Installing 98SE with XP Professional

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TSLAdmin - 18 May 2005 00:00 GMT

I have a PC with AMD K7 processor, 512MB RAM and 2 hard disks. I have XP
Professional SP2 on my C: drive, but have some older software that won't run
with XP. I have set up a partition on the other disk (F:) and formatted it
FAT32. C: is my default drive and the one my PC boots from. When I boot from
the Windows 98SE installation disk, it tells me that there are files on the
hard disk and gives me an option to overwrite. Is this talking about the C:
drive or the F: drive? I am nervous about going any further in case I lose
the data on my C: drive. Is there a way of forcing the installation onto F:?
Many thanks for any advice.

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Ron Badour - 18 May 2005 01:16 GMT

Is XP installed on a NTFS partition and do you have a boot manager capable
of booting from the second hard drive?

Are you aware of XP's compatibility mode feature? Right click the shortcut
to your program (you may have to right click the program's .exe file),
properties and select the compatibility tab.

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Regards

Ron Badour, MS MVP Windows 98
Tips: http://home.satx.rr.com/badour
Knowledge Base Info:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?pr=kbinfo

>I have a PC with AMD K7 processor, 512MB RAM and 2 hard disks. I have XP
> Professional SP2 on my C: drive, but have some older software that won't
[quoted text clipped - 10 lines]
> F:?
> Many thanks for any advice.

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TSLAdmin - 18 May 2005 09:14 GMT

Thanks Ron, yes XP is on a separate drive set up with an NTFS partition. Not
sure what you mean by a 'boot manager'. I can press F11 during the boot
sequence to change the device I boot from - floppy, either hard disk, CD or
DVD drive. The sequence is set to A:, CD drive, C:, F:, DVD drive.

> Is XP installed on a NTFS partition and do you have a boot manager capable
> of booting from the second hard drive?
[quoted text clipped - 17 lines]
> > F:?
> > Many thanks for any advice.

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Ron Badour - 20 May 2005 17:08 GMT

A boot manager is a program that allows you to select which operating system
will boot. There is a way to use XP's boot manager for W98 when XP is
already installed; however, XP must be installed on a fat32 partition.
Personally, I dislike XP's boot manager and I use:

BootIt Next Generation is available from: http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/
and it does partitioning, makes a compressed image, does many other
partitioning chores and is a boot manager. It is not quite as easy to use
as Partition Magic but it is half the cost and has more features. Unlike
the crippled PMagic demo, BING is a *full function* demo you can try for
FREE for 30 days. The web site has a lot of support articles.

With it, you can hide the XP partition before you even start to install W98
and this will protect it from accidental overwriting.

Signature

Regards

Ron Badour, MS MVP Windows 98
Tips: http://home.satx.rr.com/badour
Knowledge Base Info:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?pr=kbinfo

> Thanks Ron, yes XP is on a separate drive set up with an NTFS partition.
> Not
[quoted text clipped - 31 lines]
>> > F:?
>> > Many thanks for any advice.

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Jeff Richards - 18 May 2005 09:12 GMT

Windows 98SE installation does NOT install a boot manager that permits you
to select between an existing operating system and the one you are
installing, so your caution is fully justified. You may be able to use the
XP boot manager, but it can be tricky to set up properly after XP is already
installed. A third-party boot manager might be the better way to go.
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/setup/learnmore/multiboot.mspx
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q217210
http://www.techspot.com/articles/dualboot/index.shtml
http://www.bootitng.com/

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Jeff Richards
MS MVP (Windows - Shell/User)

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