most of dual booting manuals i've read says NTFS and FAT OSes can't be combined - to dual boot, both have to be FAT32.
almost all manuals i've read places winXP(most popular NT OS) on the first partition and thereby prohibiting the use of the secure NT file system.
however, programmers like me need complete access to DOS and hardware ports which XP restricts access to (in my experience). so an OS like win98 or winME is important as it is running on FAT and is not that strict of hardware access and has full support for DOS.
i experimented and came up with the setup:
1. create separate partitions for NTFS and FAT OSes
2. install FAT OS (98 or Me) on the first partition where the boot
record is placed
3. install NTFS OS on the second partition. format that partition
into NTFS. this will overwrite the boot sector and replace it
but it will allow booting FAT and NTFS OSes in the same PC.
it worked perfectly for me. and it should for anyone else. send me
a message if it fails on your installation.
MAKE SURE YOU BACKUP ALL YOUR DATA BEFORE PLAYING WITH YOUR PARTITION TABLE!
almost all manuals i've read places winXP(most popular NT OS) on the first partition and thereby prohibiting the use of the secure NT file system.
however, programmers like me need complete access to DOS and hardware ports which XP restricts access to (in my experience). so an OS like win98 or winME is important as it is running on FAT and is not that strict of hardware access and has full support for DOS.
i experimented and came up with the setup:
1. create separate partitions for NTFS and FAT OSes
2. install FAT OS (98 or Me) on the first partition where the boot
record is placed
3. install NTFS OS on the second partition. format that partition
into NTFS. this will overwrite the boot sector and replace it
but it will allow booting FAT and NTFS OSes in the same PC.
it worked perfectly for me. and it should for anyone else. send me
a message if it fails on your installation.
MAKE SURE YOU BACKUP ALL YOUR DATA BEFORE PLAYING WITH YOUR PARTITION TABLE!