[diamondgeezer]

Right, I have a problem involving a round operating system and a square disk. I need to find a way to make them fit together, and our live-in computer guru won't be back for ages yet... so you lot get to help me instead! Yay!


Current situation - Windows XP Home installed on an NTFS disk

Your Task - to install a Win 98 boot somehow

Problems - 1> Win 98 won't install to anything to anything other than C:, so making a FAT32 partition is no good, and 2> I don't particularly want to reinstall XP on D: if I can help it

Tools Available - Partition Magic 8.0, VMWare virtual machine thingimajig, Win XP and 98 SE CDs, plus all the usual XP gubbinz...


Now, the whole big virtual machine arrangemet would work fine, except that it insists on using the primary partition for its virtual hard disk, which of course is my NTFS-flavour C drive. Therefore, it won't allow 98 to set up. I tried creating a FAT32 partition and telling VMWare to use that directly, rather than using a virtual hard disk, but it still insists on trying to install 98 to the primary partition. There doesn't seem to be an option to tell VMWare to ignore all disks but the one I want...

Anyway, those familiar with VMWare or those just generally clever with pooters, I'd appreciate your advice. Of course, I don't really have to use the virtual machine, that just seemed to be the best approach so far. Perhaps it's possible to trick Setup in to thinking one partition is another or something, I dunno...

The first person to propose a solution which actually works wins a twelve inch cookie with smarties on it, and dinner with Shrike at the Golden Arches.


*claps hands twice*

Hai!

[an0n]

If I recall correctly, XP is a ***** when it comes to sharing (more-so than most MS stuff). Far as I know, unless you wanna do some really stupid, complicated, dangerous stuff you're best option is just to reinstall XP on D.

[kode]

heh... you're best off installing win98 first, and then XP. I'm not really home on the other way around, seeing as it's a ***** to do.

[Anaz]

DG, just create a duel boot system. Then you can have 2 C: drives.

My little bro's computer does that, it doubles as a lan machine when friends come over. We play some games that aren't suitable for 8 year olds...

If you want an OS loader, OSXL (operating system extended loader) is what we used (I think...). If you don't know how to create a duel boot system, then search for it on google. I'm not quite awake yet, and forgot how we did it...

[Ryx]

What version of VMware are you using?

I created a special partition for my virtual machines (each machine's stored in a seperate folder), works just fine.

[diamondgeezer]

VMWare version --> 3.1.1


Anaz --> Dual boot... that basically means putting two or more operating systems on the same hard disk, one OS to a partition, right? Fair enough you just woke up, but from what I know of dual boots methinks you need to wake up just a tad more

[Ryx]

Originally posted by diamondgeezer

...
Now, the whole big virtual machine arrangemet would work fine, except that it insists on using the primary partition for its virtual hard disk, which of course is my NTFS-flavour C drive. Therefore, it won't allow 98 to set up. I tried creating a FAT32 partition and telling VMWare to use that directly, rather than using a virtual hard disk, but it still insists on trying to install 98 to the primary partition. There doesn't seem to be an option to tell VMWare to ignore all disks but the one I want...
....

If I read this bit right, then...

When you have created a machine in VMware, the harddrive (the virtual one) is unformated (You'll need bootdisks or boot from the CD). You can then partition the harddrive anyway you like. If you look in the folder where your VM is stored it's just a bunch of files there. VMware does not do anything to you existing setup (partitions and stuff). When you have made, say A VM win98 machine, you run it from XP (like a normal program window. There is a fullscreen mode, though). You don't actually boot up into Win98. It's more like a Terminal Server thing, except you can load different operating systems.

hmmm, make any sense?

[Sandwich]

AFAIK, NT OSes (cool, 3 consecutive acronyms!) work best (on dual-boot systems) when installed after a 9x version, not before. Installing 9x now will probably render your computer unaware of XP at the boot level, forcing you to reinstall XP to access it.

[Vertigo1]

Originally posted by Sandwich
AFAIK, NT OSes (cool, 3 consecutive acronyms!) work best (on dual-boot systems) when installed after a 9x version, not before. Installing 9x now will probably render your computer unaware of XP at the boot level, forcing you to reinstall XP to access it.

Not true.  You don't have to re-install at all.  Just use the recovery console.

[Anaz]

Originally posted by diamondgeezer
VMWare version --> 3.1.1


Anaz --> Dual boot... that basically means putting two or more operating systems on the same hard disk, one OS to a partition, right? Fair enough you just woke up, but from what I know of dual boots methinks you need to wake up just a tad more

yes, but each OS thinks that it's on C:...

I think we got the duel boot thing working by installing the first OS, creating the partition, installing the operating system loader, telling it to load off of the new partition, and then installing from there. My bro's computer has 2 installs of 98 SE that both think that their on the C: drive...

[an0n]

.........Drive designations mean ****. The boot-sector of the drive is all that really matters. A little program pops up and says "Right, I'm going to run Windows 98 instead of running Windows 2000" and so Win98 boots up, and it calls the hard-disk whatever it wants, be it C, D, Q or Z. All drive letters do is provide a simple reference system for man and machine so that when playing FS2 you don't have to access drive sectors 19,219 through 27,039 to run it, instead you just run c:\freespace\fs2.exe or whatever.


You might get some trouble if you've got two FAT32 systems running together or something as they can probably both read the sectors, but seen as I've never been bored enough to install two copies of the same OS I'm not to sure how that'd work.

[Fetty]

my system
c:\ fat32 win98se
d:\ ntfs winxp pro
e:\ fat32 all stuff (work/programs/games)
since 98 cant read ntfs its pretty save
and in xp you can lock the c drive but that isnt realy necesary
but
win98 replaces the MBR without a boot manager meaning xp doesnt exist for it
but i think it is possible with the repair featur of the xp instalation to get the xp boot manager up and runing again
havent tryd yet but if it doesnt work a reinstalation should be that overcomplicated

[diamondgeezer]

Screw it, I'll wipe the bloody thing and put Win 98 on it first... grumble...