Hiya gents.

My question is simple. I have a new 2.4 gig Dell with XP. I am having a beach of a time trying to establish a dual-boot.

I tried doing it myself with Win 98 but got fudged for some reason with an error message (which I cannot remeber what it was exactly). Went to the local computer fixit-shop and asked them to dual-boot. Again errors. They called Dell and Dell said it could not be done. I called Dell and said it was a question of getting the Win 98 drivers for my new components and it would work. Later, another call to Dell said it could not be done.

Based on the posts here and from others on the board I have conversed with, I am confident it can be done - I mean sheet, I have a brand new system (bigger everything) and cannot get USAF to work satisfactorily. Ugghh.

If I ran a windows update on the 98 or ME partition, would it not automatically find drivers for my stuff? If not, do I just go into the props on my unit to find the manufacturers and DL their 98 or ME drivers?

What drivers are important - all of them or just things like BIOS, chipset and vid card?

Sorry if this sounds like a nimrod question, but I was convinced that a dual-boot could be done!!!

Thanks in advance guys.

Raptor, first I'd check to see if there are 98/me drivers available for your video and sound cards. I'm not sure, but I've heard from coworkers that some of the new setups, in their laptops anyways, don't have drivers for certain things like the modem, sound and vid. Not sure if that'd apply to a desktop pc. But you could search now with XP and download them n put em on a disk for later.
I don't know if bios or chipset would be an issue. Maybe the manufac. of your mobo would be a good place to look. If there are drivers for your motherboard, they should be there.

Raptorman,

The reason you are having trouble is that a basic rule for a dual boot environment using XP and 98/me is that the older OS (98/Me) must be installed first. In other words if you had a system already running 98/ME a dual boot with XP is possible. If you have XP installed first and try to install 98/me you will have trouble and it may or may not be possible.

This issue is further complicated by the methods of OS installation used by propietary OEMs like Dell and Gateway etc. It has been my experience that you are ALWAYS better off with a custom built rig then a Dell or Gateway manufactured system.

Solution:
You could add a second hard drive then temporarily turn off access to your XP drive through the bios. Once this is done you can then install 98/Me on the new hard drive and then switch between the XP drive and the 98 drive through the bios. This method does not allow for a boot menu where you can select the OS you would like to use (as you can with true dual boot), it does however allow you to achieve the same end in a situation like yours.

Also what you were told by Dell Tech support about drivers is pure crapola. Once one of these companies sense your lack of technical knowledge you are dead meat. It is only after my many years of technical experience with hardware and software that I have learned to see through this.

If you are truly looking for quality technical support the large OEM's are simply the worst people to depend on IMHO.

Polecat out

Thanks for your thoughts gents.

Polecat, forgive my lack of know-how here, but if I get a second HD - how would I switch between the two OSs? Would you have to go into C: to change the BIOS settings?

I am a bit ignorant here...

How do you have your OS's setup now?
Is C: Winxp, D: Win98? or vice-versa?

If you're running into the same trouble I had, then there is a solution. If your setup is how i listed above, then make sure your Winxp partition is NTFS filesystem. This way when you boot to win98, then it only sees the FAT32 partition (which has your win98 files on it). Win98 can only be on a c: partition, unlike winxp.

Oh, and if your winxp partition is FAT32 and you need to convert it to NTFS, there's a utility built into Winxp. Here's how to do it:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;307881

I hope this helps you not have to re-install XP. Oh, and after you install win98, you HAVE to install some sort of boot manager, so get one somewhere.

Beeker I had no problems with my dual boot leaving xp as fat32. This also allowed me to look at pics, music and other data in xp while in 98. All I did was install 98 first, which is important, then install xp on a second partition. Xp has it's own boot manager. After installing xp when I reboot it ask's which os do I wish to start up in.

On boot/restart you would have to enter the BIOS (usually by hitting Del) & change the boot device order.

Given that this is a Dell & therefore a proprietary mobo it is possible that there may not be 98 drivers for it.
Apparently other people are having problems loading 98 onto some of the latest generation of boards.

Wombat, i understand what you're saying. What i was conveying to raptorman was that IF the 1st partition is windows XP and he did NOT want to reinstall XP that it is possible to install win98 AFTER windows xp.

Doesn't boot.ini on the C drive (or partition) handle the boot option when the computer starts?

here's what my dual boot boot.ini looks like:
[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINXP
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINXP="Windows XP Pro" /fastdetect
C:\ = "Windows Millenium"

Aaaah, k. That's nice to know also. Thanks.

I don't own a dell machine, but I have 3 operating systems on 2 hard drives. Both hard drives are 100 GB 7200rpm. On C and D I have Windows 98, E and F I have Windows XP Pro, and G and H I have Windows XP Home, I don't know why I installed Xp Home , will remove XP Home the next week, but I had no trouble installing any of the OS, I installed the 2 XP OS from win 98. When booting you get the option of choosing which OS you want to start with. I think you should do a reformat, then install Win98 and then pop in the XP CD and follow the onscreen instructions, just like installing a game If your hard drive has a whole lotta space then make it into 4 partitions then install win 98. When installing XP, setup will go to some dos kinda enviorment where you'll have to format one of your partitions with the NTFS filesystem, that formatted partition with the NTFS filesystem will be your default XP drive with the windows folder. Did I sound confusing? Maybe I did, anyways good luck with it.
I have 3 operating systems,,,,,,sheeshhh
Cheers.