Setting up dual boot.

[Suchy]

I would like to set up dual boot (Win 3.11 and Win 95).
I created a new partition, but when I run the Win 95 instalation cd I get an error that "... my computer already has an operating system..." and that "... this version of windows cant be upgrated..." and that I should get a new instalation CD.

I am not given the chance to select where to instal win 95, and when I press ok I am back to DOS.

How can I overcome this ?

[mjc]

Any particular reason you want to do this with those fossils?

You will most likely need to resort to a third party boot manager, one that has the ability to 'hide' partitions.

DOS wants to be on the first partition...and basically what you are trying to do is to install two different versions of DOS. The available tools, those on the 95 install disk, it will only want to go to the first partition found. (Yes, Win 3.x and 95 are actually a GUI veneer over top of DOS...heck, for that matter so are 98 and ME, just a bit thicker veneer.)

[Suchy]

Bec Win 3.1 is much superior to any OS I used. Linux, Win XP, Vista, Mac OS... are garbage compared to Win 3.1
:D

Well I want to play around with these systema on an older Gateway machine that is sitting in my room. (P II 400 mhz, 128 ram with 20 G HD)

Old Skool .
:)

[mjc]

Yeah, you'll need a third party boot manager to pull it off.

[sburtchin]

Everyone is entitled to their opinions, but mine is that Win3.x was the worst piece of garbage ever thrust onto the computing market. And Microsoft has consistently, and continues to damage any and all things having anything at all to do with data processing:mad:. That said:

I like booting these old trashy os's for sentimental reasons (only).

Create at least two primary partitions, one for each os. Get PTEDIT and carefully record the values in the MPT. With these old dumb os's it may be sufficient just to change the partition type to something they won't recognize like "BB". If that does'nt work you can zero out the whole slot in the MPT and put back the numbers after you finish the install. You can control which one gets booted by setting the 'active' flag ("80") with PTEDIT (there should be only one 'active' partition), or you can use one of many boot managers.

If Microsoft wants to set up a dual-boot for you, avoid that like the plague!

[kpmwrestler]

if you install 95 FIRST, then you can possibly install 3.1 and use a simple boot menu in autoexec.bat (and a simple command in the config.sys to point the boot menu to the autoexec in the) or a third party boot loader. but it is probably best to use a ms-dos 6 boot loader because that is the BEAST of all O/S's ever made.(it just has authority and win 3.1 needs it anyway)

if you type "help" in ms-dos 6, (before you install 95 and 3.1) I think it will tell you how to make a boot menu

you could also try this: ftp://ftp.simtel.net/pub/simtelnet/msdos/bootutil/mwrload.zip


that's how I pulled it off with 3.1 and 98, but since 98 is just a better 95, it's the same thing.



oh, and in case you're new to dual booting, you need separate partitions (95 will accept fat32, but ms-dos 6 and 3.1 MUST have fat16)