Reinstall Windows 98 on XP/98 dually

[Piyono]

The Windows 98 partition on my parents' XP / 98 dual-boot machine is due for a format/reinstall, but I fear for the XP boot loader, which will most likely be overwritten in the reinstallation process.

Unfortunately, 98 is a necessary evil in this household, so *not* reinstalling it is *not* an option.

How can I wipe and reinstall Win 98 whilst maintaining the inegrity and functionality of the XP boot loader?

Piyono

 

[mangyDOG]

This should work (and it gives you a backup if it doesn't), you will need a spare hard-drive. It is a bit of stuffing around, but since when has dual booting been easy???


1) Ghost Image (or other HDD imaging program) your entire drive (both XP and 98 onto a spare hard-drive).

2) Wipe your existing drive and install Win98.

3) Ghost image the new Win98 partition to your spare drive

4) Overwrite the hard-drive with the original dual boot ghost image. (Thus restoring Windows XP and the dual boot configuration)

5) Overwrite the old Win98 partition with the new Win98 ghost image.

6) Start it up and hopefully it all works! (if it does I suggest you make a new complete drive image and burn it to cd/dvd for use in the future if necessary.


cheers,
mangyDOG

 

[Piyono]

mDOG,

That's exactly the kind of thing I want to avoid.

Several websites are parroting an article on restoring the XP bootstrap loader:
http://www.dougknox.com/xp/tips/xp_repair_9x.htm
Is this accurate? Safe?

Piyono

 

[sechs]

Pretty much, that's it, although you can save some steps by saving your current bootsect.dos and boot.ini and restoring those after the fixboot.