Hmmm... Windows 98 help.

[Rath Darkblade]

OK, here's the situation: I'm currently dual-booting, using two hard drives (which I named C and D). Drive C is running Windows 2000; Drive D is running Windows XP (with Service Pack 2).

What I want to do is install Windows 98 on drive C so that I can run old legacy games on it - QfG, Grim Fandango, MI3, GK1 etc. However, my Windows 98 CD-ROM is not bootable; and although I have a Windows 98 boot disk, it doesn't recognise either drive C or D - or my DVD-ROM drive for that matter.

Does anyone know what I can do? Thanks.

[Collector]

Your hard drives are probably formatted in NTFS, which 98 cannot read. Drive C: needs to be in FAT32. There is no NTFS to FAT32 converter with Windows. There are 3rd party utilities, such as Partition Magic that can do so. If you do, you will need to delete the "WINNT", "Program Files" and the "Documents and Settings" folders before you install Win98. Be careful what you delete in the base of the C: drive. The Win98 installer will see that there is a Windows NT on another partition and leave the boot sector as is.

If you can't convert, you can format your C: drive. This is where it gets a little tricky. If you format C:, your XP will not be bootable. You will need to restore the boot sector of your C: drive for your XP. After installing Win98 you could try to do a repair install of XP or use the recovery console with your XP CD to restore it. Be sure to do a backup of your XP drive before you start.

At worst you can do a clean install both. Just install 98, first.

[DeadPoolX]

The easy solution is buy a new (relatively small and inexpensive) hard drive and format that as FAT32.

[Rath Darkblade]

Hmmm... if I buy a new hard drive, I'll have to swap it over for the one I currently have (since I only have 4 IDE controllers). Won't that cause similar boot sector problems to what Collector pointed out? *worried*

[Collector]

What matters is that your HDD 0 (C:) drive is FAT32. Every OS will have to boot from that drive.

[Rath Darkblade]

OK... I've had a look at hard drives today. The only thing available, apparently, are external hard drives - the smallest is 160 GB. If I install one of those, I would have drive C (running Win2K), drive D (WinXP) and drive G (Win98). I don't need three hard drives... is there a way to install the new drive, then to rename it as drive C and get rid of the current drive C?

[DeadPoolX]

What matters is that your HDD 0 (C:) drive is FAT32. Every OS will have to boot from that drive.

Good to know. I hadn't thought of that.

[Collector]

Does your machine have a PATA or SATA interface? If it is an older machine I would assume PATA. You will have to take into account the master/slave settings if you change physical drives. The C: drive will be the master drive on the primary IDE port. You probably won't be able to boot from an external drive, though it could be used to backup your data before you start.

[Rath Darkblade]

The machine has a SATA interface (I checked). I had a word with a friend of mine on ICQ, who recommended that I forget the whole Windows 98 idea because (as he said) I shouldn't let a FAT32 drive be the master of an NTFS drive. He said that if I want to get rid of drive C (which I still do, since I never use it and it uses extra power and produces extra heat, which I don't need), the only way is to back up, re-format both drives, swap over drive D for C, and reinstall. Is this right?

[Collector]

There is no reason to worry about the C: drive as the master formatted as FAT32. XP will only use it to begin the boot process. The only real question is if your machine is new enough to have a SATA interface you might have problems finding drivers for your hardware. Manufacturers have not made 98 drivers for a while.

If you want to eliminate your C: drive and have XP on your primary drive, you will need to do a clean install of XP. If you are willing to do this, you might as well try to install 98, anyway. If you have any problems, you can scrap it and do your XP install on C:.

[Rath Darkblade]

Hmmm... well, I do have a Windows 98 CD-ROM (Second Edition) and a Win98 floppy boot disk. When I try to boot from this disk, everything is fine... however, it does not recognise any of the other drives (hard drives or DVD-ROM drive). :\

The autoexec.bat on the floppy reads as follows:

"
@echo off

MSCDEX.EXE /E:banana /L:R
"

But when I boot from the disk, mscdex.exe doesn't run - i.e. DOS doesn't recognise it as a valid command. I'm not really sure what the problem is... any ideas?

[Collector]

Hmmm... well, I do have a Windows 98 CD-ROM (Second Edition) and a Win98 floppy boot disk. When I try to boot from this disk, everything is fine... however, it does not recognise any of the other drives (hard drives or DVD-ROM drive). :\

It won't recognize an NTFS drive. As far as you DVD goes, I'm not sure. Is it a SATA, too?