thanks, l-ms, your suggestion is very helpful. I was unable to try last night as some files in the slave (2-HD) had not backed up by my sister yet. Will try tonight. To tell more about my situation, here is my config. HD-1: 15G, Quantum LM, ATA66 HD-2: 2.1G, NEC DES-2100A, ATA33 Before any upgrade to Me & Win2000, I had 2 copies of Win 98, one on HD-1(master), primary partition; another one on HD-2(slave), primary partition. Ofcourse, I was unable to boot the slave in normal situation, so I found one 3rd party utility called "OS Loader 2000", it is small in size and works great so far. I can had a menu and choose which drive to boot up, either a:, HD-1 or HD-2, no problem at all. But once I mess around the HD-1, which means I delete everthing without formally uninstall the 3rd party boot utility, I cannot boot HD-2(slave), although Win98 in priamry partition of HD-2, which is c: of Hd-2. I believe the OS loader 2000 had overwrite something and it was my mistake of not unistall the program properly. So last night, I had to reinstall a fresh copy of Win98 and installed OSLoader 2000 (which actually use DOS, that's why I had to install win98 again, Me does not use any DOS now). OS Loader recoginzed HD-2(slave) and able to pick the infomation up and displayed on its menu, that means I can boot to HD-2 again! Now, lm-s, I have a few questions: 1. Let say I clean up everything in HD-1 & HD-2, I format as follow (like what you suggest): Hd-1 (master): Primary partition: 'Me' (C:) Extendend: 'Junk' (D:) '2000' (E:) HD-2 (slave): Extended: 'win98' (F:) Will I be able to boot to HD-2 (f:) if I make HD-2 as master and physically discconnect HD-1. Which means the system now only has HD-2 as master? 2. What if I had done something stupid to HD-1 and cannot boot, how can I retreive the data in HD-2? 3. Which file makes Win98 to boot up? I tried to use a floppy boot disk to boot Win98, it went to dos okay, but as I type 'win' at c:\windows prompt, it says HiMEM.SYS is missing, I checked the windows directory, HIMEM.SYS is in the directory, why cannot go into Win98? I really appreciate your advice since I am not an expert in this area. Also, sorry for my english if that confuse you.

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OK..I was rite and so was lm-s, there is a second setting in folder views and it controls the view of "SUPER HIDDEN" files. OK than what is ARCLDR???

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Answering your questions about reconfiguring your HD’s… If there is only an Extended partition on a HD then you cannot boot from it… To allow a HD to be bootable you must have the Primary partition, and also the system files for an OS installed there, and it must betive’… If you make HD-2 with an Extended partition only, then it will only be accessible via another bootable drive – either another HD (e.g. your present HD-1) with an installed OS (and one that can ‘see’ FAT32) or a boot-floppy. So if you were to lose your present HD-1, you would need a ’98 boot-disk to access the Extended (only) partitioned HD-2; it will have to a ’98 disk (or ‘95 OSR2b or c) as these are the boot-disks disks that can read FAT32… If you wished to be able to lose/remove HD-1 and be able to access HD-2, then it would be wiser to install ’98 on on HD-2 with HD-2 set as the SINGLE Master (NO Slave). There would need to be either a single Primary partition on HD-2, or both a Primary and an Extended area; then install ’98 into the Primary partition; or the Extended area. If you chose to put ’98 into the Extended area, then the ’98 boot/start-up files would automatically go into the Primary partition (active primary) on the HD-2; this would would happen if HD-2 was the only HD present (or the MASTER/bootable HD), when you ran ’98 set-up routine. ’98 would automatically install its boot/start-up files into the C: primary partition, and put the system (OS itself) files into the Extended area when you told it to… If you opted to install ’98 into the C: Primary area then both the boot/start-up files and the system files (the OS itself) would be in that partition. If you then rearranged both HD’s so that HD-1 (the ME system…) was back as MASTER WITH SLAVE, and HD-2 was now reset to SLAVE, you would still need to re-install ’98 on HD-2 (in effect do an overwrite) so as to establish the ’98 boot/start-up files within the c: system (active primary) partition on HD-1; thus allowing NT/W2K’s boot-loader to know about the presence and location of ’98 on HD-2 Whichever HD is the MASTER, all installed OS’s have to be installed through that HD’s C; system partition; so as to install all OS boot/start-up files there… If you had only an Extended partition on HD-2 and lost HD-1, then as long as you have ’98 boot-disk, you can access the data on HD-2. If HD-2 had a Primary partition and ’98 was installed as outlined above (into either the Primary or Extended area), then by resetting HD-2 to be a MASTER HD you could boot to it and run/access ’98… If you examine the contents of a boot-disk you will see a selection of files there. Fdisk, Format, Delete; and a few other files including: IO.sys; Config.sys: MSDOS.sys; Command.com; probably Command.dos and IO.dos and maybe Autoexec.bat. If I remember correctly… the critcial files are: command.com; IO.sys; MSDOS.sys; Config.sys. But I stand to be corrected on this bit – I don’t have my manuals to hand to confirm which files are which for the boot sequence… http://support.microsoft.com/support/windows/readme/98/W98setuptxt.asp http://support.microsoft.com/support/windows/readme/Win98se/w98sesetuptxt.asp may be useful items to read from M$ Knowledge Base…They include how to install/load HiMEM.sys which is what’s missing from your boot-disk instructions… If no-one comes through with more specifici information on the boot-disk issue I’ll dig into my manuals at home and see what’s there – you could do the same??? Your English is just fine! Good luck…

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I would simply buy System Commander and not risk wasting time trying to do manually what is easily done automatically.

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No luck at all! Cannot do a triple boot. I need 3rd party program. I tried OS Loader 2000, free to download and somehow I cannot see my ext.partition in HD-1, I send am email to the author and hopes he can help me. That means I have to go back Win98 since the OSLoader works for DOS.

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folks are going to think i get a commission here but i dont.... www.masterboot.com up to 12 os's 19 bucks nothing very easy to use

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Go to c:\, type attrib -h -r -s boot.ini. You can do this from windows 2000 from command.com. Then you can type edit, hit alt, f, o, then navigate to your boot.ini file and open it and modify it. "Response Number 4 Name: CrackedUp Date: September 26, 2000 at 08:15:46 Subject: Triple boot (Me, Win2000, 98) Reply: Uh I could be wrong but the bootstrap has been changed when used in conjunction with ME. A search for boot.ini and for the NTLDR yelded no results!!Difficult to edit files that you can't see. I belive that M$ has moved the B.L. to zero track for security." Go to http://www.winplanet.com/winplanet/tutorials/737/1/ "Response Number 11 Name: master Date: September 29, 2000 at 11:24:27 Subject: Triple boot (Me, Win2000, 98) Reply: No luck at all! Cannot do a triple boot. I need 3rd party program. I tried OS Loader 2000, free to download and somehow I cannot see my ext.partition in HD-1, I send am email to the author and hopes he can help me. That means I have to go back Win98 since the OSLoader works for DOS."

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