Author: Chris Watt
Email: cwatt@borg.cs.dal.ca
Date Submitted: Wed, Jul 29, 1998
Status: New Entry
Requester: Tom Dorgan
Email: rdorgan@worldnet.att.net
Request Made: Fri, Jan 30, 1998
Releases: | all |
Platform: | intel |
Category: | Installing Issues |
Category Listing: | Simplest way to upgrade my machine from Win95/Linux to WinNT/Linux? |
WinNT is being used by more and more people (including those who run linux). Many linux users upgrading to NT are already running Win95. I would like to know the simplest, most straightforward method of getting this done. I would like not to have to re-install linux (which works fine, already, thank you). There is a FAQ regarding Linux & NT, but it takes one from an unitialized system. Also, I would like to know if it is easier if one has the different Operating Systems on different hard drives with the Micro$soft stuff (naturally) on the primary drive.
Actually this should be fairly simple, assuming that you have Win95 on a FAT16 partition (oddly enough, NT does not support FAT32. Typical MS bullshit I suppose. If you're using FAT32 see the last paragraph). 1. Create (or make sure you've got) a Linux boot disk 2. Boot to your trusty "Windows 95 command prompt"; the quickest way to do this (as you probably already know) is to wait for the "Starting Windows 95" message, and then hit SHIFT+F5. 3. Use the command fdisk /mbr to re-write the boot sector of your hard disk in MS approved fashion. 4. Install Win/NT into free space on your FAT16 partition(s). 5. You will now have NT's os loader contraption in your boot sector, use your Linux boot disk to re-install LILO. Theoretically at this point you can use LILO to boot either Linux or OS Loader, and OS Loader to boot either NT or 95. It is probably possible to add 95 as a configuration in LILO, but I don't know how you would do this off hand (short of booting it on a different partition than NT). As a final note, if you ARE using FAT32, you're going to HAVE to install NT on a different (i.e. new) partition using either NTFS or FAT16. Having done that, OS Loader will not pick up Win95, but LILO can be fairly easily configured to boot any of the three OS's (one caveat, if you use NTFS for your NT partition, the only way you're going to be able to move data from NT to 95 is if you do it from Linux. If you use FAT16 for your NT partition, then Win95 will be able to read it).
/usr/doc/howto/mini/Linux+NT-Loader