Dual Booting... Win 98 - Win XP ?

Hi all,

I was wondering if anyone out there could explain (in simple terms), how do I prepare my computer, and install Win XP for Dual Booting? I've heard that this can be done.

At the moment I am running Win 98 on an IBM Clone - Intel PII 434 MHz (overclocked) - with 512 mbs PC133 SDRAM - 15 gig HDD. Do I need to partition the drive, and put XP on the other half? I would really like to try XP, but do not wanna loose the stability of my Win98 and all the programs and games.., is my computer fast enough for Win XP, I've heard that it's very memory hungry? (Thanks in advance to anyone that offers help).

 

I had reformatted and partitioned my hard drive then installed Win ME on C , Win 2000 on D and Win XP on E and works fine.
You shouldn't have any problems with XP, I only have 256M RAM and 128M before and was running XP.
At one time I had it running on a 200M processor with 80M RAM and it was not that bad.
You may need something like Partition Magic to partition your HDD without losing anything.

 

I've got a question too! How would you be able to choose what os you want to start up with. Is there a screen than appears?

 

When your booting up, after the POST, you get a screen that lists the two O/S's and you select the OS you want to boot to.
Win NT, Win 2000 and Win XP adds this screen when you install them on a partition that already has an operating system..

 

I think Win2000 comes with a boot manager which allows you to choose which OS you want to boot to, so I would assume XP comes with it too. There are freeware alternatives to download too, but I don't use them so I can't really recommend any!

Edit: D'oh! Beaten to it!

 

I tried one of the free boot manager programs and didn't like it.
NT, 2000 and XP's boot manager works fine for me.
I have ME, 2000 and XP and boot to any one I want fine.

Edit: You gotta type faster, haha

 

I have a question too. Why would ya use 2 OS? Then where do ya put all the other programs?
I have a 20 gig HD, what would I do, just cut it in half?

Prospect

 

I have a 40G partitioned in 5-8G increments.
Win ME on C
Win 2000 on D
Win XP on E
Music on F
Files on G
I installed office 2000 and some other programs on H and run it from ME, 2000 or XP, that way I didn't need to install the entire programs 3 times, just the basic files each os needed.

 

But why would ya do that del? I don't understand why someone would need 3 OS Then to split up all your files, just sounds like a big headache to me.

Prospect

 

Main reason is I do tech support for a living and the more o/s's the better.
You ever try to tell someone how to drive a car over the phone if you never drove you yourself and are trying to explain it from pictures.. haha
If you run into a problem you never had before, you can boot the the right os and try to similate it yourself to try to find the fix.
I could use NT, 95, 98 and MAC if I reformat again.

I just install Office like on a network, same with a lot of other software and save a lot of disk space.

 

OH! That makes all kinds of sense. And I appreciate the time you give here to help guys like me. Espically my dumb questions
I always wondered howyou guys did that.
So I guess there's no reason for me to do that. Unless I have nothing better to do for the next week. LOL
Thanks del

Prospect

 

Ya, you can do it from screen shots, but it is much much easier if you have the O/S's on a computer that you can actually move around with..
Have a great day Prospect

 

Hi again....

I just thought that since I started this thread, I get back to you's on the topic. Okay, I've found myself with a copy of Partition Magic, now remember I only have 15 gigs to play with. I'm at present using Win98 on C:, my D: is my cd burner, and the next my cdrom, will these two be bumped up as my partitions will follow after drive C: ?
Now I saw that one of you guys partitioned multipul times, should I partition into 3 groups of 5 gigs... one being Win98 original, Win XP next, then lastly 5 gig's for programs ? Do all programs work on both OS's, or can I only run one's for XP, on XP and vice- versa ?

 

For the last question, it's the latter. If something has been coded for one OS it can't be used on another. Obviously, I'm grouping up OS's, because something coded for Win95 works just as well for 98 and ME too (because they are so similar anyway), and XP's Application Compatibility can emulate certain things so that the prgram can run successfully.

I can't answer the first though, considering that I haven't partitioned a disk before.