Clone easily Windows 98 and XP in the same computer.

[cannie]

Rectified omission in the paragraph B.3 (you don't need to copy any log (*. log), tmp (*. tmp), and bak (*. bak) files of C disk, neither the "System Volume Information" folder nor any of the "Temporary Internet Files", "Temp" and "Cookies" folders from "Documents and Settings").

HTH

Edited July 9, 2009 by cannie

[cannie]

Correction in the paragraph A1.2 of the tutorial: never copy the folder "c:\windows\sysbckup" into the new drive when cloning Windows 98.

HTH

[cannie]

New redaction of paragraph A3.- HOW TO PREPARE WINDOWS 98 TO INSTALL THE DOUBLEBOOT WITH XP, to check out the cloned unit before deleting C:\Windows.

HTH

[cannie]

Complete revision of everything and light corrections to make it better.

HTH

[cannie]

- Modified the second line of the name of the tutorial: the pursued objective is to create "Live Clones" of the OS similar to the "Live CD", not only in the finality but also in the way to reach it, adding the advantage that the cloned unit is an exact copy of the original for an alternative use, fast and easily loaded and updated.

Edited August 7, 2009 by cannie

[cannie]

- Added paragraph G.- IF EVERYTHING FAILS.

I hope to contribute with this to the peace of mind of any common user who finds himself totally lost in the jungle of computing by explaining a free, fast and easy way to rebuild everything from scratch thanks to the same procedures used in this tutorial.

- Included in B.3 the way to delete all "Recycled" folders at Windows 98 startup to avoid loosing time while complying with the message that invites you to do it manually.

HTH.

Edited August 11, 2009 by cannie

[cannie]

Added paragraph F3 .- HOW TO CREATE A DOUBLEBOOT CD SHOWING THE DOUBLEBOOT SCREEN DIRECT FROM THE CD.

HTH.

Edited August 16, 2009 by cannie

[glaurung]

If the goal is to have a small win9x install to use for emergency recovery and legacy software, and a main 2k/xp install to use for everything else, you don't have to muck around with installs on the D: drive despite what Microsoft says.

The reason MS says you can't install two OS's to the same drive is primarily because of incompatible file versions in Program Files, especially in Program Files\Common files.

So the easy, simple way I found to put both 9x and 2k or XP on drive C:, without any troubles, is this:

1. format drive C using FAT32.

2. Install 9x. Specify Win9x as the install directory.

3. Make an unattend.txt or winnt.sif file to automate 2k/XP install, and include the following in it:

[unattended]

ProgramFilesDir="c:\Program"

CommonProgramFilesDir="c:\Program\Common"

TargetPath=winNT

Now all the 9x common files are segregated from the NT common files, and you have achieved once again what MS claims is impossible: two fully funtional OS's installed on the same partition.

Granted I'm not switching back and forth between the os's on a daily basis, but it has worked fine for me so far.

The downsides I am aware of are 1) if you want software to run under both OS's, it will have to be installed twice (manually specifying the location the second time), and 2) you won't be able to run certain low-level disk software (like defrag) from win9x without killing the 2k/xp installation.

[rloew]

If the goal is to have a small win9x install to use for emergency recovery and legacy software, and a main 2k/xp install to use for everything else, you don't have to muck around with installs on the D: drive despite what Microsoft says.

The reason MS says you can't install two OS's to the same drive is primarily because of incompatible file versions in Program Files, especially in Program Files\Common files.

So the easy, simple way I found to put both 9x and 2k or XP on drive C:, without any troubles, is this:

1. format drive C using FAT32.

2. Install 9x. Specify Win9x as the install directory.

3. Make an unattend.txt or winnt.sif file to automate 2k/XP install, and include the following in it:

[unattended]

ProgramFilesDir="c:\Program"

CommonProgramFilesDir="c:\Program\Common"

TargetPath=winNT

Now all the 9x common files are segregated from the NT common files, and you have achieved once again what MS claims is impossible: two fully funtional OS's installed on the same partition.

Granted I'm not switching back and forth between the os's on a daily basis, but it has worked fine for me so far.

The downsides I am aware of are 1) if you want software to run under both OS's, it will have to be installed twice (manually specifying the location the second time), and 2) you won't be able to run certain low-level disk software (like defrag) from win9x without killing the 2k/xp installation.

Another approach to sharing the C: Drive is to install Windows 9X into a different directory (C:\Win9x in Glaurung's method above).

When the Computer reboots, boot to DOS. Rename the PROGRA~1 file to PROG9X~1.

In the Registry and in WIN9X\SETUP.INI replace all occurances of the followings:

PROGRA~1 with PROG9X~1

"Program Files" with "Prog9XX Files" (replace whether quoted or not)

Continue Installation.

Windows 9X should now be installed entirely in directories that don't conflict with Windows XP.

This approach breaks a lot of defaults so extensive use of this installation of Windows 9X is not recommended.

[cannie]

Maybe it is convenient to say that, even when you can install both OS in the same main partition, if you have an XP cloned second primary partition you need to copy/paste Windows 98 into it in order to use it from any of both.

You can avoid the need of such a double copy by installing Windows 98 in any logical drive into the extended partition. This way, after building the mbr/pbr for both XP units you only need to keep the Windows 98 boot files and the option in the boot.ini file in the root of both primary partitions in order to use the Microsoft doubleboot screen.

Doing it this way you can even delete all files into both main partitions without formatting any of both, and defragment them afterwards, before rebuilding both XP OS from a clean copy previously saved into any unit of the extended partition, or into a .rar or .zip file saved on CD.

Remember that you should never format any primary partition while using Windows 98 from the extended partition! You would destroy the mbr/pbr and the computer would not work any more, no matter if all files have been perfectly rebuilt.

If it ever happens to you, as it once happened to me, you must rebuild the boot sectors as described in the first post (reboot using the DOS boot diskette and run "Repair.bat").

HTH

Edited September 10, 2009 by cannie

[dencorso]

Well, while all those methods involving a single physical disk (HDD) are quite ingenious, all of them have downsides.

That's why I think the safest way to doubleboot XP and 98SE is to have each on it's own primary partition, each independently bootable, each in its own HDD. And while I nowadays use Grub4DOS to select which I do boot, it can also be done without any boot manager, by using the BIOS ability to logically invert master and slave, that is to say, to set which is the primary boot disk. As each OS is installed in a fully independent way, you can blow any of them seven-ways-to-sunday and still remain able to boot the other, and from it to deploy a previously saved known-to-be-good image of the one you just messed-up beyond all recognition, and be back to a fully blown double-booting machine in less than 30 min. Of course, this way also has a downside: you must have two HDDs to do it. Then again, it has the added advantage that you may partition both HDD's with at least two partitions: each HDD then has a different OS in the bootable partition, backed up by full imaging, and both HDD's have a second identical non-bootable data partition, backed-up incrementally (with XXCOPY) every day. I think this is as safe as you can get, and quite simple to implement, too.

[jaclaz]

Well, while all those methods involving a single physical disk (HDD) are quite ingenious, all of them have downsides.

....

That's why I think the safest way to doubleboot XP and 98SE is to have each on it's own primary partition, each independently bootable, each in its own HDD.

....

Or use, as it has been done successfully for more than 15 years, a small FAT16 boot partition (with boot files) and any number of logical volumes inside Extended, one for each OS.....

jaclaz

[dencorso]

Or use, as it has been done successfully for more than 15 years, a small FAT16 boot partition (with boot files) and any number of logical volumes inside Extended, one for each OS.....

Nothing against it. I know it works great. But, then again, no solution using just one HDD protects one against hardware (read HDD) failures, while the two HDDs solution does. It's as easy to recover one of the HDD to the same physical medium as it is when one needs to substitute it, either because of a hardware failure or to get more space (upgrading to a bigger HDD).

[cannie]

Remember that you should never format any primary partition while using Windows 98 from the extended partition! You would destroy the mbr/pbr and the computer would not work any more, no matter if all files have been perfectly rebuilt.

Modified paragraph C4 of the first post to include this advice.

[jaclaz]

Remember that you should never format any primary partition while using Windows 98 from the extended partition! You would destroy the mbr/pbr and the computer would not work any more, no matter if all files have been perfectly rebuilt.

Modified paragraph C4 of the first post to include this advice.

To be picky not entirely accurate.

If you only FORMAT the MBR won't be touched at all.

If you FORMAT from Win9x (please read DOS) the PBR of the FORMATted partition will be replaced by the Win9x/DOS one, invoking IO.SYS and MSDOS.SYS.

If you FORMAT first active primary partition of first disk you will also need to copy back to it the boot files, typically:

DOS/Win9x:

• IO.SYS
  
• MSDOS.SYS
  
• COMMAND.COM
  

NT/2K/XP/2003:

• NTLDR
  
• NTDETECT.COM
  
• BOOT.INI
  

Vista/2008/7:

• BOOTMGR
  
• \boot\BCD
  

And, if needed use BOOTPART to fix/repair the bootsector or PBR.

In other words, FDISK changes the MBR, FORMAT changes the PBR.

jaclaz