Re dual boot - Firstly, all that Carl, and Chris say still applies
Now - Consider the boot process BIOS checks list of bootable devices finds the first such device that has media available ( old style BIOS used to take a selection of floppy, CD, or IDE devices) ( newer style ones allow specification of each IDE device, USB, LAN etc) Motherboard BIOS code looks for boot initiation sector - MBR etc loads that into physical memory location 0 onwards, and transfers 'control' to the main CPU with the program location set as 0 Whatever code was loaded into memory does whatever it wants. If it's DOS or windows, then the general process is to load the appropriate booting files from wherever they are on the partition selected That will be the first Primary Visible partition that is Active & Bootable that is found as the designated drives are searched you have no choice of those file names, and they have to be in the root directory You do have a choice of which partition you have set as active, and how you have denoted your drives connections - master, slave, IDE 0, 1, 2, 3 etc Dos and Windows will allocate partition letters in sequence - Booting partition as C, then all primary visible partitions get letters, then all secondary partitions get letters, with the search on each drive being terminated by no more partitions, or a non-windows partition being encountered 3rd party boot managers will usually not allocate letters at this time, just present a list of booting options Then - if you are booting standard DOS, eventually Command.com gets loaded If you are booting Windows, then the pre-Windows drivers get loaded and eventually - the windows boot manager process so you can select which OS instance you want to start (for 2K, and XP etc according to the entries in boot.ini) When you select the OS instance you want to run, the designated ( or default) file is loaded from the designated device ( by connection) , and partition and directory and the load process commences - core code, driver install, specified partition letter allocations, security policy other drivers services utilities etc and .. finally you get a chance to log-in for more drivers services etc to be loaded. So, breath, breath, gasp Now you have either selected XP, and you can get it to run fronm any directory on any drive - but beware of the pagefile which will normally want to be on C: or you have selected 98 which will not like being on any other partition than C and - there is also the problem of accessing an XP NTFS drive from a FAT 98 OS So - it could possibly be better if you installed a boot manager to let you select the wanted OS and ran each OS so that the other OS's partition is not visible to the running OS, or - and I've not tried this, see if you can set the system so that 98 uses default partition assignments, and XP uses it's own drive assignments And finally, all that Carl, and Chris say still applies JimB ----- Original Message ----- From: "Carl Houseman" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > If you made Win98 the first drive and then did a repair install of Windows XP on the 2nd drive, that might be the easiest approach.> > Since this would change the drive letter of Windows XP, I'm not sure how that would work out for other applications installed on the XP side. > -----Original Message----- > From: Windows Home/SOHO [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of > Chris Shaw > > Is XP installed in an NTFS partition or FAT32 partition?> > > > If the XP partition is visible to Win98 (e.g. it's FAT32), then Win98 gets the D: drive and it won't be happy about the change in drive letter. > You'll probably need to re-install. > No, Win98 does not see the WinXP drive. > I have been going to BIOS & having it boot from the drive of the OS I need to use. I know there is an line that is added to WinXP boot menu that allows Win98 to boot. Would it better for me to have the Win98 drive designated as drive 0 & the WinXP to drive 1?? > > And if you're doing that, then your dual boot instructions are here: > > http://www.petri.co.il/install_windows_98_after_windows_xp.htm > > > > Carl -- ---------------------------------------- To Change your email Address for this list, send the following message: CHANGE WIN-HOME your_old_address your_new_address to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Note carefully that both old and new addresses are required.
