mavrick

Hi folks,

I am sure this is easy to most of you but can someone tell me how to run two operating systems on the same computer.
What I want to do is have Win98 for my applications and run WinME for gaming.
I already have my drive partitioned and know how to make partitions active but that's about the height of my knowledge.
Any help greatly appreciated, thanks in advance.

Ga22ar

You'll need to dual boot and with the mix of similar OSes you'll need some trick boot manager to do it.. I'd recommend partition magic (which comes with bootmagic) or bootit (find it on the web)

Configuration can be tricky if you don't know quite what your doing - ie you could blat a partition with an OS on it.

AWD

Backup all your data before you begin.

Mr Footlong

iTrader: (7)

Unfortunatly, I don't believe that you can run both ME and 98 on the same HD. I don't think that they can run separate boot loaders, or Dual-Booting. Don't quote me on that, but 99% certain. I have never tried mixing 95/98 or 98/ME. Only the usual ones, such as NT4/95-98, or 2K/98-ME. NT4,2K and Linux Variants support Dual-Booting. Words to the contrary, interested to hear. Hope this helps in someway.....

Mr Footlong

iTrader: (7)

If me info above holds up, then really the easiest way really for you, if you are set on those OS's, would be to write off 1 5.25 Bay and get another HD and Drive Swap Bay. Expense is a down side to this, though.

mavrick

Ok thanks for the advice so far,

How about I stick with Win98 can I install this on say for example C: drive and also D: drive keeping C: for everyday use and my applications, and having D: with games only.
Can I then run say fdisk at boot up and select which partition is active or am I misunderstanding what an active partition is.
Or can this not be done without the likes of boot magic don't really want to shell out money if I don't have to.

Thanks

XRS

There's an article in this month's Computer Shopper thst tells you how to do this. I read it a couple of nights ago when I couldn't sleep, so I can't remember the details, but it's yours for a few quid.

mattski

I would probably do the following:-

1. Partition your hard disk/get another hard disk and install the OS's you plan to use, either one per partition or one per drive.

2. Take a leaf out of the Linux world and use something like Lilo (boot manager) and define each OS.

Then when you boot up you'll have a menu whereby you can choose what OS you boot up to.

NOTE: It *might* be worth having a tiny linux partition and installation to get lilo on properly, and it's good to play with

The above is the best solution imho, you can probably download a boot manager similar to Lilo if you don't fancy having a dable with it.

Hope that helps,
ta,
Matt

Ga22ar

Mattski is right (even for a sandal wearing linux luvver) - you can put both these OSes on the same disk but they have to be on seperate partitions (hence my suggestion of using a partition manager).

You will need to hide one partition from the other during the boot processes, to do this I've used BootIt Lite - but it can be a right bitch to remove in the long run..

Just to underline - you can run any mix of OS on the same machine you just have to manipulate the partition tables in order to do so.. I have installed - 95+98+NT+W2K+Linux+Netware on the same (very large) hard drive on a server for development/training purposes in the past...

Mr.Cookie

First off im not a computer trained person, but 98 and ME will not install on same machine 98 or ME and NT4/Win2k will though. I have tried this before and ME just overwrites 98 although others may know ways round this.

Si
Ps personally i'd stick with 98se or win2k