Thanks PC911 for the clear instruction on the dual boot process. I started from scratch with a 6gig drive and installed W98 on my C:, W2K on D: and have kept the E: drice for programs such as Office which I call from both installs. Each drive is about 3 gig, and I have ensured they are all FAT32. My problem is with the W2K boot, which constantly needs disk consistency checks when restarting. Apart from being time consuming, these also occasionally freeze. Is there something I can tweak to stop these every time?
#1. "RE: Disk consistency checks in W2K after dual boot" In response to oldhamm (Reply # 0)
There's no way to know exactly what's wrong, but I have a hunch. I assume you haven't defragmented your installations yet?
Next time you boot into each OS, close all programs, delete temp files, clear cache and then Defrag only the partition containing that OS. (Sorry, I'm not being clear--what I mean is, Defrag only your Win2K partition with Win2K's defragmenter. Don't defragment your Win98 partition with your Win2K Defrag. Does that make sense?) But the key to it is to run Defrag at least twice, if not three or four times consecutively.
In Win98, you should run Scandisk in through mode before you run Defrag. In Win2K, set it to run Checkdisk (again, thoroughly) at next boot.
This could take several hours, especially the first time you run Defrag, and it is critically important that you close all programs before you start the routine. If Scandisk and/or Defrag won't finish in Win98, reboot into Safe Mode and run them there.
Glad the dual-boot article was of some use. Please let us know if this fixes the problem or not or if you have any further questions.
#3. "RE: Disk consistency checks in W2K after dual boot" In response to Scotterpops (Reply # 1)
Neat solution! here I am several hours later after scanning, checking and defragging, and so far the problem seems to have gone.; Thanks so much for your help. now to my toggle problem!(see separate post)