Re: [WinMac] Re: dual boot


CHoogendyk@aol.com
Sun, 17 Jan 1999 16:34:16 EST


In a message dated 1/14/99 9:14:03 PM, pata@tampabay.rr.com writes:

>>But... aren't dual-boot 95/NT machines just a bad idea in general?
>>i've had no end of problems with trying to "share" a disk between two
>>OSes like that.
>Yeah, but we need to support both and can't have 2 PCs for everyone
>(wouldn't fit in the cubie) :)

I have a couple of dual boot machines at my desk.

One is a Pentium 166 that used to run Windows 3.1. I installed NT on it. The
install sequence recommended (MS's built in dialogs) that I choose to install
in the Windows directory alongside NT so that the "sharing of resources" could
be optimized. Bull. My 3.1 boot, which had been reasonably stable, totally
died within weeks.

The other is my Mac G3/300. I took a standard VPC 2.0 with DOS and installed
Win95 directly on the C drive. Then I created a D drive, popped in the NT CD,
and redirected it to install on the D drive. I've never had a problem with
this system, because the two OSes each have their own drive. I also back it up
by duplicating VPC on the Mac side before doing any software installs under NT
or 95.

Soon, I will redo the Pentium. I think I will reformat it totally, partitian
the drive, install NT on one drive and Linux on the other drive.

One option I haven't personally tried, just because I don't have an unlimited
number of machines and time to sacrifice, is to install on the same drive but
make sure that NT goes into the Winnt directory, while the previous OS stays
in the Windows directory. I doubt that would be quite as clean as separate
drives, but it might come close.

Thing is, if you are enough of a weenie, there's almost no end of how many
machines you can cram into a cubicle. When I was at Specular, I set two 3X5
desks in an L and had five computers on my desk. Now I only have two computers
at my desk, but I have 5 OSes between them (counting DOS), and X-Windows gets
me straight back to the Unix servers.

Chris Hoogendyk
Network Specialist
W.E.B. Du Bois Library
UMass Amherst

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This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0b2 on Sun Jan 17 1999 - 13:40:08 PST