reinstalling OS in a dualboot environment

[yunez]

If i have winME and win2k on separate partitions, can i reinstall them just as if the other OS wasnt there? I read in tech-review.com that you should install winME first, then win2k, because otherwise winME would overwrite some of win2k's files(even if theyre on separate partitions). So if i decide to reinstall winME, will these files still be overwritten? thanks

[yunez]

also, is there any way i can uninstall one of the OS's? should i just format the partition it resides in?

[Tech-Daddy]

Originally posted by yunez:
If i have winME and win2k on separate partitions, can i reinstall them just as if the other OS wasnt there? I read in tech-review.com that you should install winME first, then win2k, because otherwise winME would overwrite some of win2k's files(even if theyre on separate partitions). So if i decide to reinstall winME, will these files still be overwritten? thanks

That depends upon how the partitions are set up.

If you have WinME installed on C:\ and Win2K on D:\, and you wanted to reinstall WinME, then you are going to overwrite boot files for Win2K.

Now, If you have created multiple Primary partitions, and only one can be active at a time, then you would have installed something looking like the following:
C:\ WinME <Active>
C:\ Win2K <Inactive>
D:\ Data partition

Of course, the WinME/Win2K could be flipped, but you get the picture.

If they are installed this way, then reinstallation of the OS in question would not be a problem, as the OS would only be able to reinstall on what was active.

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HTH!
Regards,
Tech-Daddy
Who is "General Error" and why is he reading my drive?

[yunez]

how do i determine which is active and which isnt? and can i still access files from the inactive partition?

[SonicWind]

There are two kinds of dual boot as far as I know. The first one is freshly install two operating systems on two partitions separately and use a third party program such as Boot Magic to complete the dual boot, the second one is install Win2000 Pro within Win98 or WinME, when it finds an available partition it will install itself into that and completes the dual boot by modifying some files that already exists in the Win98 or WinME partition.

I think the first method is easier to maintain as reinstall either operating system won’t stuff up the other one, however the second method is easier to setup and doesn’t require addition software.
If you have set up your dual boot system using the first method, then simply boot up with the particular operating system and reinstall it.

If you chose to set up with the second method, then reinstalling is a bit trickier. I haven’t done this myself but I think if you just reinstall Win2000 Pro then everything should be fine, if you want to reinstall Win98 or WinME then Win2000 Pro will be lost because some files that store dual boot information will be overwritten, but you can still get it back by modifying these files yourself.

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[Tech-Daddy]

Originally posted by yunez:
how do i determine which is active and which isnt? and can i still access files from the inactive partition?

No sir. the inactive partition is effectively "non existant" as far as access and useability go. PC's hard drives can have a maximum of 4 partitions defined on them. I have 3 primary partitions defined and one extended partition housing all of my logical drives (4 quantity). Only one primary partition may be active at any point in time. So, if I have Win2K, Win95, and WinME installed on my machine, I have them set up as follows (all on the same hard disk):

primary partition 0 - Win95
primary partition 1 - Win2K
primary partition 2 - WinME
Extended PartitionA - <4 logical drives defined>
-logical drive 0 - FAT32
-logical drive 1 - FAT32
-logical drive 2 - NTFS5
-logical drive 3 - NTFS5

So with that definition in place, when I boot Windows 95/Windows ME... the OS recognizes FAT32, but not NTFS5. So, in either of these OS loads, the drives would be designated:
C:\ (Win95/ME) OS load <primary partition 0 or 2, depending on what you loaded>
D:\ <logical drive 0>
E:\ <logical drive 1>

If you were to boot up Win2K, then Win2K becomes C, however, due to the fact that that Win2K can access FAT32 and NTFS, then the drive designation would be as follows:
C:\ (Win2K) <primary partition 1>
D:\ <logical drive 0> FAT32
E:\ <logical drive 1> FAT32
F:\ <logical drive 2> NTFS5
G:\ <logical drive 3> NTFS5

Hope this clears things up a bit.

To actually determine whether the Primary partition is "active", open up a MSDOS prompt and type in FDISK. You will see your partitions defined there, the one that is currently booted will be marked ACTIVE. DO NOT MAKE ANY CHANGES HERE OR YOU WILL LOOSE DATA.

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HTH!
Regards,
Tech-Daddy
Who is "General Error" and why is he reading my drive?

[yunez]

thanks for clearing that up..

but since win2k can be installed in a logical partition as well as a primary partition, which should i install it in? if i put it in a logical then it would be able to see my winME drive right? any disadvantages?

btw i have bootmagic and partitionmagic6, so hopefully things will be easier to set up

[Tech-Daddy]

Originally posted by yunez:
thanks for clearing that up..

but since win2k can be installed in a logical partition as well as a primary partition, which should i install it in? if i put it in a logical then it would be able to see my winME drive right? any disadvantages?
btw i have bootmagic and partitionmagic6, so hopefully things will be easier to set up

You wrote in the initial post that you were wondering about reinstalling OS's and how to install them so as to cause the least interaction with the other.

If you install them as you are talking about, if you have to reinstall the consumer OS... it will overwrite the boot loader that 2K puts in place. Just make sure you have an ERD before you reinstall the consumer OS, so that you can repair the boot loader (boot.ini) files.

The way I was describing was bypassing the whole bootloader menu issue, the primary fault to reinstalling the consumer OS in a dual boot environment.

You can do it that away, however, reinstalling may be the hindering issue if you do not properly plan for it.

------------------
HTH!
Regards,
Tech-Daddy
Who is "General Error" and why is he reading my drive?