My mates having all kinds of problems with games on his winxp HE new PC. I want to dual boot his existing XP installation with win98se. Will this work??..... 1) Backup his harddrive 2) Fdisk Hard drive (2 Partitions) 3) Reformat Partitions 4) Put WinXP hard drive backup in c: 5) Install Win98se into D: Partition

I have a dual boot with W98 and WXP and it works fine. Not sure if it can be done the way you describe because I have read that the W98 partition must be first. That is not necessarily a problem though because with Partition Magic, you could expand the present C: partition then divide into two parts. One would be the existing C: drive and the other would be unallocated space. You could then swap places using Partition Magic so that the unallocated space is first on the drive and then create another partition in it. Then it would be clear for an installation of W98. I don't know a way to do this with fdisk without losing all the existing data and programs. Not sure this would work but in theory, it seems like it could. Someone is bound to respond with their thoughts or experience with this idea.

You need to install Windows 98 first so XP will find it and set itself up to dual boot with it. You'll have to reinstall XP too, you can't just copy a backup onto the drive or it won't know that 98 is there.

Yeah I know what you mean, Win98se 1st then XP so it finds 98se and sets Dual boot up. Problem is, I didnt get an XP OS CD_ROM when I purchased my PC (It was pre-installed) So I cant install XP again!! Cant I Partitionmagic the 2 Partitions, Keeping WinXP on 1 partition and Install win98se on the other and then "Repair" the winXP OS somehow??? or manually edit XP to find 98se???

Go back to where you bought the PC from and ask for the disk, by law you are entitled to the CD. Unless the seller is installing XP illegally, in which case, ask for a refund on the price of XP.

Sounds like what HP is trying to get away with. Yes by all means go back to the store or contact the manufactuer and request a disk. HP for example will send you one if you ask them.

I heard that with new HP computers you can't really "tinker" with the hard drive. From my understanding, you can't re-install the OS even (anyone please let me know if I am mis-informed here). From what I understand, with an HP computer, you have to send the hard drive back to them to get re-imaged as they have made it impossible for th end user to do their own work to restore the OS.