Deeply Confused... Please Help

I apologize in advance for the long post.

After struggling unsuccessfully with the cause of a "missing ntfs.sys file" problem, which I never solved, I decided to take NTFS out of the equation and use FAT32. If this and the rest of my story make you think I'm a dumb nooby, it's alright, I feel like one.

I ended up using a single 6GB drive as my only drive, partitioning it into two primaries with Win98SE on one and WINXP Pro on the other. I formatted the drive FAT32. I used the 98SE drive, along with Partition Magic, to "break in" to the two original 100GB+ drives that I was locked out of by the ntfs.sys failure (BTW, I tried a Win repair, but was blocked by a missing "setupdd.sys" [I think] file). I moved my data around, creating more and more extended partition drives with FAT32. I now have one 6GB drive with 2 primary partitions, one with XP and the other with 98SE. I switch back and forth using Powerquest's PQBoot. I also have two 100GB+ drives, each with an extended partition with three logical drives, all FAT32. I can access all files from either XP or 98SE, of course, which was my goal for the next time XP went belly up.

I know that converting to FAT32 has cost me in reliability (?) and flexibility, but I was confounded by the erroneous "missing ntfs.sys" problem and didn't know where to go next.

Aside from your comments about what a mess I may have made of things (just remember, I was able to save all of my data), I have one more problem: Windows automatically (meaning I didn't realize it was doing it) creating a dual boot (boot.ini) that selects XP as 1st choice and "Windows" (98) as 2nd choice, but the latter just goes to a C: prompt. How can I eliminate the dual boot menu, or use the dual boot menu instead of the clumsy PQBoot?

 

Welcome to the bbs GeorgeS!

I don't think you are confused. Microsoft recommends using FAT32 when dual booting win98 and XP, and I have done so for years without any worries about " reliability (?) and flexibility" or security. I firmly believe that ntfs is fine for corporations but is out of place in home computers.

I'm not familiar with "clumsy PQBoot ", but one doesn't need any boot manager than the one in XP, so my reaction is to tell you to uninstall it and work with the boot.ini file to get win98 to boot correctly.

See http://support.microsoft.com/kb/289022/en-us

Back up the original Boot.ini file before making any changes.

 

Thanks...

Thanks for the advice. So I'm not as dumb as my wife thinks I am. I'll have to tell her.
PQBoot is an app that comes with PQMagic. A full-blown boot manager can be purchased separately (of course). While in XP, it allows you to tell your machine to hide the XP primary partition on the next boot and set the 98SE primary partition to active. And vice versa.
I'll follow up with your suggestion to use the boot.ini to dual boot, although I didn't load the OS's from oldest to newest like MS recommends.

 

Third party boot managers can be useful if one needs to hide a partition but I would not use PQBoot due to having to reboot to change OS's.

To your main problem

could be one of several problems.

At the prompt C: type in DIR 'press enter', is it the Win98 partition or XP partition ?

If it is the 98's partition at prompt C: type in WIN ' press enter', does it boot into 98 ?

If it is the XP's partition see site at
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/mosaddique/Dual-Boot - Add Win98SE to WinXP.html
and do the very last step missing Bootsec.dos file.

 

Dual Booting...

Thanks for your interest.
A dir command at the C: prompt that results when I select "Windows ", the second choice on the menu (the first is XP Pro) proves to be the XP partition; not the 98SE partition.
Remember, I'm talking about a single drive with two primary partitions, Win XP Pro and Win 98SE. 98 SE was installed after XP Pro.
My goal is to be able to access either partition while first booting up and not, as I do now, have to boot into the active drive OS in order to then use PQBoot to hide the current partition and make the other, hidden partition active, so that I can then reboot again to get into the other OS.
So, will the advice on Mossadiques Web Pages get me there?

 

It will but some modifications to the debug code may be needed.
You do not need to do the first parts only the Debug code.
If you have never used debug the prompt is a -, and for help ? .

Use a Win98 boot floppy and find if Win98 partition is C: or D:.
If it is C: change the 2nd line from N C:\bootsect.dos to N D:\bootsect.dos

IF it is D: you need to change the first line (very likely)
from L 100 2 0 1 to L 100 3 0 1

Do not remember if Debug is on the boot floppy or not, if you get bad command use X:\windows\command\debug . X=the win98 partition drive letter.

The debug code will save a copy of the Win98 partition's Volume Boot Record (needed for XP to boot into 98) to a file C:\Bootsect.dos, the file must be in the Root of XP's partition.

I know my instructions leave a lot to be desired, but will try to clarify if needed.

 

Continued...

Thanks for your input.
Drive D: is my Sony CD-Writer and remains so regardless of whether I boot into the XP partition or the 98 partition. Both XP and 98 are C: drives. They are on different primary partitions on the same physical drive.
When either one is hidden (via PQBoot) and made inactive, it cannot be accessed from (BIOS?) during boot up. It as if it doesn't exist.
The drive in question needs to be un-hidden and made active before rebooting or it just won't be there on the next boot.
I don't want to belabor this, but I just don't want to disable my PC by mucking around in the boot files unless I am really sure that what I'm doing is for the right reason.

 

Better rethink this out, it is to easy to drop some needed info from my brain sometimes. Due to both OS's are on C: it may not work to good to use XP's boot manager. If you use XP's one OS would end up being on D: and 98 would not work at all while XP will write some items to C: even if it is D: and may not work either.

Would just edit XP's boot.ini file and remove the entry for 98.

You could use a different boot manager that lets you select OS before booting and permits hiding of OS not in use, I use 2 different one on 2 comps.
PLOP--www.plop.at
GAG--www.majorgeeks.com/download2588.html
XOSL--www.ranish.com/part/xosl.htm
I can understand if it works leave it alone.

all are free and the first 2 are written on the first track only so do not take up hdd space. the third writes files to a partition. They all will hide any selected partition or hdd. GAG if I remember is the easiest to setup.

 

I'm getting more confused.

I have used linux's GRUB to dual boot and it works fine and doesn't require making anything invisible.

We really haven't tried simply addressing the problem using the XP dual booting process. One complication I can think of is that win98 may have to be on a primary partition so it can be made bootable which involves using DOS fdisk (or more likely a 3rd party program like partition magic), and possibly reinstalling win98 if it's on an extended partition. Then edit boot.ini to reflect the change and (possibly?) copy the XP booting files from the root of C: to the root of D: . XP's recovery console may have to be invoked at some point also, which would be an interesting exercise.

I've never done it this way, but see no reason yet that it couldn't be done.

A similar project has been described for new computers loaded with Vista, to dual boot XP and thus avoid losing ones presently functional programs.

 

The main problem is his boot manager 'PQBoot'. When he installed the second OS he had PQBoot hide the first OS, so now both are installed on C:. (both partitions are primary for XP and 98)

One would have to take care on removing PQBoot as one partition could remain hidden. A third party program would then be needed to see it.

With out an over the top install , 98 would not work as D:.
XP may or may not work if moved from C: to D: with out an reinstall ,past experiences . If an over the top install was done '98 or XP', it would work using XP's boot loader, but all updates would then have to be reinstalled. Likely more of a pain then its worth.

If XP was made as the boot partition and converted to NTFS, then it would also be no problem, after removing PQBoot. XP would remain C: and so would 98 (98 would not see XP's NTFS partition)

My opinion would be continue using a third party boot manager, but would change it to one that loads before the OS.

 

That sounds confusing to me. You can't install two different windows versions on one partition, although you certainly can install the same version on a partition on which it's already installed (see parallel installation). I suspect the separate disks (= partitions) are called C: by each OS (if they are!) when running because it believes it's been installed on C:. Actually, we don't know that since win98 has never run!! Whatever the boot program is doing (hiding one disk?) has confused the issue. Presume that's what you meant. When I dual boot my computer the disks are labeled correctly by both OSs. Wonder if when in XP the windows disk is visible on the machine in question?

I can't believe that! I'd have to be shown. Anyway a proper boot loader shouldn't have to hide anything to accomplish its job. When I multiboot to any OS (i've done linux, win98, XP, x64, and 2K) I can always see my entire computer and that's the way it should be.

You lost me here. What are you referring to by that terminology?

I disagree. That's why microsoft recommends using FAT32 rather than NTFS when mixing 98 and XP on the same computer. One should always be able to see one's entire computer.

 

sparrow--Will try to clarify some points

OP has a 6g hdd with 2 primary partitions. 1 with XP and the other has 98. With the use of PQBoot 1 partition is always hidden. If one uses XP's FIXBOOT or 98's FDISK MBR the one partition will remane hidden. IF PWBOOT has an uninstall command it might work as needed depending if the second partition was made before or after PqBoot was installed. All boot managers I've used will save the current MBR when installed, but if the partitions are changed latter , then one has problems.

Some sites recommend never let 2 OS's see each other ,I see no reason but sometimes it is required. I must hide/remove from MBR partitions to duel boot both my comps.

agree not the best terminology but have seen called a dirty install but should have used Repair Install.

We do not know that, all we know 98 will not run using XP's boot loader (it can not due to 98 partition being hidden), we would need clarification from OP if 98 will run when selected via PqBoot.

 

Guess that's my problem. It's my impression from reading several pages on symantec's site that nothing is really hidden:

In other words it modifies the bootsectors of the partitions making all but the chosen one not active (=bootable).

GeorgeS, I would appreciate viewing a screen shot of your disks in XP's Disk management. Go to control panel > administrative tools > computer management > disk management (under storage) and use alt-printscreen and paste into mspaint (ctrl-v) and save to your disk as a .jpg or .gif file. Then upload it by attaching it to your next post by clicking "manage attachments" in the "Reply to Thread" window, then under the "Upload File from your Computer" click browse and find the file on your computer and just click on it.

If I am correct that you can see all disks and partitions on your computer when running XP, and the problem you wish to solve is just to make win98 dual boot without using PQboot, then paste a copy of your boot.ini file in your next post and let me see if I can suggest a change that may solve that problem.

 

Emergency Drive....

Sorry that I'm "late" getting back. After trying this 'n that, I decided to do the following:
1- Use my small (6GB) drive #1, with two primary partitions, one with 98SE and the other with XP Pro, as an emergency drive (let's call it "ED," you can decide what the letters stand for; including "E-Dysfunction).
2- I used PartitionMagic (PM) to copy ED's XP Pro boot partition to a new, unallocated space that I created up-front in drive #2, a 100GB WDS.
3- Again using PM, I set the new primary partition on drive #2 as "active" and shutdown my PC.
4- I pulled the power plug on the two-OS ED drive #1 and restarted my machine. Drive #1, ED, was not found by BIOS, was therefore ignored and the PC booted to drive #2' s new primary partition OS, XP Pro. All went well.

So, I now have ED, sitting there silently, ready to be brought into play the next time I can't boot up into drive #2's XP Pro. All I have to do is plug in its power cable. ED will allow access to drive #2's three partitions (the OS, APP partition #2, and APP partition #3), as well as my 120 GB drive #3 (DATA partitions #1 thru #3), all running under FAT32 - using either XP or 98SE.

Period. No dual booting. No bringing ED into play with its two OS' until its needed. Make sense?

 

Nobody can argue with winning points! There are often many ways to affect a cure.

If I were in your seat now, I would plug the small drive back in, boot to the XP install CD, wipe the existing partitions and create a new one using all of the space, format it, reboot and use the new drive for storing up to date backup images of the current system drive. It's going to get badly out of date the way you are employing it now.

All the best.

 

Good advice, surferdude2. 6GB is tiny nowadays, and 3GB for XP would be tight unless parts are moved to other partitions.

GeorgeS, you've made the best choice, to use the larger disk for the most current OS. Altho I multiboot, I don't use the older OSs for much other than references to answer questions about them for a class I have. It's surprising how many folks still use 98SE and Me.

 

More on ED...

It's not meant to do anything more than provide me with emergency tools:
In reference to ED, my 6GB emergency boot drive, I see it as no more than a toolbox if I get in trouble. Besides havings both 98SE and XP Pro on it, I equipped it with tools that I might need if my big drive OS goes belly up:
1- Norton Utilities
2- Partition Magic
3- Access to the Internet
4- Several more utility Apps
Without a second, Internet-ready PC to use when you're in trouble, it can be very frustrating. When my "ntfs.sys" problem started, I had no way to search for help on the Web. I also couldn't access my OS. Booting to the Windows CD didn't work. I got a missing "setupdd.sys" file error every time I tried. I just wasn't knowledgeable enough to know where to go next.
Hopefully ED will give me a backdoor into the system and communication with the Web when I need it. All I have to do is plug in its power cable. Otherwise, it would have relegated to sitting on my shelf with the other old, undersized hard drives.