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dual boot with two OS's - different HD's

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6 replies

by patriotpen

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I have a friend on a very limited budget and I am trying to help him with this. He wants to install a second Hard Drive into his newer PC. Win XP Pro is on the newer one with files and programs with one partition-NFTS. The older PC has win 98/4 partitions and also has programs on that HD-FAT. He is a insurance salesman and has about 10 years worth of contacts using a data base management program on the older PC's HD. I need some very specific direction as to exactly I have to do to accomplish this without using his critical information and provide him with the dual boot option. I would appreciate any and all assistance.

6 replies

by omnicef

This will not work... If you just take the hard drive out of the old computer and install it in the new computer, even if you did edit the boot.ini file to dual boot, it would have a hard time with the different hardware. I suggest getting a cheap kvm switch and using two computers and one KB, Monitor and mouse. That way if he is using XP and needs to quickly look something up on the old system, it is just a few keystrokes away... No rebooting!

by cg it

well as everyone would say backup the old pc. Murphys law always strikes when you don't want it to.

Do you absolutely need dual boot? Is the program that runs the contracts appliation non XP compatible? If so, then you might try some 3rd party applications. One that I know of is system commander. System command is a dual boot DOS overlay software program that will discover multiple O/Ss on multiple drives and allow you to choose to boot to which on you want.

by ghimpe--

Windows XP has a buit-in Boot manager.

Even though the Win'98 will boot on the new system (it might require the instalation of some drivers) i highly doubt you can run all programs normal because of the regestry setings.

I recomand you transfer the database files on the XP hard drive and run it from there. Then format the win'98 hard-drive and just use it as a backup hard-drive.

GooD LucK! ;)

by willcomp

While I certainly recommend installing software on new PC and transferring data files if at all possible, here's how I would install old hard drive in new PC.

Caution: Win98 drivers for new hardware must be available and both hard disks (new and old) must be PATA IDE disks for this method to succeed.

Disconnect new hard drive and install old hard drive in new PC. Boot from Win98 CD and do a repair install of Win98 to accomodate new hardware. Select "Start Computer with CD ROM Support" from menu. Change to CD ROM drive (e.g. D:) and change to Win98 folder on CD drive (e.g. CD\WIN98). Type SETUP and hit Enter. Setup should install Win98 on top of existing installation with default drivers.

After Win98 repair install is finished, install Win98 drivers for new hardware.

Connect and use a boot drive switch to select boot drive. See link below for such an animal.

http://www2.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16802102001

Dalton

PS, I may be an even older fart.

by willcomp

Smiley face should be a colon (punctuation mark, not body part). Don't know why it appeared.

by drbali1

I suggest you have a look at XXClone from www.xxclone.com The freeware version is brilliant (and only a 1.2MB download) - the paid-for version has extra features (of course) and starts from $40.

IMHO, this is by far the best back-up software I've ever used and runs rings around the competition. It can copy the entire contents of a disk, (including operating system) and make it bootable. A couple of new lines in boot.ini and a careful look the BIOS boot order enables you to choose which disk to first boot from (the program does that for you or you can do it manually).

Definitely worth a look.

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