I have xphome preinstalled on my laptop on my 'C' Drive. Can I use something like ghost and take the image of my 'C' partition and then put it on my 'D'. To enable me to put w98se on the 'C' partition. My restore discs are of a ghost image to factory defaults and to 'C' partition unfortunately I cannot install the factory install to another partition. Thanking you all in anticipation.

Duncan, unfortunately all of the entries in your registry will then be pointing to the wrong drive, so nothing will work. You won't even be able to boot into Windows. Even if it worked, installing Win98 will rewrite the MBR & again make XP unbootable. Without the XP CD, you can't do the necessary "repair install" to restore the MBR. Sorry. Dave

Actually, for any NT version, the drive letter is a function of the installation process. Once installed, the drive letter is read from the registry, not the drive position like Win9x does. Two examples for you: #1 - I installed XP Pro on a single drive in a system. Made it the slave and put back in the original master drive. Copied the XP NTLDR and NTDETECT.COM to the master drive, edited the boot.ini file to point to the slave drive for XP. It comes up as C: inspite of being on the 2nd HDD (slave). #2 - Tried to install W2k Server on my P: drive from NT4 and W2k Pro. After the installation, the drive letter that it was installed to was L:. Took over an hour to regedit all the drive letters back to P:. Didn't know about http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;[LN];q249321 back then, so I haven't tried that method. It is also more of a problem that a Win9x install will write over the XP boot sector. Writing the MBR is no big deal - that's why people recommend using the Win98 boot floppy to fdisk/mbr, even for W2k/XP FAT32 drives. The actual code in the MBR only points to the boot sector. It is the boot sector code that actually calls up NTLDR or IO.SYS. Unfortunately, you would need the real XP CD to run the Recovery Console command fixboot. Even doing a partial re-install of XP that would re-write the correct boot sector would reqire the real XP install CD. The XP image is of no use for this unless it has the winnt32.exe file to install the Recovery Console. You might get away with using a 3rd party boot loader: osloader, boot magic and Ranish Partition Manager come to mind. There may be another, more involved method of doing what you want. BUT, you would risk losing your current data and setup if it doesn't work. And you would need Partition Magic. This is moot if that current drive is NTFS though. Post back here if you want to hear my idea.

Thanks guys for the info. No prob in loosing my data on 'C' as all is backed up as soon as changes are made a routine I got into and for the extra few seconds seems worthwhile backing up straight away. It seems a problem with buying laptops these days with xp preinstalled on one partition. The makers do not realise that people want to have extra partitions as well as maybe dual or triple booting. I take it you cannot use a proper legitimate copy of xphome and use the COA number that came with my preinstalled xphome because that would solve the problem?. Thanking you in anticipation again.

Good on ya for getting into the backup habit! Your product key is tied to the CD, so it wouldn't work. Besides, I think that OEM End User Licencing Agreement will state that "that" partiticular copy of the OS goes only with "that" machine. Something that was pointed out to me during a MS Licence to Sell tour. I know it is true of the Dell OEM EULA. I'm near the end of testing out my fix for you. That involved method, using your Repair CD, looks like it will work. I won't bother posting it unless someone is interested, explaining it will take some.

Thanks for your time michael. At your convenience I would appreciate your solution with great interest as well I think this would be of help to many others. Regards, duncan

First, you can get the Recovery Console by down loading the 6 floppy images from Microsoft. At least that was the gist of XP post 47709. That would simplify things greatly, being able to run fixmbr and fixboot. Ok, here goes. Some caveats first: -If c: drive is NTFS, this won't work, Win98 won't boot off of a NTFS drive. -This procedure will have W2k/XP on C:(primary) and Win98 on D:(logical in extended). -If the Recovery CD makes the C:\ partition by wiping the drive first, this will still work. I've seen some Recovery CD's that will accept a current C:, so much the better. This is moot if XP post 47709 is correct and Recovery Console will run from the floppies with out the XP CD. -You'll need Partition magic to size/move the drive. -If you ghost, do it partition to partition, not drive. I simulated that by having another HDD with an OS on it and enough disk space for a copy of a running XP and Win98. -You will need a burner or another HDD (even a network drive will work) to copy the installed Win98 to. Get the read.scr program from dougknox.com. It is the simplest and quickest way of making the BOOTSECT.DOS file, needed to dual boot XP/Win9x. How: With XP installed/imaged on C:, make a boot disk by formating the floppy from within XP. Copy the NTLDR, NTDETECT.COM and BOOT.INI files to it. CHECK that it will boot to the GUI logon screen and you can get in. I resized the XP drive and then moved the partition to the end of the drive (with PM7). This left a good chunk of free space at the beginning of the drive. This I made into an Extended partition with 1 logical drive, FAT32 for Win98. KEEP track of the size numbers you use, they will need to be used later. Install Win98 onto it. This will put the boot files (IO.SYS, MSDOS.SYS, Command.com) onto the C: partition -XP drive. It also changes the XP boot sector to that of Win98. Run the read.scr to make the BOOTSECT.DOS file (under Win98). Copy it to the boot floppy you made. Add C:\="MS Win98" to the boot.ini file on that floppy. What is in the quotes doesn't matter, it just lists that on the dual boot menu. This floppy will allow you to dual boot your XP and Win98. Good as long as it lasts. CHECK that it boots to both Win98 and XP Home. ********************************************* At this point, I'd boot into the XP Recovery Console off the floppies, rather than what I'll say below (per XP post 47709). Run the fixboot. Check to make sure that the bootsect.dos file is still there. If not, copy it down from the boot floppy you made, and the boot.ini file. You should have a working, dual boot system on the HDD. ********************************************* Copy the Win98 folders (My Docs, Program Files and Windows) to another HDD, CDR or CDRW. Image if you want, partition to partition. Copy the IO.SYS, MSDOS.SYS and COMMAND.COM files from the C: drive (XP) to the boot floppy you made. In XP, delete the logical drive and the extended partition. Now you can use the Recovery CD to do your C: drive. If it accepts the current C: partition, so much the better (I think that means you didn't have to wack the D: drive). If not, no biggy. Just resize and move the drive as you did above. This is where the numbers you kept track of (above) come into play. USE THE SAME NUMBERS. Make the Extended partition and logical drive, with the SAME NUMBERS. Copy the Win98 folders back down to it (D:). Copy the BOOTSECT.DOS, IO.SYS, MSDOS.SYS, COMMAND.COM and boot.ini files from the boot floppy to the C: drive (XP). You should now have a working, dual boot system on the HDD. I know it is a little irregular to have an extended partition on the drive first, then a primary partition (it does work). I had originally thought of going the route ala W2k post 28743 (2 primary drives). This proceedure would work with primary 1st and then extended. (not bad, only took a little over an hour to write up)