Dual Booting Win98 & WinXP on 2 Separate HDs

[Takeda]

Hey, I have Windows XP Pro on my primary 120GB HD, I wanted to install Windows 98SE on my Secondary 27GB HD.

I know that I could simply just leave it at that, then manually change my bios to boot from whichever drive depending on the OS I wanted to load or just disconnect the drives and only use one drive at a time, though, both seem to be an annoyance.

I was wondering how I would be able to have WinXP on my primary master HD and Win98 on my primary slave HD. Could I simply install Win98 on the second HD, then edit the boot.ini in XP so that I could get the dual boot working that way?

This is currently what I have in my Boot.ini:

[boot loader]
timeout=0
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect
C:\ = "MS DOS Prompt"


Would I have to change the C:\ to D:\ and add a line like

multi(0)disk(1)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows 98"



And would I also have to copy boot.ini and ntldr to my secondary drive?

I already have Windows XP installed on my primary HD, with a lot of apps and games installed, so I don't really want to go the way of installing 98, then installing xp.

I've searched through the forums, but I haven't seen any threads that have directly addressed my predicament.

Thanks!

[9TIGERS]

I already had Win2K on my primary and then installed XP Pro on my slave. It detected my new slave drive during install. I simply chose it and it automatically installed to that drive. It also automatically updates boot.ini with a command line. When you restart after the install you will have an option to boot from either os without having to edit the bios. Well in my case it was that easy.

I would still recommend a backup of important stuff just in case.

[Takeda]

hmm, the only problem is, I want to have Windows 98 on the second hard drive. Microsoft says you're supposed to install the older OS first. Seeing as I have the newest OS already installed on my primary drive, installing 98 on a secondary drive seems to be presenting quite the quagmire.

Evidently if I install Windows 98 from DOS, it will overwrite my current master boot record, will that also occur if I install Windows 98 on a separate drive?

so bottom line: Has anybody been able to install Windows 98 on a second hard drive, after already having Windows XP installed on the primary hard drive?

[9TIGERS]

Oh...didn't know that. Have you tried searching over at HardOCP? They have a pretty active forum.

Never mind their servers are down for a couple of days.

[Nick_B]

If you install 98 on the second drive, it should overwrite your boot record. However, I believe there is a utility from the XP recovery dealie that will allow you to 'fix' the MBR. After this is done, a correct entry can be added into boot.ini file (I don't think the recovery console will add the entry automatically--but I could be wrong). Alternatively, you can install 98 and then install XP over itself (thus not losing too much) and it should defintely set up the 98 boot option for you. Good luck.

[Takeda]

hrm, I think I'll just build another rig with Win98 on it when I have some cash. The main reason I want to use 98 is because older DOS games and certain games that should run, don't. Ah Well, C'est La Vie.