i have win 98 installed on my first partition, but when trying to install win NT it doesn't give me the option of specifying which partition or drive i'd like to use. I'd like to use the whole of my second hard drive which is FAT 16, but it just tells me it couldn't find any suitable dos partitions and just exits me. I can install NT on it's own but it doesn't give me the option to change whil 98 is there, which I think is strange. My aim is to have win 98 on my first partition, then linux on the second, then NT on its own on my second drive. Has anyone any ideas?

I have some experience with dual boot setup. I have recently setup 33 workstations with dual boot Win98 and NT Workstation 4.0. I found that you need to remove all partition on drive 0, your first drive. Create a 1GB boot partition and set it active using FAT16. Then load Win98 onto this partition. Be sure to load all of the current drivers for all of your devices. Then using the NT setup disks boot the computer. NT will search the system. It will find that you have Win98 installed and ask you if you want to use the same partition for NT. If it asks you if you want to reformat with NTFS the answer is no you can only use Fat16 with NT and Win98. You will then have to edit the boot.ini file in the root directory. If you want Win98 to boot by default you must copy the line with windows 98 in it to the DEFAULT line.

The best solution that have found for any problems with the installation of multiple and different filesystem types is to use Quarterdecks Partition-it. This software package comes with a brilliant utility called Select-it and will allow you to install numerous filesystems and will rid you of this dual boot problem.

Never use Windows98 FAT32 and NT on the same disk.They don't "see" each 0ther.Best practice is : install Win98 on C: , after that install NT.To change your default OS,in NT go : control panel> system> startup/shutdown.

I Was in the same problem, for the dual booting , but everything is resolved, now I have windows'95, NT and Linux on the same machine and all work without any problems. Thanks to the System Commander. Check this site www.v-com.com and look for system commander Deluxe. It is real very easy to set up multiple OS with the OS wizard of the system commander.

1.create boot FAT-partition - e.g 1 - 1.5GB 2.create extended FAT32 partition for WIN98 3.Install WIN98 on extended partition 4.Start WINNT-SETUP 5.create NTFS partition in WINNT-SETUP 6.WINNT notices automatically the presents of WIN98 and subscribes it in its boot.ini You use the FAT partition for booting and you can also use it as a common drive. You can read and write with both (WINNT and WIN98) there.

problem is your primary boot (C:) is FAT32; you'll have to backup what you want to keep (possibly on your 2nd HDD) and then clear all partitions and follow Andi's advice