Second OS?

JackKelly

Ok, ive dug up a few games that insist on having windows 95 to run.(compatibility mode wont work either for some reason). So ive decided to install windows 95 onto a second, slave, 8Gb harddrive in my PC. I already have XP installed as the main OS, and was wondering, is this possible, or do i need to format the lot and reinstall XP as well?(i wont bother if this is the case). Can i just format the new drive, and install 95 on it or what?

Any help is appreciated.

MartMax

I don't think u need to reinstall Windows XP, try right clicking "My Computer" -> Properties -> Advanced -> Settings for "Startup & Recovery" -> Edit for "Startup Options". There you go just need to edit the startup script. Not sure how to script but try Googling. That might help.

JackKelly

hmm, yeah, i remember reading that all that needed changing was the boot.ini
Ill google it. In the meantime ill await confirmation!
Thanks.

JackKelly

hmmm, this could be troublesome. My new drive is formatted, but i cant install Win95 from XP, it has to be run from DOS.Thing is, i thought there was no Dos with XP!?

Boot from CD?

Mutant_Fruit

don't do it!

You'll overwrite the bootsector, and you won't be able to boot into windows XP then. You'll probably need to load in a bootloader or something, but i have no idea on how to do that. Do a bit of googling first! It'd be ok if you installed 95 and THEN installed XP, as XP should notice the other OS and allow you to load a bootloader, but i'm not 100% sure on that.

EDIT: But yes, you could just boot from the CD.

JackKelly

hmmm, ok.

now im confused. Well i wont do anything for the moment. Whats all this bootloader malarkey?Anyone care to shed some light?

Mutant_Fruit

Basically, in order for an OS to actually start up, it writes some special info in the "boot sector" on your harddrive. This is typically the first sector of the master drive. If this gets overwritten by windows 95 writing its own info, then you won't be able to load windows XP anymore.

A bootloader gets around this by loading itself into the bootsector, and so it loads up, and gives you a menu with all your other OS's listed. Then, it reads config info from a seperate file, and allows you to boot whatever OS you want. You can have as many OS's as you want installed, and as long as they're set up in the bootloader, you can load them up.

John R

the simple solution is to disconnect the HDD with WinXP (just to make sure you don't overwrite it) and leave the blank HDD connected as a slave. Install a fresh win 95 (a dos/win 95 boot disk can be got at http://www.bootdisk.com ) on this drive. Load all the drivers and apps you want then reconnect the original WinXP HDD. Then whenever you want to boot to one or the other change the boot order in the BIOS settings of the PC.
It is not as slick as using a bootloader app but it keeps the two OS completely seperate and there is no risk of damaging your working XP installation.

I have this setup on my old PC with win98 and XP on seperate HDDs no problem.

AFAIK some newer motherboards have a facility that allows a choice of boot at startup without going into the settings.

Michael Collins

John R wrote:

the simple solution is to disconnect the HDD with WinXP (just to make sure you don't overwrite it) and leave the blank HDD connected as a slave. Install a fresh win 95 (a dos/win 95 boot disk can be got at http://www.bootdisk.com ) on this drive. Load all the drivers and apps you want then reconnect the original WinXP HDD. Then whenever you want to boot to one or the other change the boot order in the BIOS settings of the PC.
It is not as slick as using a bootloader app but it keeps the two OS completely seperate and there is no risk of damaging your working XP installation.

I have this setup on my old PC with win98 and XP on seperate HDDs no problem.

AFAIK some newer motherboards have a facility that allows a choice of boot at startup without going into the settings.

Yeh, I think that's the best solution. You're correct about newer (in the last 5 years or so) bios supporting a selection menu at start-up, all you have to do is press some button e.g. ESC and you'll be asked where you want to boot from, select Secondary Drive or Drive 2 etc...Just make sure your bios supports booting from a secondary hard disk before doing the above, otherwise you won't be able to boot into Win95 without physically swapping the drives.

JackKelly

okk, cool.Better safe than sorry. That was one was that never crossed my mind. Seen as though this computer is fairly new, will 95 be able to handle a radeon 9600 etc?

davmigil

This bootloader will do the trick:

http://gag.sourceforge.net/

(Also comes in handy if you ever accidentally overwrite master boot record and can't boot into windows).

I guess maybe though your XP hard drive is a new one with ATA 100/133 and the old one is ATA33, if you have them installed together your newer drive will default to the ATA setting of the older drive resulting in a performance hit. So plugging in/out cables might be a better bet.

astrofool

try win98 instead, 95 had issues with more than 512 ram

Nukem

My 2cents - Know some of the older games need a patch or XP driver to run proper.Bought Homeworld Cataclysm last year which isnt setup for XP and got a patch online,just google the game with xp.

JackKelly

well, i cant find a patch for the game im looking at (rainbow six).

I set up 95 anyway, on the seperate hardrive and everything was about to work except that im not getting a "windows protection error" on start up. Something to do with a IOS device?