Brock, those aren't stupid questions, but very relevant to this list. I'm
dual booting w98SE and W2kPro, very similar to what you intend to do.
First, look at this list's guides on fdisking and dual booting:
http://freepctech.com/guides.shtml
Look at this .pdf, (acrobat reader required) of dual booting win2K:
http://www.itp-journals.com/search/t1216.htm
WinXP is about the same as Win2K as far as this topic is concerned.

My own thoughts: Load the new hard drive as a slave in your existing system
and use Partition Magic to set up the primary c: where you will install
win98 and the other partitions. You can even copy win98 install files and
PM7 install file onto it while it's slaved to your existing computer.

To install winNT/2K/XP dual-boot, you'll want it on a second primary
partition on one hard drive or the first primary partition of a second hard
drive.
I'd give win98 and winxp partitions a minimum of 2Gb or at least 5Gb.
Your first install should be win9x in c: and when you later add win2k or XP,
the c: root will contain a boot.ini which will display on boot up and ask you
which OS you want to start. After a time-out period, (set during the install),
it will automatically boot into the default OS... all selected during install
and change-able later by altering the boot.ini file or from within win2k/XP.
The boot.ini doesn't precisely tell where NT/2K/XP is located, just says
fastdetect and files ntldr and ntdetect.com are installed in c:\ so even
if you add, remove hard drives, boot can locate the NT partition, wherever
it may be. The NT/2K/XP partition can be NTFS file system, but fat32 is
recommended for dual-booting so you can share files.

WIn2k and Xp are both very happy to dual-boot with win9x products. And
Partition Magic makes the process even more slick. The PM .pdf manual covers
the whole process very well. You don't even need PM, but setting up
partitions and later changing them, without losing data, is great.
Larry Hooper


---Meanshoes--- wrote:
> This may be a very stupid question but I just have to ask....... I am going to be building a new system and was sitting thinking about all the things I'll need to do when all of the sudden it dawned on me I have never partitioned a drive. I have always just run the drive like it is (one big drive) this time I would like to break it into a few as my new drive will be a 60 gig drive. my intention is to run two different OS's  winXP and 98 from two different drives. ok here is the deal I have a copy of Partition Magic ver 7. but I am wondering now, do I have to Partition the drive before I load the OS and if so am I to assume that Partition Magic runs in DOS mode.....?? also how does this affect the setup when it recognizes the drive at startup.....does it still recognize it as c: drive........?

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