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Multiple Operating Systems

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by maintenance man

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In my computer I have install a 40 Gig hard drive and have partitioned it in half. So now I have 20 Gigs on each. I want to install two operating systems. Can anyone out there tell me how I can have the option of booting to either operating system WITHOUT USING PARTITONING SOFTWARE. I mean like setting something in BIOS or CONFIG.SYS or AUTOEXEC.BAT.

Thankyou

13 replies

by rcom

What operating systems are you going to install.

If it's win98 & 2000-

Install win98 (fat) first. Then run 2000 (ntfs)it will give you the option for dual booting and will make a partition on the drive. But either way install FAT partition before NTFS.

by lazar01

Using Microsoft-based OS is a little tricky but not too difficult. If you are using Win2k/XP/NT, you can modify the hidden boot.ini file to boot from different locations.

Check out technet.microsoft.com for additional info

by jphifer

can you email me and let me know what the 2 operating systems are.you may need to make smaller partions (5gigs) in order for some operating systems to work properly. i do have xp&win98 se running on the same hard drive. win98 se is on the c:\ drive and xp is loaded onto another partition. you are going to have a dos partition on the c:\ drive and a non dos partition
for xp(nt & win2000 also).give me some more info and i will help you get it up and running

by rbrt

When dual/multiple booting Windows all you need to remeber is install from dumbest to smartest--in other words, install erliest version first and progress to the latest version being installed last. If you are dual booting Windows with Linux just make sure you use Lilo as your boot loader and you will need to modify your Boot Record--there is no shortcut but you can find the information easily on the internet.

by rashidah

I would suggest the following:

Boot your system with your windows startup disk, if you are currently using 98.

Make sure you access your "A" drive and go to FDISK. The system will ask if you want to enable a Large Disk say YES.

IN FDISK CREATE PRIMARY PARTITION WITH 20 GIGS
MAKE IT ACTIVE

CREATE AN EXTENDED PARTITION AND USE THE ENTIRE 20 GIGS, LET THE SYSTEM ASSIGN A DRIVE LETTER.

FINALLY,
INSTALL YOUR FIRST OPERATING SYSTEM
REBOOT USING YOUR STARTUP DISK AND
THEN INSTALL YOUR SECOND OPERATING SYSTEM REALIZING THAT THEY MUST BE DIFFERENT SYSTEMS, OTHERWISE THEY WILL JUST MIRROR EACH OTHR.

NOW TO USE THESE OS INTERCHANGEABLE:
To change from one operating system to the other you must boot with your startup disk , return to fdisk on drive A and make the second partition Active; likewise, when you want to change back- use the same procedure.

I have used this procedure and it did work.

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