Dual-Boot 98 & XP

[TylerHartman]

Hey I Have A Pc Running Xp. I Recently Bought A Hdd And Wanted To Install 98SE.
My Question Is, Can I Install 98SE From Windows Xp Onto The Other Hdd And Have A Dual Boot Kind Of Thing?

 

[Wombo Combo]

I would suggest installing it on a virtual machine. Because finding drivers for Win 98 is a pain. You can download virtualbox from here https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads and it has a option for installing 98 so you can run Windows 98 on your windows XP machine

 

[Originality]

Running a virtual machine is definitely the path with least hassle. In order to dual boot 98 and XP, you need to wipe XP, install 98 FIRST, then XP afterwards. The order of installations is always oldest first.

Might be a way to fix out-of-order installations by editing some system files, but that's a hassle.

 

[tHciNc]

Thought i had gone back in time for a minute there, I suppose atleast you dont want to dual boot with Windows Millenium

 

[migles]

...Can I Install 98SE From Windows Xp...

you need to install it on boot..
as mentioned above, virtual machine would be a good idea, but i guess its old hardware and a virtual machine probably wouldn't satisfy your needs and probably you got very limited amount of ram for use nowadays software (but i guess you could get a very old version of virtual machines)
(come on people, suggesting to virtual machine under ancient hardware )
IIRC both SO want to be installed on the first hard drive (or at very least, partition...) but i think xp can be insalled on the second one.. i don't remember well..
but best way like told above should first install the older one...

 

[raulpica]

(come on people, suggesting to virtual machine under ancient hardware )

Thanks heavens somebody actually thought about this. I was going to write the same thing

 

[Originality]

Didn't think about the hardware because nobody mentioned it.

It also reminded me that it's possible to run 98 from a floppy disk, so it may also be possible to run it from USB or something like that. Just need to add the USB drivers manually.

 

[raulpica]

Didn't think about the hardware because nobody mentioned it.

It also reminded me that it's possible to run 98 from a floppy disk, so it may also be possible to run it from USB or something like that. Just need to add the USB drivers manually.

The only thing the good ol' floppy booted was the Setup, you can't boot the entire operating system. Heck, even "miniXP" that ran from USB was a massive hack, no way that 98SE is going to run from USB

 

[migles]

The only thing the good ol' floppy booted was the Setup, you can't boot the entire operating system. Heck, even "miniXP" that ran from USB was a massive hack, no way that 98SE is going to run from USB

how many floppies it was? can you remind me? 13?

 

[raulpica]

how many floppies it was? can you remind me? 13?

Just one. A boot floppy to install from CD. The 98SE install itself only came on CD.

 

[Originality]

Actually it was four floppies. I don't remember how it worked (I was 10 at the time), but it left an impression. All I remember was that it wasn't the full version of Windows but a stripped down version....
What was the question of this thread again?

 

[raulpica]

Actually it was four floppies. I don't remember how it worked (I was 10 at the time), but it left an impression. All I remember was that it wasn't the full version of Windows but a stripped down version....
What was the question of this thread again?

Can't remember anything like that By the way here is Windows 95, which starts at 15 floppies. Can't imagine that Windows 98 could be less than that.
http://www.betaarchive.com/imageupload/1318107518.or.63535.JPG

Also, I think Win95 was the last version to also come on floppies.

Err, dualbooting 98 and XP. I suppose the quickest way is to buy another IDE HD for teh cheap and swap the boot device in the BIOS?

 

[migles]

Err, dualbooting 98 and XP. I suppose the quickest way is to buy another IDE HD for teh cheap and swap the boot device in the BIOS?

OP already bought a second hard drive for that, see first post

but i still think windows 98 (at least the first version) also had a floppy versions, either a upgrade version or the full
don't remember about using floppies to boot and install from a cd...

 

[raulpica]

OP already bought a second hard drive for that, see first post

but i still think windows 98 (at least the first version) also had a floppy versions, either a upgrade version or the full
don't remember about using floppies to boot and install from a cd...

Oh nice, then he doesn't need to do anything particular. Just disconnect one of the two HDDs while installing and then it's all managed by BIOS. Usually you can force a certain boot device on boot (F8 or something depending on the BIOS). Quick and painless.

Apparently you could order a special floppy version of Win98 from M$ but you had to request it directly to them. Not exactly common, then.

 

[TylerHartman]

OK I've got free dos running but it can't run the setup. Any ideas

 

[ILuvGames]

In answer to your OP. Although there are third party boot managers, your XP install should be formatted in FAT/FAT32 not NTFS as the Win98 setup cannot run on NTFS partitions. If that is the case, personally I would back up everything you need to a separate partition (Using FAT32 as the filesystem), delete the NTFS partition your XP install resided on then install Win98 using FAT32 for the filesystem.

 

[nastys]

In answer to your OP. Although there are third party boot managers, your XP install should be formatted in FAT/FAT32 not NTFS as the Win98 setup cannot run on NTFS partitions. If that is the case, personally I would back up everything you need to a separate partition (Using FAT32 as the filesystem), delete the NTFS partition your XP install resided on then install Win98 using FAT32 for the filesystem.

It's also possible to hide the XP partition, install 98 then unhide XP. Of course it won't be possible to access the XP partition from 98, but it will install.
I remember having done something like this many years ago.
I'm not sure about the third party boot managers, though.

 

[TylerHartman]

OK I've got it installed. Now my question is can windows 98 handle a 1tb drive?

 

[Foxi4]

Wanting to run Windows 98 is something I can understand (although remember to "snatch" some files from Windows 95, like cdfs.vxd - that file still haunts me after many years), but Windows XP? Why? There's absolutely no reason to run it these days, just go full-on 8.1 or wait for Windows 10.

As for Windows 98 and large drives, I believe problems only surface beyond the 2TB mark, and even that can be dealt with.

 

[Heran Bago]

Install XP on one partition, 98 on a second partition, and then Ubuntu or Linux Mint on a smaller third partition. Linux will take over the boot dealie, and you'll be able to choose from the three in the grub menu.