Hello. I've recently decided to bring back the old times and dual boot DOS/Win3.1 on my computer. I currently use Windows2000Pro on drive C: and have many important files. I've succesfully made a 2nd, 2gb primary partition which I will use for DOS and 3.1. I've also seemingly installed DOS7.1 with no problems. Now before I go on to install Windows 3.11... I have one major worry. I'm afraid to mess around with the active drive setting. It's either a memory or instinct, I know I have screwed over a computer in the past because of the active drive setting. From what I read, I need to make a boot disk and use it everytime I want to change the active drive. That seems like a hassle, I'm wondering if there's a simpler way. I've never dual booted and the whole process scares me a bit even though I have been experienced in computers for at least 2 years before Windows 95 came out. My Win2000 drive which is active is NTFS. My new drive is FAT32.

just remember, win 3.1 needs to be on drive c: win 2k will be on drive d: win 2k will setup the dual boot during its install

I'm not doing a clean install... I'm being very careful not to harm anything on drive C:. Please read through my first message? You're saying that Win3.1 will NOT install on any drive but drive C: ? I'm not reinstalling Win2k either.

I'm not familiar with setting this all up, although I've had a dual boot system with Whendox98 and Whinedoz2k, which is pretty much automatically setup if you load w9x first, then W2k, and I've had Linux on top of W9x That said, I assume you have NTFS as the W2k file system? I'm wondering this:: If you boot with a DOS bootdisk, that means that the "real" drive C: partition will not be recognized by DOS, and the DOS partition should be moved back a letter--to C:

Yep, DOS recognizes my E: drive as C: which is nothing new to me... I just need to know how to handle which drives are marked active. Is there a way both drives always can be marked active? Is there a simple way to switch the active drive? I think I'll be fine with setting the rest of windows up if I know how to deal with active drives.

I can't install Windows 3.11 until I figure out this active drive stuff. I do not want to toy or attempt with the active drives, until I know for certain how to change back or never change again. I tried installing it anyway (still, not changing active drive) and it gave me the error "NTLDR is missing"... which I'm pretty sure just means it can't read NTFS, and can't read the FAT drive since it's not active. Read this post and the previous one. Still need help.

Here is what I would do. Get another secondhand HDD on Ebay and install it in your computer. Use Ghost or Drive Image to make a copy of your current C: drive to the second HDD just installed. Since you say the info is valuable, I would be also inclined to copy it across to the second HDD with the image file as an extra precaution. You can then experiment with putting W3.1 onto your HDD with W2K. If it does not work format it and install W3.1 then W2K (which is the way to set up a dual boot system for W3.1+W2K)and copy your valuable backed up file to the new W2K installation. If all okay you are done. If not just reinstall you image and you are back to square one. While you are experimenting just disconnect the second HDD with the image and valuable backup files as an added percaution. Never done the above with W3.1+W2K but done it plenty of times with W98+W2K. Perhaps the more experienced members here may wish to give a more accurate commentary.