Is it possible for windows 98 to see NTFS hard disks?

[cheesegoduk]

Hi
I have just set up a computer with a 60gb hard disk formatted in NTFS and windows xp and a 6gb disk with windows 98 formatted in FAT32. I can see the windows 98 disk in windows 2000, But not the otherway round, I was wondering if there is a program which will allow me to see the NTFS drive within windows 98
How would I go about adding an opition to change boot up drives at start up, I installed the windows 98 drive after, So windows xp does not give me the opition to boot to windows 98, at the moment I have to change a setting in the BIOS

Thanks for your help

[avdven]

As far as I know, there is no way for you to see the contents of an NTFS drive on Windows 98 (at least not if they're on the same comuputer). That's why some people recommended that you set up a partition for storing data.

As for booting options, the way you said it make it sounds like you installed Windows 98 on the 6 GB drive on another computer. Is that true? If so, there's nothing you can do to have it boot from that drive without changing it in the BIOS. What you should have done was use the 6 GB Windows 98 drive as your primary (C) drive. Then, you should have installed XP (with NTFS) to the secondary (D) drive. Windows 98 needs to have specific files on the primary drive in order to be able to start via the XP choice menu (which can be changed via boot.ini on the root directory of the XP drive). I think you're pretty much out of look except changing the setting within the BIOS.

AJ

[cheesegoduk]

I installed both on the same pc with the windows xp drive as primary then the windows 98 drive has secondary, Should I swop the drives over and make the windows 98 one the primary one, If so, How would I make a boot menu for the Os's, Or I Suppose I could install linux and use its boot loader :-)

[avdven]

Windows XP has a boot loader installed. The problem is, for Windows 98, the boot folder has to be FAT32. In order to use the boot loader for XP, however, it must also have specific files on the boot drive. If you want to make 98 primary drive, you're going to have to reinstall XP to the other drive so that it can put the boot files in the proper place. It shouldn't be difficult. Just set the 98 drive as the master and the other as the slave. Boot off of the Windows XP CD and install it over the previous version of XP you have installed. It should set everything up properly (in theory, of course). Also, before you do anything, also make sure you have a recent back up of all of your files, just in case something goes wrong.

AJ

[cheesegoduk]

Would this work with Windows 2000? The version of windows xp that I am using is already registered to my laptop so the 30 day activition thing will throw my off soon anyway(I just wanted to see what it was like on my new pc) Also would turning the 60gb NTFS drive into FAT32 be a big problem? It would allow the Windows 98 6gb drive to always see the drive, but would turning it into FAT32 be a bad idea?
Anyway Thanks for your help earlyer Avdven, you saved me a lot of time that I would have wasted trying to get the secondary windows 98 drive to boot up right.

[avdven]

To answer your first question, yes Windows 2000 will work the same way as XP in regards to the boot loader. Also, when you install Windows 2000, you will have a choice to format it with NTFS or FAT32. Which you choose honestly depends on your needs. I prefer NTFS because of the added security, especially on multi-user systems (for instance, once in a while, one of my employees will ask to use one of the systems at my home office, so I have all of them set up with restricted accounts, and with NTFS, I have all of the folders proctected so they can't access specific folders). If the system is only for you, though, FAT32 should be fine. NTFS also is supposedly slightly more stable, but I have yet to see a difference in stability. What you could do would be to partition the D drive into two separate drives, one being for Windows 2000 and all of the programs installed under 2000, as NTFS and the other for your documents, music, etc. as FAT32. Hope that answers your questions.

AJ

[cheesegoduk]

Thanks Avdven I managed to get it working in the way you said, I installed my copy of windows 2k to the 60gb drive as D and It restarted and picked up windows 98, I now get an selection menu asking to pick either one. I am now just service packing my 2k install(It's the first release with no service packs on) and It seems to be working fine.
Anyway Thanks again, You saved me hours which I would have been tearing my hair out instead!

[ac1dsp3ctrum]

http://www.winstuff.de/show_software.html?sid=50

That program looks promising, although it only has read access you could probably take the dll it runs off of and regserv32 it so the dll will be loaded into memmory.... Not sure if that will work, but hey, its worth a try

[antihaxor]

There is a program called "ntfsdos". It will let you access ntfs partions from dos. I don't know if it will run from inside windows...here is the link:http://www.winternals.com/products/r...ntfsdospro.asp