Harddrives/Operating Systems?

[AkpsdDiesel]

Here is the story.
I have right now two harddrives, one with 98 on it and another with xp on it, both are kinda small,, 8 and 6 gigs, and I am running out of room.

I have gotten my hands on a 40 gig and would like to use it.

Can one drive have the 98 with the fat32 and the other have xp with the NTFS on it?

What would the boot up be like?
right now I get a choice on which one I would like to do.
If I booted up with the 98 could I find a file that is on the xp drive with ntfs?

Sorry if this is in the wrong spot.

[Statica]

Hi AkpsdDiesel:

I'm a bit unclear as to what you wanted to do with the 40GB hard drive. But to answer your questions -
1) Yes you can have windows 98 using a FAT32 partition and XP using an NTFS partition. Or you could partition the new 40GB drive to use half with FAT32 and the other half with NTFS.
Remember that XP can read and write to both NTFS and FAT32 filesystems, while 98 cannot read or write to NTFS partitions.

2) Regarding the boot sequence, what do you intend to do? Do you intend to have a system with 98 and XP reinstalled? If so, you will be presented with a choice if you do it right. The shortest way is to install windows 98, and then install XP, do not choose Upgrade, but a new installation when putting in XP. That should automatically get you an OS selection at boot.

3) I've answered this before, but to reiterate: if the file is located on an NTFS partition 98 cannot find it.

If you come back with more details on how you want the OS laid out on your drives then we could give you more specific solutions.

[AkpsdDiesel]

Thanks for the welcome.

Originally Posted by Statica Hi AkpsdDiesel: I'm a bit unclear as to what you wanted to do with the 40GB hard drive. But to answer your questions - 1) Yes you can have windows 98 using a FAT32 partition and XP using an NTFS partition. Or you could partition the new 40GB drive to use half with FAT32 and the other half with NTFS. Remember that XP can read and write to both NTFS and FAT32 filesystems, while 98 cannot read or write to NTFS partitions.

What I was thinking of doing was setting up the xp on the 40gig with the NTFS. And letting the 8gig that has the 98 with Fat32 stay the way that it is.
I know that it is good and has been working , and would like to have a back up system that has a back up of my company books if something happens with the xp.

Originally Posted by Statica 2) Regarding the boot sequence, what do you intend to do? Do you intend to have a system with 98 and XP reinstalled? If so, you will be presented with a choice if you do it right. The shortest way is to install windows 98, and then install XP, do not choose Upgrade, but a new installation when putting in XP. That should automatically get you an OS selection at boot.

After the removal of the files that are on the 40 that need to be moved, I was going to reformat the drive to the NTFS, then bring it to my computer, do a move of the xp that is on the 6 gig with the Fat32 to the clean 40gig formated with NTFS.

Originally Posted by Statica 3) I've answered this before, but to reiterate: if the file is located on an NTFS partition 98 cannot find it. If you come back with more details on how you want the OS laid out on your drives then we could give you more specific solutions.

So if I understand it correctly,,, if I boot with the 98 under fat32 I will really not have a second harddrive,,,, it will be there, but 98 will not see anything because of the different file system?

[Statica]

Originally Posted by AkpsdDiesel Thanks for the welcome. What I was thinking of doing was setting up the xp on the 40gig with the NTFS. And letting the 8gig that has the 98 with Fat32 stay the way that it is. I know that it is good and has been working , and would like to have a back up system that has a back up of my company books if something happens with the xp. After the removal of the files that are on the 40 that need to be moved, I was going to reformat the drive to the NTFS, then bring it to my computer, do a move of the xp that is on the 6 gig with the Fat32 to the clean 40gig formated with NTFS. So if I understand it correctly,,, if I boot with the 98 under fat32 I will really not have a second harddrive,,,, it will be there, but 98 will not see anything because of the different file system?

Yes that's right, the Windows 98 drive will not see the new drive if it is formatted in NTFS.

Your plan seems fine, however, moving XP to the new drive might not work in a literal sense. The easiest way is to do a fresh install of XP after you put in the new hard drive in. The following are MS KB articles that should help you with multi-booting: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/q306559/ or http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/u...multiboot.mspx

[AkpsdDiesel]

Thought that there was away of moving what is on one drive to the new drive that one is upgrading to?

If one was to at first have an eight gig drive that has xp on it, then gets a 40 gig, there is now no way of clicking on the system drive and draging it to the new drive that has gone in?
fresh install of xp on the new drive I understand , but the other programs and files that are on the old one get to the new drive by what rout? or is the computer now to have two drives , with two copies of xp?

[Statica]

You will need the use of 3rd party software like partition magic to attempt something like that.

[AkpsdDiesel]

Could the 3rd party software be used to move that what is on the old drive to the new drive?

[AkpsdDiesel]

Here is a twist to the challenge that I am working on.. thoughts please..

reformat the drive before I put in my computer........ then with the drive that has xp, make a backup copy of that full drive and store it on the fresh harddrive, then do a restore of the backup copy on the fresh drive? could that work?

[glc]

It's honestly easier to do fresh installs with just the new drive installed - then slave the old drives in and copy your data over. Install 98 *first* then install XP on a different partition.