.

[Rbot]

Paul,
as to using the term "basic" I was just reporting what it said in the disk manager. I have no idea what it means.

My understanding of drives and partitions is quite fundamental as you can imagine. Essentially, one scenario would be to create the first primary partition (drive c: -- which would include the boot sector?) and then an extended partition with the remainder of the drive. One could then create logical drives within the extended partition.

I'm still not entirely clear on the meaning of "primary" although I know that some programs (such as Ranish PM) allow you to create quite a few primary partitions, and that primary partitions can be made "active and bootable"

... getting back to the PC, I did reinstall PM, and when I tried to unhide the win98 partition I got a warning that said:

OS/2 and win98 do not support multiple visible primary partitions.
If you unhide this partition and reboot, data loss may occur.
Do you want to continue?

I selected "No", since I wasn't sure what would happen next.
Here is the text report from Partition Info:


**********************


General System Information:
Total Physical Memory (bytes): 133,746,688
Used Physical Memory: (bytes): 57,491,456
Maximum Page File Size: (bytes): 319,205,376
Current Page File Size: (bytes): 49,991,680



================================================== ================================================== =======
Disk Geometry Information for Disk 1: 1023 Cylinders, 64 Heads, 63 Sectors/Track
System PartSect # Boot BCyl Head Sect FS ECyl Head Sect StartSect NumSects
================================================== ================================================== =======
0 0 80 0 1 1 06 48 63 63 63 197,505
WIN98SE 0 1 00 49 0 1 1B 525 63 63 197,568 1,923,264
0 2 00 526 0 1 05 1021 63 63 2,120,832 1,999,872
NO NAME 2,120,832 0 00 526 1 1 06 1021 63 63 2,120,895 1,999,809

================================================== ================================================== =======
Disk Geometry Information for Disk 2: 1023 Cylinders, 64 Heads, 63 Sectors/Track
System PartSect # Boot BCyl Head Sect FS ECyl Head Sect StartSect NumSects
================================================== ================================================== =======
NO NAME 0 0 81 0 1 1 0B 1022 63 63 63 4,124,673
Warning: Partition boot flag expected to be 0x00 or 0x80,
not 0x81. This should not be a problem.



================================================== ================================================== =======
Partition Information for Disk 1: 2,014.0 Megabytes
Volume PartType Status Size MB PartSect # StartSect TotalSects
================================================== ================================================== =======
C: FAT16B Pri,Boot 96.4 0 0 63 197,505
*:WIN98SE Hidden FAT32Pri 939.1 0 1 197,568 1,923,264
Extended Pri 976.5 0 2 2,120,832 1,999,872
EPBR Log 976.5 None -- 2,120,832 1,999,872
F:NO NAME FAT16B Log 976.5 2,120,832 0 2,120,895 1,999,809
Unallocated Pri 2.0 None -- 4,120,704 4,032


================================================== ================================================== =======
Partition Information for Disk 2: 2,014.0 Megabytes
Volume PartType Status Size MB PartSect # StartSect TotalSects
================================================== ================================================== =======
D:NO NAME FAT32 Pri,Boot 2,014.0 0 0 63 4,124,673


================================================== ================================================== =======
Boot Record for drive C: (Drive: 1, Starting sector: 63, Type: FAT)
================================================== ================================================== =======
1. Jump: EB 3C 90
2. OEM Name: MSWIN4.1
3. Bytes per Sector: 512
4. Sectors per Cluster: 4
5. Reserved Sectors: 1
6. Number of FAT's: 2
7. Root Dir Entries: 512
8. Total Sectors: 0 (0x0)
9. Media Descriptor: 0xF8
10. Sectors per FAT: 256
11. Sectors per Track: 63 (0x3F)
12. Number of Heads: 64 (0x40)
13. Hidden Sectors: 63 (0x3F)
14. Big Total Sectors: 197505 (0x30381)
15. Drive ID: 0x80
16. Dirty Flag: 0x00
17. Extended boot Sig: 0x29
18. Serial Number: 0x3253752A
19. Volume Name:
20. File System Type: FAT16
21. Boot Signature: 0xAA55

================================================== ================================================== =======
Boot Record for drive *: (Drive: 1, Starting sector: 197,568, Type: FAT32)
================================================== ================================================== =======
1. Jump: EB 58 90
2. OEM Name: MSWIN4.1
3. Bytes per Sector: 512
4. Sectors per Cluster: 8
5. Reserved Sectors: 33
6. Number of FAT's: 2
7. Reserved: 0x0000
8. Reserved: 0x0000
9. Media Descriptor: 0xF8
10. Sectors per FAT: 0
11. Sectors per Track: 63 (0x3F)
12. Number of Heads: 64 (0x40)
13. Hidden Sectors: 197568 (0x303C0)
14. Big Total Sectors: 1923264 (0x1D58C0)
15. Big Sectors per FAT: 1879
16. Extended Flags: 0x0000
17. FS Version: 0
18. First Cluster of Root: 2 (0x2)
19. FS Info Sector: 1
20. Backup Boot Sector: 6
21. Reserved: 000000000000000000000000
22. Drive ID: 0x80
23. Reserved for NT: 0x00
24. Extended Boot Sig: 0x29
25. Serial Number: 0x43D32AA3
26. Volume Name: WIN98SE
27. File System Type: FAT32
28. Boot Signature: 0xAA55

================================================== ================================================== =======
Boot Record for drive F: (Drive: 1, Starting sector: 2,120,895, Type: FAT)
================================================== ================================================== =======
1. Jump: EB 3C 90
2. OEM Name: MSDOS5.0
3. Bytes per Sector: 512
4. Sectors per Cluster: 32
5. Reserved Sectors: 1
6. Number of FAT's: 2
7. Root Dir Entries: 512
8. Total Sectors: 0 (0x0)
9. Media Descriptor: 0xF8
10. Sectors per FAT: 245
11. Sectors per Track: 63 (0x3F)
12. Number of Heads: 64 (0x40)
13. Hidden Sectors: 63 (0x3F)
14. Big Total Sectors: 1999809 (0x1E83C1)
15. Drive ID: 0x80
16. Dirty Flag: 0x01
17. Extended boot Sig: 0x29
18. Serial Number: 0x90F5D2DB
19. Volume Name: NO NAME
20. File System Type: FAT16
21. Boot Signature: 0xAA55

================================================== ================================================== =======
Boot Record for drive D: (Drive: 2, Starting sector: 63, Type: FAT32)
================================================== ================================================== =======
1. Jump: EB 58 90
2. OEM Name: MSWIN4.1
3. Bytes per Sector: 512
4. Sectors per Cluster: 8
5. Reserved Sectors: 33
6. Number of FAT's: 2
7. Reserved: 0x0000
8. Reserved: 0x0000
9. Media Descriptor: 0xF8
10. Sectors per FAT: 0
11. Sectors per Track: 63 (0x3F)
12. Number of Heads: 64 (0x40)
13. Hidden Sectors: 63 (0x3F)
14. Big Total Sectors: 4124673 (0x3EF001)
15. Big Sectors per FAT: 4029
16. Extended Flags: 0x0000
17. FS Version: 0
18. First Cluster of Root: 2 (0x2)
19. FS Info Sector: 1
20. Backup Boot Sector: 6
21. Reserved: 000000000000000000000000
22. Drive ID: 0x81
23. Reserved for NT: 0x00
24. Extended Boot Sig: 0x29
25. Serial Number: 0x4D3DA4B3
26. Volume Name: NO NAME
27. File System Type: FAT32
28. Boot Signature: 0xAA55

[Paul Komski]

First of all a general resume of the partition structure.

hdd1/part1 = Primary FAT16 for DOS 6.2 (and also holds the boot files for W2K and also possibly for Win98 as well).
hdd1/part2 = Primary Hidden FAT 32 for Win98.
hdd1/part3 = Primary Extended Partition containing one partition (part4).
hdd1/part4 = Logical FAT 16 partition for Win2K.

hdd2/part1 = Primary FAT32

Microsoft's type of Basic is to distinguish it from another MS thing whereby disks can be formatted as Dynamic; that doesn't concern us here. You can distinguish the Logical drives by the color coding used.

There should be no problem with your particular disk configuration in having two visible primary partitions at the same time. Just make sure you have created the PM rescue floppies before doing anything and then we should be able to get back in and change things back if need be. It would also be handy to have a normal win98 or winme boot floppy startup diskette lying around.

You can either just leave part1 as the active partition having first unhidden part2 and see what happens when you choose the non-win2K boot option from the current boot menu.

Alternatively (and if you have first made the rescue boot floppies) you could use PQBoot for Windows from the PowerQuest Utilities in Windows. It should list just two partitions; the two primary partitions on hdd1. Select the second one and choose to reboot straight away. I anticipate that will boot up Win98 and hide part1 at the same time. If that is successful and since you have installed PM onto Win98 already you can do the same thing in order to reboot to Win2K by choosing the first partition in the list when booted into Win98.

A brief resume on Primary Partitions:-
Up to four primary partitions can be defined in the mbr at the very start of all normal HDDs. Only one of these can be an extended partiton; a container for logical partitions. One of the primaries but not an extended primary can be marked as active and that is the partition that the system will attempt to boot from at start up. Since you only have two primary partitions on hdd1 only these two can be set as boot partitions. Bootmanagers can actually overcome/override some of these features but that should be enough to be going on with.

Let us know how you get on. We'll just go one step at a time.

[Rbot]

Thanks so much for all your help Paul. :)

I feel confident that I'll be able to get it going now,
since I have a much better picture about what's going on

Now I just need to find some time ...

Take care

[Paul Komski]

Good luck whatever and post back whether successful or not. The only issue that's a bit unresolved in my mind is how to best get your DOS installation working again without breaking the boot-up into Win2K. Im assuming that you first reach the stage of being able to multiboot Win98/2K successfully. If you reinstall DOS on C: you will lose the boot option for Win2K and have to reinstate the Win2K boot files and processes afterwards.

There should be a bootsect.dos file in the C: partition and this is either a copy of the DOS or the Win98 partition boot sector - though its not yet clear to me just which one. Also, if you want to totally separate the three boot partitions it would be better (though not mandatory) to have Win2K also on a primary partition and thus not sharing the boot processes with the DOS 6.2 installation.