Re: Multiboot win xp installation - a couple of quickies
- From: Bruce Chambers <bchambers@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 08 Sep 2005 19:52:30 -0600
Dan wrote:
Hi,
Currently My hard disk is partition as:
50 gig fat32 partition (winme installed on here)
30 gig fat32 partition (98se on this one)
70gig NTFS partition which I'm gonna put XP home on
The rest: just as an overflow - and for swapping data between os's (system has os selector)
2 quick questions:
1 - Should I change the NTFS partition to fat32 -
No, unless it's absolutely necessary that you be able to access that partition from withing Win9x/Me.
Personally, I wouldn't even consider using FAT32 when NTFS is an option. FAT32 has no security capabilities, no compression capabilities, no fault tolerance, and a lot of wasted hard drive space on volumes larger than 8 Gb in size. But your computing needs may vary, and there is no hard and fast answer.
To answer your questions without getting too technical is difficult, but has been handled quite well by Alex Nichol in the article here:
FAT & NTFS File Systems in Windows XP http://www.aumha.org/a/ntfs.htm
Somewhat more technical information is here:
Limitations of the FAT32 File System in Windows XP http://support.microsoft.com/directory/article.asp?ID=kb;en-us;Q314463
Choosing Between File Systems http://www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/default.asp?url=/TechNet/prodtechnol/winntas/tips/techrep/filesyst.asp
NTFS file system http://www.digit-life.com/articles/ntfs/
Heard of problems with NTFS and multibooting
Can't imagine what kind of problems you might have heard of, but there aren't any. Granted, the WinXP NTFS partition will be inaccessible to the Win9x/Me installations, but this hardly constitutes a problem. In fact it's actually a good thing, as neither Win98 or WinMe have any security capabilities whatsoever; an NTFS partition would be protected from anything (malware, viruses, etc) that invades the Win9x/Me installations.
2 - can I just boot either ME or 98se, insert the xp home upgrade cd and install onto the 70g partition, or will I need to install ME or 98 onto that partition first?
It would be best just to simply boot from the WinXP CD and let it automatically create the multi-boot menu.
The simplest way I've found to dual boot between Win9x/Me and WinXP would be to partition your drive(s) roughly as follows:
C: Primary FAT32 Win9x/Me/Legacy Apps D: Extended NTFS WinXP/Modern Apps
Adjust the partition sizes according to your actual hard drive(s) size and the amount of space you'd like to allocate to each OS and its applications.
Create the partitions using Win9x's FDISK so you can enable large disk support (FAT32). (No need for 3rd party partitioning utilities/boot managers and their frequent complications.)
Install Win9x/Me first, being sure to select "C:\Windows" (or D:\Windows, if you prefer) when asked for the default Windows directory. When you subsequently install WinXP, be sure to specify "D:\Winnt" (or "D:\Windows," "C:\Winnt" as referred/applicable) when asked for the default Windows directory, to place it in the other partition. The WinXP installation routine will automatically set up a Multi-boot menu for you. The default settings for this menu can be readily edited from within WinXP. NOTE: If you elect to place Win9x/Me on the "D:" drive, you'll _have_ to leave the "C:" drive as FAT32.
This method can be adapted to using 2 physical hard drives by placing the boot partition (C:, which still must be FAT32) and either of the operating systems on the Primary Master hard drive, and the second operating system on the second hard drive.
It is also possible to have a 3rd partition for shared applications, but it would be necessary for such a partition to be formatted in the common file format (FAT32). The applications would also have to be installed into each OS (to ensure proper system file placement and registry updates), one at a time, but the bulk of the program files could be located on this common partition. I do not, however, actually recommend doing this as, if you were to uninstall such an application from one OS, you may not be able to gracefully uninstall it from the second OS, having already deleted crucial installation data during the first uninstall action.
Just about everything you need to know (URLs may wrap):
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q217/2/10.ASP
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/using/howto/gettingstarted/multiboot.asp
3 - Any issues with the proposed XP partition starting so far into the disk?
None, whatsoever.
--
Bruce Chambers
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You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having both at once. - RAH
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