Thinking caps ready? I have a Toshiba notebook with Windows XP pro installed on NTFS single C: partition, and want to install Windows 2000 pro to run hardward XP doesn't like. I've read other articles on how to do this all with drawbacks. Has anyone tried to use Partition Magic 8 to create space before the NTFS section for a FAT partition, and install Windows 2000 there? Will Windows 2000 then recognize the XP NTFS section and add to a dual boot menu? (Partition Magic suggests adding a 50mb FAT partiton before the NTFS partition for it's Boot Maagic.) Any suggestions would be welcome. P.S. I would prefer not to start over and install Windows 2k and then XP as suggested because of the programs/updates already under XP. hcb1942

Based on my experience, I think it should work OK...nothing ventured nothing gained...you can't harm the XP install trying it out.

THis proceedure is proven for 98 /Me and I do not know why it should not work for 2000. First, I would add that, XP must installed ont he first partition: use PM to create a second partition after NTFS xp Partiton and then convert the 2nd partiton to FAT32. Install 2000 into that 2nd partition. This way all the XP registry entries remain intact as it will recognise any two or more partitions on the drive and assign drive letter D to 2nd, E to 3rd etc. The Proceedure for a Dual Boot System, after XP is installed: This procedure assumes that Windows XP is installed on drive C: No support is offered for other drive letters. Drive C: must be FAT16 or FAT32 to be able to install Windows 98/Me after XP is already installed. The 98/Me installation routine cannot write to an NTFS partition. You must have a second hard disk or partition formatted for FAT16/32 in order to be able to install Windows 98/Me. Installing 98/Me to the same partition as Windows XP is NOT RECOMMENDED! I recommend the use of a Windows 98/Me Startup disk for this procedure. You should ensure that DEBUG.exe is on your Startup disk. If it isn't, it can be copied from the Windows\Command folder. On a 98/Me Startup disk, created from Add/Remove Programs, its in the EBD.CAB file on the Startup disk. For a 98 Startup disk created from FAT32EBD.exe its on the floppy Installing Windows® 98 1) Use a Win98/Me Startup disk (with CD support) to boot your computer. 2) Insert your Win98/Me CD into the CD Rom drive. 3) At the A: prompt type X:\Win98\Setup.exe (for Win98) or X:\Win9x\Setup.exe (for Win Me) where X: is your CD-ROM drive. 4) Proceed with the install. When prompted for the install location, you'll see C:\Windows.000. Choose Other directory and change this to the drive you wish to install 98/Me to and name the folder Windows (or something else if you prefer). 5) Complete the Win98/Me install. Allow the computer to boot into Win98/Me. Repairing the Windows® XP Boot Loader 1) Create a Win98/Me Startup Disk 2) Create a Notepad file with the following entries, exactly as shown: L 100 2 0 1 N C:\BOOTSECT.DOS R BX 0 R CX 200 W Q 3) Save the file to the Win98/Me Startup Disk as READ.SCR 4) Boot the computer with the Win98/Me Startup Disk and at the A: prompt type DEBUG Steps 1 - 4 create the BOOTSECT.DOS file needed to boot Win98/Me. For your convenience, you can download READ.SCR here. I suggest you use right click and Save As. You may need to use the ATTRIB C:\BOOTSECT.DOS -S -H -R command if BOOTSECT.DOS already exists and you get an error when trying to recreate it. 5) Configure your computer to boot from the CD drive. This is done in the BIOS, or your computer may offer the option at startup if it detects a bootable CD. Consult your computer's manual for more information. If your computer does not support booting from CD-Rom, you should also be able to boot with a 98/Me Startup disk, and run WINNT.exe from the I386 folder of your XP CD. 6) Insert your XP CD and boot from it. 7) You'll see some files being copied, then you'll be presented with a choice of installing or repairing an existing installation. Choose Repair. 8) You'll be asked which XP installation you want to log into. Enter 1. There is usually only one installation. 9) You'll be prompted for the Administrator password. For Home, the default password is blank, so just hit Enter. For Pro, enter the same password you did during setup for the Administrator account (this is not the same as the password for an Admin level account. It must be the Administrator account password). 10) At the C:\Windows prompt, type FIXBOOT. You'll be prompted to confirm. Do so. 11) When FIXBOOT is finished, remove the XP CD and type EXIT and the machine will reboot. Reconfigure your computer to boot from the hard drive if necessary. You will now get the XP Boot loader with your choice of operating systems.

Here is the procedure for 2000. Although the easier way is to do a repair install of XP after you load 2000. Just boot to the XP cd like you're doing a clean install. Go "past" the recovery console an then choose "R" for repair. Go Here and scroll down about two thirds down the page for detailed instructions. Regards

Make a XP boot disk by formating a floppy in XP. Copy the NTLDR, NTDETECT.COM and BOOT.INI files from C:\ to the floppy. TEST IT by booting with it. You should come up to the GUI logon screen. Make your free space to install W2k. No need for a FAT or FAT32 partition. The NTFS5 used by XP is the same for W2k. I've used PM 7 to shrink my XP partition, making free space after the XP partition. Install your W2k. It should change the boot.ini file on C:\, adding the dual boot for W2k to the existing XP entry. You shouldn't need to, but if the dual boot menu doesn't show XP and W2k, just edit the boot.ini file on C:\, change it for your config. Once up in W2k, copy the floppy NTLDR and NTDETECT.COM files back down to C:\, overwriting the W2k boot files. You could also copy these files from the XP CD. That's it, that's all. Brian's excellent instructions are not needed for dual booting multiple NT versions. The NT boot sector always points to NTLDR (W98 and ME point to IO.SYS and MSDOS.SYS) and doesn't care which version of NTLDR it is. Only the OS cares. NTLDR is not forward compatible, ie NT4's will not boot W2k, W2k's will not boot XP. XP's NTLDR will boot NT4 and W2k. Smokey's way is also for when you are trying to recovery from adding a non NT OS. So no need for the repair route. You only need the XP boot loader files to replace the W2k ones. Oh, one last thing, copy the working dual boot boot.ini file to the floppy. In case your MBR or boot sectors get hosed, this floppy will still boot to your OS's.

Listen to michael, He's the best at dual booting but he is not always available. My way would of repaired your bootloader but its the long way to do it. Michael knows all the shortcuts. I just wasn't sure since you were talking about using Fat. Michael, If hcb1942 was to use Fat, would your procedure still work for him? Regards

Smokey, Not sure about being "the best", trvlr gives me a run for my money (and teaches me things). I do try to hit the forums every day, but sometimes it is only once a day (or midnight). And I'll usually track a post I'm working on for a week, more if the person says they'll post back their results. Regarding using FAT, yes it would work. One of the things you have to realize is what the installation process of the various MS OSs does to the boot sector (and what the boot sector does). Loosely put: The M$ MBR looks for the ACTIVE (80) partition and its location (from the partition table (01BE to 01EE of the MBR) to load the boot sector. It also checks 01FE for the 55AA code. Once control of the boot process is passed to the ACTIVE partition's boot sector, it will look for boot loader files to load the OS. A Win9x boot sector will look for IO.SYS and MSDOS.SYS. NT versions look for NTLDR - which in turn looks for NTDETECT.COM and the boot.ini files. When you install either type of OS, the boot sector of the ACTIVE partition gets written with the reqirements of that particular M$ OS. This is regardless of the format of the drive, but does depend on what formats that OS can handle (this is why a small ACTIVE FAT partition is so handy). We all know that Win9x cannot read/write a 'same system' NTFS partition (IT WILL OVER A NETWORK - man, the number of times I've corrected that), nor NT4 a FAT32 partition (nor install to a NTFS5 drive - natively). As an aside: I was most surpised to boot NT4 from a FAT32 drive (NT post 18519). Tried but couldn't get Win98 to boot from a NTFS drive (XP-43011 response #3). hcb1942 wants to dual boot two types of NT, both of which read FAT/FAT32/NTFS. SO, the boot sector put down by either OS will still look for the NTLDR file. It is the NTLDR versions that will make the difference here. They are not forward compatible, but are backwards compatible (thanks to whomever it was that corrected me - sorry for being so crass back then). This means that NTLDR and NTDETECT.COM should be from the newest NT OS you are going to boot (I use the .NET and XP ones on my systems). Win9x's boot sector on the other hand, look for the IO.SYS and MSDOS.SYS files. NTLDR defaults to looking for a bootsect.dos file if it reads a C:\="whatever" in the boot.ini file. You can tell it to look elsewhere ie: C:\=linux.dos"Your falvour of Linux". BTW, Brian's included code (from dougknox.com if I'm not mistaken) is the quickest way of making a bootsect.dos file of a Win9x boot sector - bar none. I use it. Found a Debug tutourial at ohmslaw.com for those interested in what those commands are doing. Sorry for sounding so pedantic and long winded, must be old age creaping up on me. Hope I answered your question.