Dual Booting Windows 98SE and XP Home
Warning! This document may contain funny stuff and jokes... I did this so I wouldn't fall asleep typing this :), and so you can turn a very boring process into fun... Well, kinda.
Take this into thought... You've bought XP Home. You run the upgrade and everything installs perfectly, and you're ready to roll with your new best friend; XP Home. You decide you want to burn a cd of your favorite band to play in your car, so you go hit Start, All Programs, Adaptec, Direct CD...
"Error! Cannot find required file needed to run Direct CD!"
Uh oh. Looks like Adaptec EZ CD Creator and Direct CD aren't compatible with XP, even if you do use the compatibility wizard... What do you do? Dual Boot.
The only time you should dual boot your computer is if you have two different operating systems (IE: Windows XP, Linux) and wish to use both on a single hard disk drive (HDD), or if you're like me, and your scanner manufacturer decided not to make a driver for XP!
So you've decided that you're going to dual boot huh? Good. One note before we begin... We're going to use my 8 gig hard drive as an example during this whole procedure, so if yours is bigger, smaller or the same, just fix the settings to your choice.
Backup everything, and if you screw up on any of these instructions, it is reccomended that you contact me for further instruction, or start over. Don't worry. I messed up 7 times, and only had to start over 4.
What you need:
Windows Boot Disk (The XP cd, or any OS cd is not what you need. You need a Boot Disk from 95-98-ME that has Fdisk, Debug, and Format on it.)
Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition CD
Microsoft Windows 98 Second Edition CD
Your backed up files
Ok, you're ready to start. Remember one thing though... Install 98SE first, and to the C:\ drive only!
Boot to the Boot Disk, and select no cd rom support (you won't need it for a while).
Once you reach the A:\ prompt type this:
DEBUG (ENTER)
ONCE YOU SEE THE DEBUG DASH PROMPT (-) TYPE IN THE FOLLOWING:
A (ENTER)
DEBUG WILL NOW OUTPUT A SERIES OF LETTERS AND NUMBERS. NOW ENTER:
MOV AX,330 (ENTER)
MOV CX,1 (ENTER)
MOV DX,80 (ENTER)
MOV BX,3800 (ENTER)
MOV ES,BX (ENTER)
INT 13 (ENTER)
INT 3 (ENTER)
(ENTER)
G (ENTER)
Q (ENTER)
YOU SHOULD NOW BE BACK AT AN A: PROMPT.
YOU WILL NEED TO REBOOT.
Once you've rebooted, you will have to do an Fdisk.
Boot to the floppy again and then type "Fdisk".
You're going to get some message asking if you want to enable large disk support... Just say yes.
Ok... You should be at a menu for Fdisk... Select something that is worded like "Create Primary Partition Or Extended Partition", or just hit "1" then enter.
You should get a menu asking if you want to make a primary partition, an extended partition, and some other stuff... Hit Primary Partition.
You should get a message asking if you want to use the maximum available space on the hard drive and make it active... No.
Now, you should get a message asking how big in percent or MB you want your C:\ partition to be... Since 98SE can only be installed to the C:\ drive, and I'm going to rarely be using 98SE, and it doesn't require much space, I'm going to reserve 2gigs on my 8gig hard drive.
Next, you should be back at the fdisk menu... You're gonna get some message there saying that there's no active partition; forget you ever saw that message until we're done in Fdisk.
Cool. You just created your primary partition, and you are now 100% Certified to install 98SE on your C:\ drive... Don't break out the beer just yet though! You've got more work to do! ;-)
Go back to the menu in which you made the primary partition, but this time, choose "create extended partition". Use up the remainder of your hard drive on this partition. Once it has been saved, on mine it came up again, and wanted to make it a Logical DOS Drive... Allow this.
You're back at your fdisk menu again. Remember that message that says no active partition? Oh yeah. I told you to forget about it. Nevermind. Just go to "set active partition". Select the 1st (c:\) partition.
Boring huh? Oh well... Back at your Fdisk menu? Good. Reboot.
Select no cd rom support.
Now, we have to format your partitions.
Got an A:\ prompt? Type "format c:" and hit "y" for yes to the question "are you sure you want to format?".
Now you can pull out the chips 'n dip and crank up the stereo. The bigger the partition, the longer the time...
Done yet? Good. It asks if you want to label the C:\ drive... That's your decision. I'd put no, because you can always come back later and name it.
Now type "format d:" or what ever you labeled the other partition as.
More chips, soda, and stereo time...
That almost took a lifetime huh? :)
Finally, after a very long time of pain and suffering, you are ready to more on to the next step. Good Job! And as a reward, you get to do pushups! :D Only joking. That's just something you can do if you work out, and you're gonna have plenty of time to do them when you get to install Windows 98SE!
So you've conquered Fdisk, wiped away formatting, and you're ready for your next assignment? Install Windows 98SE.
Go into your BIOS, and set the computer to boot from the cd rom drive first, put the cd in, and install Windows 98 to your C:\ drive.
Windows 98 asks you the usual questions, yadda, yadda, yadda...
Finally, after 30+ agonizing minutes, you should be done. Good.
Now, in 98, reboot, change the setting in bios to boot from your hard drive first, and then once you're in 98, pop the XP cd in, and select clean install to another disk or partition.
In the installation, there will be an advanced setting where you can select the partition you can install the software to.
When you get to a menu asking if you want to change the disk partition to NTFS, choose "leave it the same" or something like that... Don't change it.
Now, you're installing xp... if it reboots, always choose Windows XP at the multiboot menu. You should be done in about 40 - 50 minutes.
Once you're done, install your drivers, and stuff, and you should be ready to go.
If you have any problems, email me at Dodge_Charger_1@hotmail.com