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Dual booting Windows XP Pro.

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by thorpe322

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Hello, I want to set up my computer to dual boot Windows XP pro and Windows 98 SE. The majority of my drive will be XP and a small portion will be 98SE. Windows XP is already loaded and configured on my system and is running fine. BUT, the microsoft site says if you want to dual boot these OS's, you have to load 98 first then XP. Is this true or can I get away with running Partition Majic and installing 98 on the free space? Thanks!

9 replies

by seeker2000

I have not worked with XP yet, but that has been the same story from microsoft since NT came out. You loaded w95 or 98 first, then loaded NT, or 2000, and from what you just said XP.
However I have done what you just asked with 2000 and NT.
The first thing to do is backup your info to another harddrive if possible, I prefer to backup the whole drive to another by using Ghost if this is possible for you. Then do your thing with partition magic, pay attension to the type of file system you use,More than likely XP is using NTFS which naturally 98 is not going to see. You may need more disc space due to this for 98 than you planned, for programs under this O/S

by mphoffar

They're right in saying that in that installing XP second will do all that for you and setup the boot.ini and ntldr autumatically. In all honesty though, I dont think there's any problem with loading 98 second and using PM to create a boot manager.

Mark

by mattyre

Win 98 First, because the system needs to setup properly for "System" partition and "Boot" partitions. This also applies to win 2000 Dual boots.

by thorpe322

Thanks for your input. But I did get it to work the other way around. I guess partition magic helped in that.

by cgi¤001

With XP you still have the choice: NTFS or FAT.
Wanted to make that clear.
Tho NTFS gives better security than FAT. Bottom line: first Win9x, next XP.
No experience (wow, should I type eXPerience???) with PartitionMagic here.
And, I dont like XP(===> registration/licensing <=> YUKS!)

by thorpe322

Thanks. But I got it to work, so i know its possible. You should check out Partition Magic. It really does work some magic on hard drives!

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