NT & Windows Installation

[Farrar]

I am trying to install NT on my home system for the MCSE courses that I am taking and I seem to be having quite a few problems with installing, booting, and running these different OS’s. A reply to one of my posts on “Multiple OS’s” from member name ‘hireintelligence” stated that he was running with NT on one partition and Windows on the other. I have followed closely the steps in the MS Knowledgebase article Q243896, “How to Dual boot…” at
http://support.microsoft.com/support...-US&SD=gn&FR=0

But I receive the error message when choosing NT 4 from the dual boot menu: “<winnt root>\system\ntoskrnl.exe cannot be found. Please reinstall from disks or CD.”

I have also tried, via FDISK, to create three 2GB partitions on my 6.4GB hard drive so I could install Workstation, Server, and lastly Windows 98. My problem here is that I do not see an option when booting to choose an OS from multiple OS’s. My system simply boots straight to Windows 98.

My questions are:
1.) Do Workstation and server have to reside on separate partitions?
2.) Is there REALLY a need for Workstation if Server is installed?
3.) With either 2 or 3 partitions, how do I invoke the dual boot option?
4.) Has anyone had experience, good or bad with the MS Knowledgebase Article above?
5.) I am considering installing a second, larger, hard drive since my 6.4GB is no longer enough. Would putting these OS’s on different hard drives make matters less complicated ?

I would really appreciate some advice and/or “step-by-step” instructions {or links to something similar} from someone who is implementing this on their system. I thought this would be the easiest module in the course but it is turning out to be a bear! I thank you for you time and effort and I do apologize for posting multiple questions on this topic. I would really like to get my system back up and running rather than sitting “blank and in the dark” like I am on this installation.

Thanks Again,

Jeff

[Farrar]

Sorry-I meant to post to "Tech To Tech>

Jeff

[CJK]

There are different reasons why you would load workstation or server. What are your reasons?
The best way I found to dual boot is to load Windows 98 first then load Windows NT when you are already booted to windows 98. Then you don't have to worry about configuring the dual boot menu.

[Farrar]

Thank You.

Jeff Farrar

[jmlozan]

CJK is right. Make sure they are in different partitions and you should have no trouble.

[sMAckT]

AAhhh, Deja Vu.
I have myself attempted this and also have had trouble. I know the problem w/ trying to load any other OS when Windows 9x has been installed either A. First, prior to any other OS's being loaded. or B. The partion that Windows 9x is installed on is the "Primary Active" partition. When either of these conditions is true, Windows 9x will always load.
Solutions:
1. Install System Commander.
2. Purchase the new drive. Use the larger for Windows 9x since that is what you use Most (right??) Purchase two removable drive bays. Put the two drives into a removable rack and switchy-switchy whenever. Boot Commander is cheaper!! But you get more space (duh) when you buy the additional hard drive.

I hope this helps!!!

[sMAckT]

AAhhh, Deja Vu.
I have myself attempted this and also have had trouble. I know the problem w/ trying to load any other OS when Windows 9x has been installed either A. First, prior to any other OS's being loaded. or B. The partion that Windows 9x is installed on is the "Primary Active" partition. When either of these conditions is true, Windows 9x will always load.
Solutions:
1. Install System Commander.
2. Purchase the new drive. Use the larger for Windows 9x since that is what you use Most (right??) Purchase two removable drive bays. Put the two drives into a removable rack and switchy-switchy whenever. Boot Commander is cheaper!! But you get more space (duh) when you buy the additional hard drive.

I hope this helps!!!

[cyberhh]

OKay - This I have done some 100+ times.

I would imagine that you are trying to install Win NT 4.0? If so the code difference in Server and Workstation is actually in the client licenses - Wkstn shipps frozen at 10 and server allows additive licensing - otherwise they are identical. Some utilities vary - this I will leave up to you.

My advice is to install only worstation or server with windows 9x.

To do this install windows 9x FIRST. then from within windows 9x inster the WinNT 4x cd and follow the on screen prompts. I f this does not work - you have other issues that need to be addressed. When these have happened I have always discovered that NT has a problem with one or more peices of hardware.

Anyhow email me if you need any help.

[cyberhh]

OKay - This I have done some 100+ times.

I would imagine that you are trying to install Win NT 4.0? If so the code difference in Server and Workstation is actually in the client licenses - Wkstn shipps frozen at 10 and server allows additive licensing - otherwise they are identical. Some utilities vary - this I will leave up to you.

My advice is to install only worstation or server with windows 9x.

To do this install windows 9x FIRST. then from within windows 9x inster the WinNT 4x cd and follow the on screen prompts. I f this does not work - you have other issues that need to be addressed. When these have happened I have always discovered that NT has a problem with one or more peices of hardware.

Anyhow email me if you need any help.

[Spoogy13]

Hey, first off, you do not what system commander, the tech school i went to used that, and all it did was cause problems.

another thing, use only fat16. if you use fat32 or ntfs, that causes problem because nt can not see fat32 and 9x can not see ntfs. all os's can be installed on the same partition, the only flaw with that is one of the nt's will have to be in another directory besides c:\winnt.

install 9x first then install both nt's from the autorun screen in 9x. that eliminates the need for the boot disks.

i have done this 100's of times, and i have not had any major problems once i figure out that this was the smoothest way of doing this.

[cordon]

If you're studying for MCSE, then install Server. It will allow you to play with the server functionality, Workstation is just a sawn off version of server as far as the user is concerned.

When I was studying for my MCSE I just used a seperate disk for NT, swapping over the cable when I wanted to use Win98. Not the best solution, but I didn't have all the trouble of dual boot setup.

[ledrichard]

hey man . By any chance, when you use fdisk to create the partitions, do you enable the large disk support? If so then it will never work. winNt will never work on fat32. That error that you are getting about the kernel sounds like it is a fat32 partition.

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