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PC911 > How-To > Windows > Multi-booting Windows

Adding An Operating System To Your Collection

Here's how to install a new OS or replace an existing one into one of your multi-boot partitions.

In order to reliably and easily add/replace an OS to your collection, you need to temporarily make the partition where you want to install it the only visible and active partition.

  1. Insert either the MS-DOS 6.22 Boot Disk or the Windows 98 Boot Disk into the floppy drive and reboot the machine.

    You end up at a DOS prompt.

  2. Insert the Partition Magic 5 disk and type a:pqmagic to start PM5.

    The main screen shows all your partitions.

  3. Identify and delete the partition where the new OS goes so that you have a clean slate to start with. Right-click on the partition and select Delete.

  4. Type OK and click OK.

    After the partition is deleted you'll have a chunk of free, unallocated space.

  5. Right-click in the unallocated space and select Create.

  6. In the dialog box that displays, select Create as: Primary Partition.

  7. For the partition type, refer to the table below for the best file system to choose.

    Operating System Supported File Systems
    MS-DOS 6.22 FAT
    Windows 3.1 FAT
    Windows 95 and 95A FAT
    Windows 95B and 95C FAT, FAT32
    Windows 98 and 98 Second Edition FAT, FAT32
    Windows NT 4 FAT, NTFS4, NTFS5 (SP4 or higher only!)
    Windows 2000 FAT, FAT32, NTFS4, NTFS5

  8. For the Label, you could use for example Win95, Win98, WinNT, and Win2K. Then click OK.

  9. In order to make this partition bootable, right-click on the new partition, select Advanced and click Set Active.

  10. Right-click on the new partition once more and select Format.

  11. In the dialog box that displays, select the partition type according to your selection as explained above, confirm that the label is correct, type OK as instructed, and click OK.

    Look at the Status column. You'll notice that all other partitions are set automatically to Hidden by PM5, which is exactly what we want. This way we pretend that our new OS partition is the only existing partition on the drive to avoid any confusion with the multi-boot setup during installation.

  12. Now click the Apply button to perform the operation.

  13. When the process is done and you click OK, you'll be prompted to reboot.

  14. Before you click to reboot, insert your Windows 98 or MS-DOS Boot Disk first!

  15. Now click OK to reboot and get to a C:\ prompt.

  16. The last required step is to type a:\fdisk /mbr and press Enter.

    This resets the Master Boot Record to prevent System Commander from taking over after the next reboot.

Now you're ready to start the OS installation. To install Windows NT 4 or Windows 2000:

  1. Insert the first setup disk for that operating system.

  2. Reboot the machine.

    Installation will start automatically.

To install Windows 95, 98 or Millennium Edition:

  1. Insert the Windows 98 Boot Disk with CD-ROM support and reboot your machine.

  2. When you're at the DOS prompt, insert the Windows 95, 98, or ME installation disk.

  3. Switch to the CD-ROM drive by typing E:\ and pressing Enter.

  4. Go to the appropriate directory on the CD by typing cd win98 (for example, if you want to install Windows 98) and press Enter.

    Your prompt should now look like this: E:\WIN98>

    Tip: For Windows 9x/ME we'll make things a little easier and faster by copying the setup files to the hard drive first and running setup from there. It speeds up the installation, makes it more reliable, and saves you the trouble from having to insert the installation CD in the future anytime you want to make any changes to your Windows installation.

  5. Create a place for the setup files on the hard drive by typing mkdir C:\setup and pressing Enter.

  6. Copy the setup files into this new directory by typing copy *.* c:\setup and pressing Enter.

    This process should only take a couple of minutes.

  7. Start the actual installation by typing c:\setup\setup and pressing Enter.

  8. Follow the instructions, they are pretty self-explanatory.

For more specific help with installing the OS refer to "Fresh Installation - Step-By-Step" earlier in this guide. It contains a section for installation of each Windows OS.

After the installation is successfully completed, you want to make this OS a part of your multi-boot setup and get your multi-boot menu back when you boot. Here's how.

  1. Insert either the MS-DOS 6.22 Boot Disk or the Windows 98 Boot Disk into the floppy drive and reboot the machine.

    You end up at a DOS prompt.

  2. Remove the boot disk and insert the Partition Magic 5 disk, then type a:pqmagic to start PM5.

    You'll see the main screen showing all your partitions.

  3. Right-click on your MS-DOS partition and select Advanced, then Set Active.

  4. Click Apply to apply the changes, remove any disk from the floppy drive, and then reboot.

    You'll end up at the DOS prompt. Right above the prompt you should see a message from System Commander about Reloading System Commander MBR. System Commander is actually smart enough to recognize that the Master Boot record was changed and restores its own custom version automatically - very handy!

  5. Reboot one more time, and your multi-boot system should be back, displaying the new OS as an option in the menu.

  6. Ensure that you make a drive image of your new OS installation (next)!

   
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