The minimum requirement you need for NT/’9x dual-boot is a C: system FAT16 (active primary) partittion.. You have a large HD, so you can make one around 250-500Meg; I’d go for 500Meg. Copy over the i386 folder into it, and also the ’98 folder of its CD. You can install both OS’s from here. Obviously you will need a boot-disk with CDROM support to copy over the respective folders…
Usually you install ’98 first, but it can be done last if your prefer.
I’d install NT first from the c: system 1386 folder; pointing it to the extended area of the HD. Make its boot-partition (where the actual OS itself goes) 2Gig. although under NT you can have a FAT16 partition upto 4Gig, and there is no harm in going that high (though I feel that 2Gig is more than enough…). Leave it as FAT16; in a domestic/low security environment FAT16 is adequate (NTFS in the boot-partition is overkill…).
c:\i386\winnt /b /x /s:c:\i386 (and press Enter)
is the command to install NT from the C: drive location.
Once NT is installed, MAKE the ERD and keep safe!
Then install ’98, again off the C: system ’98 folder… Point it to the extended area, and after the area used by the NT OS files… If you wish you can go FAT32, or stay at FAT16… FAT32 does allow the larger logical disk size…
If ’98 ‘decides’ to overwrite/replace the NT boot-loader then run the ERD routine for NT once ’98 installed…
The rest of the HD you can break up as you feel fit. You can create both NTFS and FAT32 areas as you feel… Remember that any common accessed areas must be FAT16 – unless you resort to utils from < sysinternals.com > that allow NT to ‘see’ FAT32, and ‘9x to ‘see’ NTFS areas…
http://www.computing.net/windowsnt/wwwboard/forum/3279.html offers a slight variation on this scenario
Read John Savill’s info on using larger HD’s:
http://www.ntfaq.com – Installations section; have a good hunt/browse (he includes assorted links to M$ items on this issue…)…
Good luck...
