I have 2 harddrives (80gb & 6gb), and I have Win98 on the 6gig and WinXP on the 80gig. I use both very often for particular reasons, and everytime I need to switch, I turn off my comp, unplug the 80gig, and it starts up with the 6gig. I'm wondering if there's an easier way to switch between the two. Like in the bios maybe.

Go to a computer shop and buy 2 slide out trays. You can then shutdown and insert whichever one you want to boot from.

what you need to do is set up a dual boot. First install win 98, then install win xp. Then you can choose which os during boot up.

You should consider getting a HDD selection switch. One such product is the Nicklock Hard Disk Selector. It inserts into a 3.5" bay. You use a key to switch between hard drives and a third setting which locks down the system. Other products include the Romtec Trios and Trios II.

Both OS were installed to their respective drives without the presence of the other; i.e. each drive was the Master drive when its OS was installed? This being so... Swapping the drives out (removable trays), or switching via floppy installed switch could work - but it does seem to be so much an effort; and may not be quite what you'd like to achieve? *********** http://www.computing.net/windowsxp/wwwboard/forum/73301.html disusses a very similar situation. I've posted below (2) a distillation/precis of a route/solution that was posted there, and discussed a little - in order to clarify/correct possible confusions... *********** Putale's (post-2) suggestion re' a dual-boot is possibly the easiest route to go; there are at least two ways to go about - and neither would require a total re-install of XP. You could: 1) Install '98 as Master on EIDE-1; XP as Master EIDE-2; then use an add-in boot-manager util to choose which drive/OS to boot. Similarly with one drive as Master to the other as Slave an add-in boot-util could be used. 2) For a dual-boot '98/XP (or '98/W2K) - 'without' using an add-in util - you need a common (active) Primary partition on the Master drive that is either fat32 or fat16. Both OS can see both fats; and as you have '98 already installed (as fat32) - it can be set as Master drive to XP Slave. If XP = fat32... install '98 as Master to XP Slave; start a temp install of XP (CD boot or the floppies) to '98 drive as: c:\temp\winnt-t Abort/cancel it at first reboot; remove all disks and you should boot to a boot-menu listing the c:\temp\winnt-t version and '98. Boot to '98; via '98 Explorer, locate the boot.ini on the XP (Slave) drive; copy the line referring to XP in that boot.ini to the boot.ini in c: root. Then change the value for rdisk in that XP line to read (1) - it will currently read (0). Save the changes to the '98 boot.ini and reboot. Again you will (should) come to the boot-menu listing '98, the c:\temp\winnt-t version - and the XP version on the second (now Slaved XP) drive. Boot to the XP on the second/Slaved drive; once there - set default OS to boot to XP (or '98) - but not the c:\temp\winnt-t version. Then (via Explorer) locate/delete the c:\temp\winnt-t version from the '98 drive (c: ). Also delete any files/folders that start with the $ symbol. These are temp files/folders used during NT/W2K/XP setup; normally deleted once set-up completed - but yiou have to do it manually this time. Verify you can still boot OK to both OS; presuming so, empty recycle-bin (on '98 drive) and defrag the '98 drive - to tidy up the scene. This editing routine avoids the need to re-install XP fully to its present location; similarly '98. If your XP = ntfs (i.e. c: = ntfs on the XP drive) then post back; there are slight modifications to the above routine to accomodate that problem. '98 cannot access/ssee ntfs - thus you would not be able to copy the required XP boot.ini entry very easily...

Hey, I heard about a program called Partition Magic. I'm thinkin it might be easier to use that program to partition my harddrive (without formatting) so part of it is fat32 and install win98 on that partition. If I did that, would I be able to select an OS on startup? and would it default to XP?

... and yes I'm using ntfs for xp, not fat32.