I am in a pickle. I have a 60G disk formatted into 4 partitions. C: had WIN98SE and now has XP Home as a temporary OS. D: Has XP Home and is my main OS. I have a small HDD 3.2 Gig. I want to install to run 9x on. My main problem is that I want to remove C: which is 10Gig to add to D: which is 30 Gig. This would them give me 40 Gig for my main OS XP Home with 20 Gig for storage.

it would be best to start over, fdisk and remove all partitions, repartition, reinstall win 98 first on the small drive, then connect large drive, install xp so it will give you the dual boot option at startup

either get partition magic or just repartition. disk0--3.2gb--C: disk1--20gb--D: disk2--40gb--E: optical drive--F: should be like that.....

Start over and attach the 3.2 GB HDD as the Primary Master and the 60GB HDD as the Primary Slave. First you must install Win98SE on the 3.2GB HDD which will become the C Drive. Then boot with the XP CD and use it to delete your partitions on the 60GB HDD and create two new partitions: 40GB for D Drive & 20GB for E Drive. Then proceed to do a clean install of XP on the D Drive. This will set up the dual-boot automatically. Make sure you back up all your files before you proceed, See these links for reference: Windows XP Installation How to use the Upgrade Version XP CD to Partition & Format a hard drive during Setup.

A fresh start might be the easier/safer option overall. If you set 3.2Gig drive as Master to 60Gig drive then, as it's likely the 3.2Gig drive is significantly slower (access-rates etc.) than the 60Gig drive, you will force the 60Gig run at the slower rate of the 3.2Gig. If you can live with a possible drop in preformance then fine... It may not be that noticeable - depending on what you are running etc? Ideally a faster drive is Master to a slower Slave. One possibilty - and I haven't tried this... FIRST back-up/save data etc. somewhere safe - possibly even on the 3.2Gig drive (set as slave)? Boot to XP version on d: ; delete (using Explorer) the contents of c: drive/partition - but NOT the XP boot/start-up files - incl. boot.ini. Then use PM or SC (or similar utils) to shrink c: partition and expand d: partition into the space released. Perhaps reduce c: to around 100Meg or so. Reboot to ensure XP in d: is still OK... Hopefully it will be. Then attach 3.2Gig as Slave to 60Gig and install '98 there. Ensure c: = fat32 - not ntfs. This will give you all but a few Megs of 40Gig as desired for XP on d: ? When '98 goes in it will overwrite the mbr on Master drive to '98 version, temporarily disabling access to XP. To recover XP, create a required bootsect.dos for '98, and complete the dual-boot, run the routine as oultlined via: http://www.dougknox.com/ tips section - right column: installing '98/ME after XP. It's one way to complete the XP repair process - so why not use it? Saves detailing others here... Boot.ini entry for XP on c: can edited out; that for d: will remain correct as is. The above routine does avoid the need to go for a fresh start. One variation in the above option to consider: If you could allow c: to remain perhaps 200Meg-250Meg (still as fat32) you would have the option to install '98 there at any future time. This would allow a back-door access to XP data (ideally fat32) in event of a crash of XP itself, and the absence of '98 on the slaved drive? If XP data was ntfs then '98 in c: + a util from sysninternals.com again would allow data acess/recovery in event of a crash of XP as above? Also you could copy the '98 cab-folder/files to c: and install '98 from there. '98 will then go there in future for files etc. when it needs them - rather than asking for the CD. If starting afresh - then perhaps have a browse of the routine in: http://www.computing.net/windows2000/wwwboard/forum/21665.html - response #5 It details W2K/'9x dual-boot; replace W2K with XP and you have it all - single/dual drives. If starting afresh, then install both OS to Master (60gig) drive; use 3.2Gig for data only? Also with PM/SC you could vary the fresh start slightly by using the util to reduce the current c: (10Gig) to the 100Meg-250Meg size, then expand d: to take up the free space; then convert (or reformat) c: to fat16; then carry on from there with the model in the 21665 link? Options, options, decisions, decisions....

Thanks for the great tips. I really don't want to start again. Will let you know how I get on. Doug.