Trying to figure how to install windows NT3.51 with 98SE already installed and dual boot them?

Garretts_Studio

I have an IBM 300PL Pentium III 640MB Ram and a over kill HDD for it and would like to try and dual boot Windows 98SE and NT3.51 and was wondering if I can do it with Windows 98SE already installed cause I really don't want to have to reinstall all the games and software I have installed on it even though I already have them all in original boxes. I have tried a couple times already with no luck I keep getting an setup encountered error while updating partition information? I tried partitioning it into FAT 2GB, tried 4GB, also tried without partition and still same error?

SomeGuy

You probably have BIOS boot sector virus protection enabled.

But changing the partition type with the NT setup will erase the data in the old partition.

Is the first partition currently FAT or FAT32?

Garretts_Studio

The Main Partition drive c is FAT32 and it has my Win98SE on it and I checked my BIOS and Virus Detection is Disabled but could it be the mcafee antivirus that installs with 98 Plus! Pack? or Norton antivirus that Installed myself causing it I can Uninstall the norton but mcafee does not have the option to uninstall for some reason.

SomeGuy

Ok, so I'm thinking your best bet is probably to use a third party partition manager, something like Partition Magic to shrink your FAT32 partition and add an NTFS partition after that.

You should be able to install NT 3.51 in to that NTFS partition, but the catch will be you won't be able to boot directly from the hard drive as NT 3.51 can not install its boot loader on the FAT32 partition.

Instead you will need to make a boot floppy with the NT 3.51 boot loader (an NT 4 boot loader should also work - I don't know if a Windows 2000 boot loader would work or not), and then just boot the floppy to start NT 3.51. Personally I think that is a cleaner solution as that gives you more control over the boot loader and doesn't get in the way of Windows 9x.

NT 3.51 does not support FAT32, but there is a custom FAT32 driver here: http://ashedel.chat.ru/fat32/ that can just be dropped in over the NT FAT driver and it should automatically see the drive FAT32 drive.

Garretts_Studio

I do have a burned copy of Partition Magic 7 and Boot Magic as well and both installed on my Windows 98SE partition. I tried partition a second partition as FAT with no luck, then tried NTFS as well and still no luck, I don't if it has something to do with the way Partition Magic is partitioning the drives or also if it is having issues with my drive being so big because it is 160GB drive but Have had no problems with MS-DOS install or Windows 3.0 install as well? Maybe I am still doing something wrong, But don't know what?

SomeGuy

Oh, that is a huge drive for that era of machine. I'm not certain what version of Partition Magic fully supports drives that size, but I am sure it would crap itself if your BIOS does not support LBA48.

NT 3.51 does not support LBA48 (IDE drives larger than 127GB). I seem to recall there was a version of the UNIATA driver for NT 3.51, but like the other drivers it must be installed after NT 3.51 is already set up.

You might have to take the drive to a different machine to repartition it, but you will need to keep the partitions under the 127GB mark, at least until things are set up right and then you might be able to sneak in an extra partition after that.

Just make sure everything is backed up because changing partitions from a different machine can sometimes bork things up badly.

Actually, if you have an extra, smaller hard drive, you might just put that in the machine temporarily and try setting up NT 3.51 on that just to make sure it actually works the way you want it to work before going to all that hassle.