Multiboot XP, 2000, 98

[SkyTrax]

Hi all,

I have not found the right answer yet in the numerous posts discussing this subject.

Is it possible to multiboot WinXP on C:, Win2k on D:, and Win98SE on E:, WITHOUT the use of a third party boot manager?

I have done that on a second PC i have on a hard drive with 3 partitions.

I know all about the official way of installing win98 first, etc, etc, etc., but WinXP was installed first, Win2k on the second partition with no problem, and Win98 on the third partition with the known problem that it overwrites the boot files of XP and i'm only able to boot to win98.

So i have repaired the XP install (with the recovery console (fixmbr and fixboot) but now i'm only able to boot into XP and 2k, (98se freeze and don't boot at all, blank screen).

Is it a possible way to "repair" win98se (without losing the other two)? Or simply impossible to do because 98se is not on the first partition ?

All partitions are FAT32.

If it's impossible, can you suggest me a boot manager that can be able to do that (simple and free) and the procedure to follow without reinstalling any OS (not worth the time and trouble, it's just for experimentation)

Thanks in advance

[Paul Komski]

In the first place are the partitions primary or logical? Logical partitions can be made bootable but it is a very long haul and involves using a disk hex editor. Without all of this being done only primary partitions will be bootable using a third party boot manager.

Are the three partitions all FAT or some of them NTFS?

Was the dual boot for WinXP and Win2K working normally from a boot.ini menu prior to installing Win98?

When installing Win98 did you choose the default settings or did you customise where the installation should go and which drive letter did you choose?

If there is only one primary partition then you would have overwritten the partition boot sector with a DOS boot sector when installing Win98. Running fixboot would have overwritten this sector again with an NT boot sector but there would be no appropriate bootsect.dos file created by using the recovery console in this way; that would have taken a full repair installation.

If. If this is all taking place from the same primary fat partition marked as active you need to get an appropriate DOS boot sector copied as a 512byte file onto the active partition as bootsect.dos without modifying the current io.sys file in the same partition. Then add a line to boot.ini saying C:\bootsect.dos "Windows 98" or simply C:\ "Windows 98" since bootsect.dos is then chosen by default.

If Win2K and WinXP are coexisting nicely I would be inclined to reinstall Win98 to its own primary partition while the two NT oses are hidden and then use XOSL (free) or BiNG (trial) to organise the boot options.

Need some of the specifics answered to be of any further use.

[SkyTrax]

Thanks a lot Paul,

you answered most of my questions.

The 3 partitions are FAT32, the first primary and 2 others logical

Yes the dual boot for WinXP and Win2k was working normally from a boot.ini menu prior installing win98.

I have choose E:\Windows when installing Win98, the third partition.

The C:\ has already a bootsect.dos, is it always the same file or it is a modifiable file?, (C:\ has all the boot files for all the 3 OS).

And last question: when you use a third party boot manager, are your OS installed like it was all on a "C:\" ? Is it like each partitions are independant from each other with it's own boot files for the OS that is on that partition?

Thanks a lot :)

[jlreich]

How much ram do you have? 98 doesn't support more than 512MB and will often bulk at anything more. I know there is a work around by limiting the amount of ram 98 uses but I think it is a bit of hit and miss.

Since this is just for experimenting, one way to run 98 would be to use MS virtual PC (free) to run 98.

Also, how new is your system? There are some motherboards produced in the last year or so that simply do not support 9x/ME.

[SkyTrax]

Thanks,

I'ts an old Athlon Thunderbird 256 megs RAM (2001), all the 3 OS have worked fine in their respective days on this machine.

It was simply for fun and a little bit of nostalgia since i have been able to plug in back this computer (some pieces was missing, HDD, NIC...)

I have tried VMWare Workstation on my principal machine and it works great, very easy to use and i have tried multiple old operating systems on it. It works, but the graphics are slow
I haven't try MS Virtual PC because it require WinXP Pro, and i only have the Home Edition.

[Fruss Tray Ted]

Also if you have an old spare hard drive and an available ide slot, you can install 98 on that and use your BIOS settings as a boot manager. Even a 3gig drive would suffice.

If C: and D: are XP and 2K and that is what you want to boot to, you'd choose HDD-0, save and exit BIOS and your pc would then give you a choice of one of those two OS'es.

If you want to boot to 98(SE?) on the spare drive you would go into BIOS and set the bootup drive to HDD-1

Providing that all files are Fat32, you'd be able to access everything with the 98 install on both drives.

[Paul Komski]

BootPart (http://www.winimage.com/bootpart.htm) can be used to create dos and other boot sector files but is best done when the first physical system (or active) partition is a FAT16 partition. It's a bit technical and may not work but can have its uses.

The C:\ has already a bootsect.dos It may well do so but it is possibly an NT boot sector. When XP is installed "over Win98" it copies the dos boot sector to bootsect.dos. When XP recovery console uses fixboot I don't however know what it does to any bootsect.dos, io.sys or msdos.sys files. Booting to a DOS-based OS via an NT-based partition involves the boot sector >> ntldr+boot.ini >> bootsect.dos >> io.sys+msdos.sys. Of all these files the msdos.sys is probably the most important from a configuration point of view (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/118579) with respect to booting Win98 - particularly when it is not on the C: partition.

If Win98 was functioning after having been installed (with the attendent WinXP and Win2K losing bootability) one would think that it should be possible to repair things. However Win98 wont appreciate not being on C: and wont appreciate being at the end of a drive.

If you want to do some good homework on multibooting (including how to boot to logical partitions) then the Goodell site (http://www.goodells.net/multiboot/index.htm) is worth wading through. In order to boot directly to logicals they need to have first been primaries then copied to a logical partition area and then the extended boot record tweaked.

By all means use a VirtualPC (MS Virtual PC 2004 SP1 (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=6d58729d-dfa8-40bf-afaf-20bcb7f01cd1&DisplayLang=en) should run on both Win2K and WinXP Home if the correct SPs are installed and became a free utility some time back) or installed on a second HDD. If you use a second HDD then a boot manager comes into its own once again and saves you from having to go into the BIOS each time you want to swap the boot device.

If you just want to boot to Win98 on this HDD for learning reasons I suggest you go the route of using BiNG on a floppy or CD to hide the first two partitions. The delete the E drive and create a new primary fat partition. Install Win98 to the now sole visible partition. The install BiNG to the HDD and let it manage you multiboot. You can optionally discard BiNG after its 30 day trial and replace it with the completely free XOSL.

[SkyTrax]

Thanks all,

Fruss Tray Ted:

"If you want to boot to 98(SE?) on the spare drive you would go into BIOS and set the bootup drive to HDD-1"

I can do that??? I was wondering if a HDD must be on the first primary master IDE channel to be able to boot an OS. I think i will try it.

I wonder also if there is a setting in the BIOS that i can use to turn off the power of this second old hard drive "on demand" when i don't want it ???? because it has a kind of high pitch sound very noticable compare to most new drives and that's irritating me. It has always makes that sound, even new, but it's working great.

I will try MS Virtual PC too.

Thanks

[Paul Komski]

I was wondering if a HDD must be on the first primary master IDE channel to be able to boot an OS.On some older BIOSes you could only select the "first" hard drive - often seen as C in the CMOS settings - but nowadays you should be able to pick any detected hard drive - usually (for IDE drives) seen as HD0, HD1, etc.

These enumerate as 128 (0x80), 129 (0x81), etc. A boot manager effectively translates these values so that the chosen drive becomes 128 (0x80) or THE HD0 for that boot up. Some boot managers have to be installed to the hard drive but others like SBM (http://www.iol.ie/~krakowangus/sbm/sbm.htm) can work, quite simply, from a boot floppy.

I wonder also if there is a setting in the BIOS that i can use to turn off the power of this second old hard drive "on demand"There used to be hardware that you could interpose between an ide slot on the motherboard and up to at least three different hard drives with an external switch that could be used to cold switch between the drives. It never caught on in a big way and I don't think they are made any more. I have never seen such a device come native to a domestic system. The hardware is necessary because both the data and power cables must be effectively turned off as a pair. A PC wont usually boot if just its molex power connector is detached.

[SkyTrax]

Thanks for your response Paul,

but for turning down the power of a hardware device, i understand that all the hardware would be turned on when i boot my machine and it's ok.

It would be great if Windows has a sort of switch to turn it off when i don't need it... like it does in the Power Management section of the control panel, it's able to turn off the HDD after a certain time of inactivity... maybe there is an application that can do this.... and how Windows does the trick to turning off devices by software ?

Thanks

[Sylvander]

Devices can be temporarily "disabled" [= switched off] in Windows "Device Manager".
It would be interesting to see if that resulted in the heads being parked and the HDD being powered off.
.