Mike, This can be a VERY problamatic situation.
The reason is that 98, like 95 and ME, are single boot systems, while NT, 2K, and XP, are multi boot systems. Normally, if you have a single boot installed on your system and then install a multi boot, there is no problem. BUT if you install the multi first and then the single, the single will overwrite the OS choice on the boot tracks of the hard drive, and trying to get this changed back can be a problem. Unfortunately, that is what you now are possibly facing with trying to re-install 98 on your existing system, since the 98 could redue the boot track info and wipe out the choice info to let you boot to one or the other system. This is one of the MAJOR situations, more than any other I personally have found, to have a disaster backup of your system, when your existing system is up and working - if you run into a problem, especially with the 9x base of your multi boot system, you can just re-install from backup and avoid the boot problem. There are a couple of ideas I can think of: 1) I think the Microsoft support database has info of how to deal with the boot selection if you have the situation you are possibly facing, that of installing the single boot after the multi boot already existing. 2) A program like Partition Magic, which contains a program called Boot Magic, shows how to handle this situatiion from a different perspective - having each OS end up on a primary partition, while common stuff needed by each OS, on an extended partition. If this info is new to you, the documentition on PowerQuest's web site (www.pq.com) with this whole issue of partitions and related might be of great interest to you. 3) Another program that gives even more flexability with the whole concept of booting to any number of different OSs, even having multiple versions of the same OS, as well as adding capability not just for multiple version of windows, but also versions of Linux and others, is a program such as OS Selector by Acronis. It, along with several other programs on the market, allow your computer system to have many OSs on the system physical hardware, just depending on how much hard disk space you have available. The latest version of the OS Selector program claims you can have around 100 different versions of various OSs on your computer - I say claim, since I dont have anything like that count on my own system. Depending on what is actually installed on your computer, especially with regard to additional programs installed "after the fact" with both Win98 and WinXP, as well as personal data files, one solution others (as well as myself) have had to do, is to backup all data you need to save, wipe out your whole system, and then reinstall Win98 first, get up and running, and then reinstall WinXP, and get it up and running. Once your system is totally up and running, then install a program like Backup My PC, boot to Win98, and make a disaster backup of your whole base system, for future reference. Then as things change on either the 98 or XP side, you could then do differential backups, to make sure you were up to date on your system info. Then if you ended up in the state you currently are in, you could make sure to get things back to a working, known state. If I can be of further help in any of this, let me know. Ralph mike wrote: > > i have win98 and win Xp on my P III 256 Ram ! Win98 is on the default > drive c : and XP on my extended partition. > My win98 is giving me problems and I want to format and reinstall it! > the Quiestions are > Can i format my drive c: without affecting the win XP ? > will the Xp start nomally after the system are loaded in drive c: ? > > Please help ! ============= PCWorks Mailing List ================= Don't see your post? Check our posting guidelines & make sure you've followed proper posting procedures, http://pcworkers.com/rules.htm Contact list owner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Unsubscribing and other changes: http://pcworkers.com =====================================================
