[svevo]

I have a Dell Computer 500 mgz, 256 Ram , Windows 98SE and a recently installed 80 Gig Hard Drive. I would like to partition the HD and install Windows XP . I tried Partition Magic but could not make it work. Is this doable? Can you run two different OS's off the same Hard Drive? And,if so ,how do you set it up? thank you

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Yes, it can be done. I am not familar with Partition Magic, but I would think that it would be possible to do it with it. Have you partitioned the drive at all?

There are a couple of ways. First, you can have Win98 installed and load XP, which will then set it up so that it asks which system you want to boot. One problem with this is that XP depends on the Win98 partition, so if you decide you don't want Win98 anymore, it is hard to get rid of.

A second way is to use the tools available from Linux to partition the disk and to install a boot loader, like grub, to select which system to boot. This is a bit tricker, unless you want to keep Linux, but it canbe done. You need to hide the Win98 partition when you install XP so that it does not set it up to boot through it. Both partitions need to be a primary partition.

You can actually have many OS boot partitions.

[Kemasa]

Yes, it can be done. I am not familar with Partition Magic, but I would think that it would be possible to do it with it. Have you partitioned the drive at all?

There are a couple of ways. First, you can have Win98 installed and load XP, which will then set it up so that it asks which system you want to boot. One problem with this is that XP depends on the Win98 partition, so if you decide you don't want Win98 anymore, it is hard to get rid of.

A second way is to use the tools available from Linux to partition the disk and to install a boot loader, like grub, to select which system to boot. This is a bit tricker, unless you want to keep Linux, but it canbe done. You need to hide the Win98 partition when you install XP so that it does not set it up to boot through it. Both partitions need to be a primary partition.

You can actually have many OS boot partitions.

[neverborn]

did you purchase PartitionMagic? cos it's available for download [free] but that's only for trying it out and getting the feel of the program. If you're actually going to USE it to partition your disk, you'd need the full version...

[svevo]

I did buy partition magic just as symantec took over the product. Although getting tech. support from symantec is very difficult they did promptly return the cost of the software. Thank you to those who answered this question.