Installing NT4 Workstation on NTFS Partition

**MorseLady** · May 18th, 2002, 02:53 AM

I created(so I thought) a 2GB NTFS Partition with Partition Magic 7 and chose Logical. Up to now my main OS has been ME. Someone told me at a Computer Fair that you cannot run NT on Hewlett Packard machines because of the funny Bios. Well, after a very long session my computer came up having taken nearly all the spare 9GB from my Me Partition instead of the 2GB I had chosen and there was no drive letter, my reason for choosing Logical. My computer went a bit crazy and I have been up nearly all night creating/merging/converting and re assigning drive letters(in PM7 and Drive Mapper) so that now I have my computer back to the configuration prior to all this i.e. 14GB Disk, 1GB assigned to Logical Drive D for storage and the rest to ME on FAT32.

Prior to attempting to create my NT Partition I did full diagnostics including Norton, Scandisk and Defrag. Norton AntiVirus and ZoneAlarm were not installed at the time and all background activities were closed.so what went wrong, is it me, my computer or should I have chosen Primary and not Logical?

I also had problems trying to use Drive Image 5 to backup and had to run my CD Writer(HP again) own backup utility.

Am I going to have these problems when I buy XP Pro?

**Matridom** · May 18th, 2002, 06:51 AM

I'm not sure if you where installing NT properly.. look <a href="http://forums.windrivers.com/cgi-bin/forum3/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=17;t=008617" target="_blank">here</a> for general instrcutions on what to do. When dual booting there area few considerations.

1. Win me MUST be your first partition.
2. Don't creat the partition for NT, Just make some blank hard drive space and let the installer creat the partition. With XP, it's the same thing, make the space, but let the OS installer creat the partition, makes things easier.

**MorseLady** · May 18th, 2002, 11:32 AM

Thank you for the advice and the link. I have never run NT before and yes ME is configured first according to Partition Magic and takes up the largest slice of my 14GB disk. I set a 2GB NTFS Partition which is empty at the moment and I am scared that if I go into it(it is on the Boot Magic menu)I might not be able to get out again or get NT on so I will try the way you suggest. I knew you could do that from XP(which I will be buying or on a new PC)but not with NT so many thanks. Perhaps I ought to learn on my old 1GB 75mhz 32MB RAM PC first? Or even an older 486DX?
What do you think?

**MorseLady** · May 18th, 2002, 12:53 PM

I started to run the instal but got scared when it wanted to delete my ME partition and create a new one - does that mean it will delete ME? Why won't NT installer let me choose where to put it? Surely it is better if I create a Partition and direct it there - should I leave it unformatted and lGB or 2GB?

**Matridom** · May 18th, 2002, 09:09 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by G0HGA:
I started to run the instal but got scared when it wanted to delete my ME partition and create a new one - does that mean it will delete ME? Why won't NT installer let me choose where to put it? Surely it is better if I create a Partition and direct it there - should I leave it unformatted and lGB or 2GB?

<hr /></blockquote>gohga, first, can bootmagic, you don't need it for this setup. What i think is going on is that NT4.0 can't detect a compatible MBR because boot magic owns it. So when it installs, it can't "share" it with ME like it's designed to and therefore wants to format the boot partition to make it compatible.

Second, leave the space unpartitioned or create a fat16 partition for it. I recommend leaving it unformated. if you creat the fat16 partition, you can convert it to NTFS later (type "Convert d: FS:NTFS" at the command line where D: is the drive leter)

What also may be going on is that your partition magic is creating an NTFS 5 partition (what 2k and xp use) NT4.0 uses NTFS 4 (NTFS 5 is only supported once Service pack 5 is installed)

**MorseLady** · May 19th, 2002, 03:23 AM

Hi Matridom,

Well at least I did right to get rid of BootMagic, it has caused me problems before and I had already got rid of it last night so I am really glad you advise that. As I said, I am very confident with Win 3.11 and 9x/Me but new to NT and you are being really helpful.

I tried to load NT on my old machine but it does not support booting from CD, I went into the BIOS setup and there was no option, just C,A or A,C and I have no boot floppies for NT but as soon as I get NT loaded on here I will make a set for future use.

I did not know about the different NTFS and of course PM7 would be using the latest, for XP! So that is something new learned and I am doing this to enhance my interactive tech courses. I got questions on NT I could not answer and hands on is a good way to learn.

I will take on board all your helpful comments and try again and I will get back and let you know how it goes. Thanks again.

**silencio** · May 19th, 2002, 03:33 AM

NT has to go on a partition of less than 2 gig if your going to setup the machine like that. The 2 gig partition needs to be fat16 and it must be the first partition on the drive.

**MorseLady** · May 19th, 2002, 04:01 AM

And there is the problem because ME has to be the first Partition on the drive too, so says PMagic and stuff I have read and in the case of my computer the OS is tied to the BIOS via those Factory Restore setup CDs so maybe I should wait until I buy my new computer, which I am building online from one of those "we build it for you to spec" suppliers. I was told by someone at a fair last week that you cannot instal NT on a Hewlett Packard machine.

Maybe ME and NT cannot co-exist? ME has apparently got more in common with XP than 9x and has only a token DOS and as you know if you want to run anything dossy like PMagic you have to download and instal a fix to enable it to go to DOS to do the partitioning. I was told that M$ were not sure at the time if home users were ready to accept no DOS and that ME was a compromise and 2000 was the way to go then. If it has, as I have been told, got more than a hint of XP genre NTFS technology in it then it would not like NT4 would it?

**Matridom** · May 19th, 2002, 05:26 AM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by G0HGA:
And there is the problem because ME has to be the first Partition on the drive too, so says PMagic and stuff I have read and in the case of my computer the OS is tied to the BIOS via those Factory Restore setup CDs so maybe I should wait until I buy my new computer, which I am building online from one of those "we build it for you to spec" suppliers. I was told by someone at a fair last week that you cannot instal NT on a Hewlett Packard machine.

Maybe ME and NT cannot co-exist? ME has apparently got more in common with XP than 9x and has only a token DOS and as you know if you want to run anything dossy like PMagic you have to download and instal a fix to enable it to go to DOS to do the partitioning. I was told that M$ were not sure at the time if home users were ready to accept no DOS and that ME was a compromise and 2000 was the way to go then. If it has, as I have been told, got more than a hint of XP genre NTFS technology in it then it would not like NT4 would it?<hr /></blockquote>The tieing to the bios is in the restor CD, not the OS itself. Has for NT not running on an HP, not sure, I would check the HP site for NT drivers and also check the Hardware Compatibility List on the MS site to see what's supported.

Me is designed to use the same boot loader that NT uses.. they WILL work together, but you need the MS boot loader nd not the Powerquest one from bootmagic.

If your not sure though, wait till you get your new system. NT is not for the faint of heart, be prepared to do a lot of research in order to troublshoot things and get everything working top notch. Unless there is a specifique reason for NT, i would recommend going with 2k or XP. they are easier to work with and require less "fussing" with to get to work and stay operational.

**MorseLady** · May 19th, 2002, 06:29 AM

Yes, it does seem a lot of trouble and I would rather have 2K or XP but the only reason I picked up this copy at a fair was because I had questions on NT in my learn online tech course post assessment I could not answer and thought I needed to learn the OS but I am already not liking it so I am going to quit now while I am still sane

and buy XP, for which I have checked this machine out or even go for a new P4 or Athlon with XP installed!

Thank you very much indeed for all your help and I feel I have at least learned something even if I have not got NT running

**MorseLady** · May 19th, 2002, 05:09 PM

Oh I so nearly got it on! I used a lGB FAT16 Partition and formatted it then I added it to Boot Magic and booted into it with my W98 floppy to get the CDROM drivers. Then I put the NT CDROM in and typed I386_winnt and setup began and at least now I have a set of three floppies. Files were copied to my hard drive and then I was asked to insert No.1 floppy and files were copied from all three, then hardware detection and setup and then IT FAILED! I was told to exit because it could not find my partition

**silencio** · May 19th, 2002, 07:04 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by G0HGA:
Oh I so nearly got it on! I used a lGB FAT16 Partition and formatted it then I added it to Boot Magic and booted into it with my W98 floppy to get the CDROM drivers. Then I put the NT CDROM in and typed I386_winnt and setup began and at least now I have a set of three floppies. Files were copied to my hard drive and then I was asked to insert No.1 floppy and files were copied from all three, then hardware detection and setup and then IT FAILED! I was told to exit because it could not find my partition

<hr /></blockquote>Put NT on first. Let NT create the 1 or 2 gig partition and format the drive as fat and not NTFS. Forget bootmagic. After you have NT installed create a repair disk. Then use an ME system disk to add a fat32 extended partition. Install ME to that partition. ME will change the boot.ini so that you can dual boot. If it doesn't you can use the repair disk to restore the NT boot sector. Then you can edit the boot.ini to allow dual booting. Add a section the boot.ini that points to d:\windows.

Try searching the web. Somewhere there's an exact blow by blow (more detail) of how to do what I just said.

Have fun! Your on the road to being a tech now.

**Matridom** · May 19th, 2002, 08:05 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by G0HGA:
Oh I so nearly got it on! I used a lGB FAT16 Partition and formatted it then I added it to Boot Magic and booted into it with my W98 floppy to get the CDROM drivers. Then I put the NT CDROM in and typed I386_winnt and setup began and at least now I have a set of three floppies. Files were copied to my hard drive and then I was asked to insert No.1 floppy and files were copied from all three, then hardware detection and setup and then IT FAILED! I was told to exit because it could not find my partition

<hr /></blockquote>Gohga, here it is step by step...
Prep work...

Go to the MS site and download Service pack 6a and IE5.5, if you havea writer, burn these to a cd, otherwise when creating the partition in step 6, creat a FAT partition

Installation..

1. GET RIDE OF BOOT MAGIC!!, out the door, see ya later, toss it, you don't NEED IT!!!!

2. When winME boots WITHOUT Bootmagic in the MBR, proceed to next step, otherwise, repeat step 1.

3, you got your 3 magic boot disks, great, now look in the thread that i linked to above and you'll find a link for service pack 4 atapi drivers, GET IT!

4. Make a blank spot on the hard drive for NT (don't partition it)

5. Once you've booted to the 3 disks(do not boot from the cd. Booting from the CD will prevent third party drivers from being installed at thhis point), hit "F6" when asking for 3rd party drivers. Insert that 4th disk you made and it should now see it has something along the lines of "service pack 4 atapi drivers"

6. Create the partition, use NTFS or Fat, don't make much difference.

7. install into that partition. If you've followed everything so far, you should see a nice bar indicating files being copied.

8. Your system will reboot, it should automaticly go to NT and procceed with the OS installation

9. After another reboot, you should be able to get INTO NT. Once there, Install Service pack 6a FIRST, skip driver, skip everything else, get the servic pack installed.

10. install drivers, if at ANY POINT you need to get files of your original NT CD, REINSTALL the service pack BEFORE rebooting (if you don't you run the risk of a version conflict and end up with a non booting NT installation)

11. if everything went smoothly, you should have a nice dual boot.

Hope it helps.

Edit: if you want screen shots of the actual loading of the OS, I'll post some tomorow afternoon. Just let me know.

**MorseLady** · May 20th, 2002, 01:16 AM

Is there any way I can get Service Pack 6 in split files? My ISP times me out after two hours and I only got halfway got timed out and lost the lot and Download Managers mess up this lousy machine (believe me, Hewlett Packard really mess things up) and the CD is not available in UK. I could not get the Atapi Driver, got page unavailable.

How do I make a space on my hard drive for NT without partitioning? Won't it try to overwrite my present OS, that really worries me. I have been unable to image my drive because both Drive Image won't work and my own Hewlett Packard CD Burner's routine aborts after one disc.

I am beginning to think Powerquest stuff is as much rubbish as Hewlett Packard. I think I will cut my losses, reintegrate the whole disc and run FDISK and start over without using third party stuff.

Think the sooner I dump this Hewlett Packard machine the better.

**Matridom** · May 20th, 2002, 04:55 AM

I just realized something.. If your ME installation is on fat32, your out o luck, your ME MUST be on fat16 in order to dual boot.

2K and XP will read fat32 partitions, but NT can't..

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