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I need to put Win2000 on my work laptop because of some old stupid program we use once in a blue moon here at work. I don’t want to loose everything and would like to keep my WinXP since that seems to be the way to go now a days. So I was thinking I’d do a dual boot, but everything I see says you need to put XP on last. If I were to use partition magic and then something like XOSL for the booting could I then dual boot and not have to loose it all? Anyone done anything like this without problems. Yeah, I know, problem free computing is impossible.
I don't think that would work. The suggestion
I have is to ghost your xp on to another drive, do the necessary fdisk and formats and start with 2000. Another possibility would be to use partition magic, establish your partitions and install 2000 on a seperate partition.
For clean installs, I'm sure it does suggest putting xp on last, however, your in a different category.
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partition the drive using partition magic ... use a boot manager that allows you to hide a partition (i.e. bootstar) ... hide the xp partition and install win2k.
Today's subliminal thought is: 'Calm down ... it's only ones and zeros.'
icq 10183575
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If you're required to run Win2K for work, then your IT support should do it for you. The proper way to do it would be back up your entire HDD, reload the machine, and then copy your data back to the machine.
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That would imply we have an IT dept here! I'm sort of on a sub contract away from the main office. So I'm the IT for the laptop. Scary.......
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Backup all data first - regardless of how you go about; better safe than sorry.
Options to consider:
(1) Use System Commander (or another similar util) to create another partition for W2K. It can be a second Primary or an Extended partition. (I tend to shy away from suggesting PM as it has some reported issues with XP...; none reported with System Commander). XOSL may/may not be OK with XP (and/or W2K)? There are other freebie utils out there too... Again backup first.
(1a) Once you have the partition - if another Primary - then use its associated boot-manager with the util of choice to select which Primary, and thus which OS to boot.
(1b) If an Extended partition then XP will remain the boot-loader/boot-manager. You install W2K to the Extended partition (CD or floppies boot - not from within XP). Then restore two critical XP boot files (see below).
Regardless of which route you go - first copy XP ntldr/ntdetect.com files to a floppy; keep it safe. You may need it later. When W2K goes in after XP (not via boot-manger util) it will replace the XP version of ntldr/ntdetect.com with its own.The W2K versions will not allow XP to boot - even though the rest of the arrangements are complete (you'll have W2K only... until you rectify the situation). And to rectify the situation, just copy the files from the floppy back to their original "home" and XP will also boot.
(2) You 'could' (after copying the two files just mentioned to a floppy), install W2K to same partition as XP; go for a clean-install via a CD (or floppies) boot - not from within XP. You 'may' need to disable the XP mbr to achieve this - use a '98 bootdisk and run the sys c: routine. Then install W2K. Afterwards run XP setup\repair and run fixboot and fixmbr routines to restore mbr to XP version, and restore the two files mentioned above.
However both OS in the same partition is not really a recommended M$/Gurus approach; XP is very unfriendly to other OS in its partition... But once W2K installed you could simply delete the XP folder from the (and edit out its rerferences in the boot.ini). All apps/utils etc. would have to be instaled afresh for W2K... Perhaps not the best option to use overall? Likewise in a dual-boot all apps etc. have to be installed afresh for W2K.
Ideally the older OS goes in first progressing to the latest. But they can go in any order as long as you understand what happens and what to do about it... In this case it's the ntdetect.com/ntldr issue when W2K goes in after XP.
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I believe PM has an option to install another O/S. Never tried it and wouldn't without backing up.
please post back and let us know which fix worked so we can help others. posters.
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You don't say how big your HD is but I presume it's big enough !
Here's how I would do what you want.
1. Make an image of the HD either to CDR/DVD or possibly external USB HD. My preferred programme for this is Acronis but Ghost or Drive Image should fit the bill also.
2. Boot from a 98 floppy and fdisk your HD creating at least 2 primary partitions.
3. Install Win2k to the 1st primary partition.
4. Make image of this partition as per step 1
5. Reboot from 98 floppy and re-fdisk as per step 2.
5. Restore XP image to 1st primary partition.
6. Restore Win2k image but to 2nd primary partition this time.
You should now have two fully functional OS's and just need a Boot Manager to manage them.
Osl2000 is quite good (www.osloader.com) and basically free with a nag.
In fact you don't even need that because, if you are a masochist, you could boot from floppy and use fdisk to set your desired primary partition active!.
XP's boot.ini file could probably be modified to dual boot but I've never tried it this way myself.
You can afford to experiment because at the end of the day you have your XP image which you can go back to at any time.
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