Hi,

I have for some time been trying to install Windows NT 4.0 on the same disk that hosts Windows 98 SE. I have my Seagate 8.4 Gb HDD partitioned as Primary partition set to approx 5.42 Gb, and an extended partition with two logical drives, the first being 814 Mb and the second being 823 Mb.

I've tried using both the setup disks (set of three) and booting from CD ROM to do the installation. Both work fine in terms of carrying out the initial setup. That is disk two and three are called for in the appropriate time and order. Then the CDROM is located and drivers installed for it. Then the option to choose a partititon for NT is offered. I select the appropriate partiton and allow NT to format it being the last logical drive of 823 Mb. I've tried both FAT16 and NTFS, both have worked in terms of successfully formatting the drive. Then I am advised that setup will suspend the other O/S before continuing. Finally I am asked to remove diskette and CD and press enter to restart. Having done so the PC starts to boot, gets to "Verifying DMI pool" and then stops with just a flashing cursor.

I've attempted this on three machines and had the same result. The other disk drives involved were 20 Gb and a 6.4 Gb, in the case of the 20 Gb and 8.4 Gb HDD's I get warned that the disk exceeds 1024 cylinders prior to selecting the partition for installation or formatting that partition. The biggest partiton I have tried to install on is 1.5 Gb.

If anyone can tell me what I'm doing wrong I would really appreciate it. I know it can be done as I did this last year, but have no idea as to what I am doing differently. When changing the active partition back to Win98 and checking the drives in My Computer the partiton exists as does the WINNT folder that setup creates, but no Boot.ini file is locatable - is this cretaed before NT setup is complete if so why is it missing?

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