1. FAT16/FAT32/NTFS issues

• If you want to get at all of your other 'Windows' partitions from 'real' DOS, you need to stick to the FAT16 file system for all partitions (except Linux).
• If you only want limited access to other partitions from DOS and want to utilize NTFS or FAT32, then plan accordingly.

  • While it is possible for NT to read FAT32 with some 'helpers', remember that you will not be able to get at the FAT32 partitions until you install such tools. I'm not aware of a free tool to allow read/write access to FAT32 from NT, but I believe you can find shareware and/or commercial versions to give you read/write access at Beverly Hills software - a great site for many NT/Win32 tools.
  • I have tried an NTFS driver for Linux with some success, but last thing I knew... it was still in alpha. Also, I'm not offering any tips on recompiling kernels for Unix systems... so proceed at your own risk.
  • If you choose to utilize the DOS 6.22 (or earlier) installation, remember that you can only read/write FAT16 partitions after booting to DOS. I have also heard of an NTFS driver for DOS... but don't have any further information at the time I'm writing this.
  • Linux doesn't have a problem reading/writing to FAT16 or FAT32 filesystems... and if you choose to try the NTFS driver you might even be able to read NTFS. When you are creating your partitions for Linux, you should probably set up all your mount points for all partitions to minimize work later. This seems to be somewhat distribution specific, but if you're lucky... all your /etc/fstab entries will be created for your fat16/32 partitions.

1. Boot to your DOS floppy
2. Delete all partitions on your hard-drive(s)
3. Reboot your computer with DOS floppy

1. Use fdisk to create a primary DOS partition on your first hard-drive. This partition should not be the size of the whole drive. Remember we are planning on making several partitions to accomodate all the OS'

For ease of discussion, let's just create all the partitions here. If you have 'special' circumstances that don't let you partition your whole (first) hard-drive, you are not out of luck... but this portion isn't intended to address more creative partitioning strategies. For right now... let's continue assuming you have a fairly 'normal' two hard-drive scenario (drives both within normal DOS limitations... <8.4g... and BIOS support to recognize the entire hard-drives without special helpers). By 'Helpers'... I am referring to products such as 'Western Digital's EZDrive', 'Partition Magic', 'System Commander', and similar products. In this portion, I am attempting to explain what I consider a 'pure' installation.

• I would suggest maybe 500mb for the primary DOS partition (plenty of space for Win 3.11) if you want a separate 'true' DOS partition. If you only want to be able to 'boot' to true DOS, but don't want to allocate a separate partition... then I recommend that you use your primary partition for your Win 98 installation... and create a large enough partition to handle Win 98 and allow breathing room for swap space, etc...
Win 98 and NT both will use a minimal amount of space on the primary partition, regardless of whether you install the bulk of the OS' on logical drives. If you are installing 'all' of 98 or NT on the C: drive (primary partition), I just recommend Win 98 for the 'full' primary partition installation for added flexibility (and humorous tricks with NT... should you be interested later).
• Create an extended DOS partition for the remainder of your drive... whatever that might be (again... assuming you have two hard-drives... and will be installing Linux on the second drive only).
• Create logical partitions in the extended partition as necessary - keeping in mind we are assuming at least C, D (and possibly E) on the first hard-drive. I prefer to keep each OS separate from its applications, and install 'shared' applications for 98/NT on a common drive(s). I hope that you looked at my disclaimer about installing applications over themselves for 98/NT - in some cases there are specific warnings from vendors, but I have found that things work without problems in general. Uninstalling applications can be complicated, but I really prefer (a) common application drive(s) for organization and disk-space conservation. If you have objections against using FAT16 for efficiency/space reasons in comparison to FAT32, remember I am just attempting to maintain accessibility among all the OS' installed.
• Make the primary DOS partition active and reboot with DOS floppy (not a Win 98 boot disk). Remember I assuming we are installing 'real' DOS 6.22
• Format the primary partition as a system drive (format c: /s)
• Create DOS folder on C: drive and copy files from DOS floppy (copy a:\*.* c:\dos)
• Create CDROM folder on C: drive and copy your DOS cd-rom driver to the folder (copy a:\some_driver.sys c:\cdrom)
• It's probably a good idea to just format the other partitions you created now (D, E, F, G, ...)

@ECHO OFF
SET DIRCMD=/OGEN /P
PATH=C:\;C:\DOS
C:\DOS\MSCDEX.EXE /D:MSCD001
DOSKEY

LASTDRIVE=Z
DEVICE=C:\CDROM\MY_CD_ROM.SYS /D:MSCD001
(replacing MY_CD_ROM.SYS with the valid driver for your CD-rom)

1. If you can boot from your CD-rom, that would be great... but not necessary
2. Here's where you consider if you want the NT system partition to use NTFS

• If you later choose to convert to NTFS, keep in mind that you screw up drive letters and paths for other OS', so plan ahead.
• Keep this in mind that similar things will happen any time you convert to a filesystem that is 'invisible' to a particular OS. Be careful before you cause drive letter nightmares for yourself.

3. I only use NT for OS stability (compared to Win 9x) - no NTFS... and this keeps the drive letters the same under each OS, but it's your choice here.

• Windows NT Workstation 4.0 [VGA Mode]
• Windows NT Workstation 4.0
• MS-DOS

• Assuming you have DOS on your C drive, and NT on your D drive, you will want to install Win 98 to your E drive.
• If you don't want to isolate your 'true' DOS on its own partition, then you should be installing Win 98 to your C drive. Again... I'm assuming you read my note about flexibility... and why I don't recommend installing NT on your primary partition when you are also installing Win 98.
• If you have good reasons for using NTFS... and did so for the NT installation, 98 will not see the NTFS partition... and the the appropriate drive for the 98 installation would then be D
• When you restart your computer, you will notice Windows 98 has replaced the MS-DOS entry in NT's boot menu - we can fix that later.

• Please make sure your boot partition is a primary partition on your second hard-drive. Depending on what distribution of Linux you are installing, this might or might not be under your control. Remember I assumed in the very beginning that you would be able to wipe out all existing partitions to accomplish the multi-boot setup... so this shouldn't be an issue at this point. If you are using DiskDruid (RedHat), the easiest way to make sure your / mount is a primary partition is to simply create it first. If you have existing partitions on your hard-drive, it is probably easiest to delete all partitions and start your partitioning with what will be your / mount. SuSE Linux has a partitioning tool that gives you slightly more control... and you can create multiple primary partitions. If you prefer to use 'real' Unix fdisk, just keep the suggestions above in mind when creating your partitions.
• When you finally install LILO, make sure you install it on the boot partition of your Linux installation (not the master boot record)

• Create a folder somewhere for bootpart (C:\bootpart would be a good choice)
• Unzip/copy the contents of bootpa22.zip to the folder you just created
• 'cd' to the bootpart folder wherever you put it
• Type 'bootpart' and look at the output - all the partitions on your hard-drives are listed with their types, etc...
• You are trying to figure out which partition is your / partition for your Linux installation. It shouldn't be too difficult to tell since bootpart lists the partition sizes with their corresponding types.
• In general, you want to issue a command that looks something like the following:

bootpart <partition_number> <filename to store boot info> <Entry in NT's boot loader>

For example:

bootpart 7 c:\bootsect.lnx SuSE Linux 6.3

I strongly recommend you also create a bootable image for Win 98 following a similar procedure, but making use of the 'Win95' type where you would enter the partition number. True... you already have a Win 98 boot choice in NT's menu, but I have seen Win 98 fail to boot in some cases... when you leave its boot as C:\ in the boot.ini file.

bootpart win95 c:\bootsect.w9x Windows 98

Finally, you can regain your 'true' DOS boot by using the dos622 choice for the partition number

bootpart dos622 c:\bootsect.622 MS-DOS 6.22

• Windows NT/Linux only (two hard drives).. assuming NT Workstation 4.0
• DOS/Windows 98/Linux using NT's OS loader, but without NT installed as OS (two hard drives)
• Windows 98/Linux (two hard drives)
• Windows NT/Linux using LILO for boot menu (single hard drive)
• Windows NT/Linux using NT's menu for boot choices (single hard drive)
• Windows 98/Linux (single hard drive)
• Windows NT/Linux (two hard-drives)
• Windows NT/Linux (same hard drive)
• Windows 98/Linux (same hard drive)
• Windows 98/FreeBSD/Linux
• Linux/FreeBSD
• Linux/Solaris x86
• Linux/BeOS
• etc... ;-)

OS/2 might have been a possibility... but - I doubt I'll ever use OS/2... based on what I've seen of it. I installed a very old beta (probably not fair since it was more or less equivalent to Windows 3.1) - but even the last OS/2 Warp 4 is probably on the path of the dodo bird ;-) and I just don't think it's worth the effort.