Question: I am trying to dual boot nt4 and windows 98 se (don't laugh - old computer).

I have seen Microsoft's instructions for doing this, but it limits windows 98 to have a Fat16 partition (NT4's NTLDR doesn't understand FAT32) and therefore only 2GB of disk space. I really need it to have more than that.

I started with Win 98 (on the 1st partition), repartitioned the disk, then added NT4 on the 2nd partition. NT4 took over the bootloader (as expected), so NT4 boots, but Win 98 doesn't. Right now I am working in VMWare so I can use nonpersistent hard drives (IDE like the real computer) to recover from errors easily.

I've tried using XPs NTLDR using the instructions here: <http://www.nu2.nu/fixnt4/> , but I got weird errors from NT4 and it never really worked. If XP's NTLDR would work, that should be able to boot both OSes.

I've also tried using GRUB. In theory that should work. In fact when booting from super grub disk, it does. But as soon as I install grub to disk, Win 98 boots, but NT 4 blue screens at boot with a 0x0000007b inaccessible\_boot\_device error (that can be alot of things see MS kb 822051). The incantation I'm using for GRUB 1 is

> 
> rootnoverify (hd0,1)
> 
> 
> makeactive
> 
> 
> chainloader +1
> 
> 
> boot
> 
> 
> 

So, anybody have some suggestions?

Answer: 
I have a machine with Windows 98, NT and XP (the NT installation is quite obsolete and not really required any more, I just never got rid of it), using **[BootStar](http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/Boot-Manager-Disk/Bootstar.shtml)**, a third party boot manager.

![alt text](https://i.stack.imgur.com/bd6Fl.jpg)

**[BootIt NG](http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/bootit-next-generation.htm)** will do the job as well.

![alt text](https://i.stack.imgur.com/2aAcc.jpg)
Windows NT 4 does not like anything other than FAT16 and NTFS, so you're not going to get what you want out of this, unless you go Windows 2000 instead of NT 4 (if that 2GB barrier is really a problem).

EDIT: If you're using VMWare, why do you want the two OSes to share a single drive anyway? That makes little sense to me.

ADDITIONAL EDIT:

Create a boot partition with 2GB and FAT16. Create a second partition for Windows 98 and FAT32. Create a third partition for Windows NT 4 and NTFS.

Install Windows 98 into the D: drive (i.e. FAT32 partition), and NTFS into the third partition (which it will probably call D: as well, but should call E:).

You'll need a big C: drive because some installers are stupid and like putting rubbish on the C: drive, regardless of where Windows is. Case in point is Visual Studio 6.