How to access your d drive to your prmary

i had windows 98 on my primary dive c. i then installed windows 2000 and was experiencing difficulty so i switched my d drive to my primary drive and installed windows 98 on to it.now i need to know how i can access my d rive which was my primary c drive and retrieve files i need. when i try to acess the d drive my computer wants to format the drive and i cant get my files i need off to do that because it would erase them .is there a way to get my d drive to boot up from my primary drive which has windows 98 on it?my d drive is the one with windows 2000 installed. thanks for your help.

This question was answered on November 2, 2004. Much of the information contained herein may have changed since posting.

---

You can have a "dual boot" system Windows 2000 has a nifty boot loader that can

handle multiple installations of operating systems This is great if you care to

run a copy of Windows 98 and Windows 2000 on the same PC The best way to

accomplish this is to start with a working installation of Windows 98, which

will likely be housed in the C:\Windows folder When you pop in the Windows 2000

CD and begin the installation, you will be prompted to upgrade your existing

version of Windows or to install a fresh copy of Windows In this case, you want

a fresh copy, leaving Windows 98 intact Since Windows 2000 installs itself to

the C:\WINNT directory by default, you shouldn't have a problem with it stomping

all over 98 When you're finished, a brand new boot menu will appear with your

choices in operating systems Note: that using this setup allows you to install

several copies of Windows NT / 2000, but only one copy of Windows 9x Also, keep

in mind that the various versions of Windows often use the same directories for

Windows components, so be prepared for some version issues if you don't specify

alternate directories for applications you install or upgrade in various

operating systems.

Here is a step by step on how to reinstall the systems So you won't have any

problems.

1 Partition your hard disk so that you have a separate partition for each

operating system Or, partition your drive so it has one partition for Windows

9X, SE, or Me (we'll call it Win 9X from now on) and enough free space

(unpartitioned space) for the installation of Windows 2000 (we'll call it Win 2K

for short).

3 Install Win 9X first If you install it after installing Win 2K it will

overwrite the C:\BOOT.INI file you will not be able to dual-boot.

4 Boot to Win 9X.

5 Insert the Win 2K CD in your CD-ROM drive.

6 It should autostart and display the following message:

This CD-ROM contains a newer versions of Windows than the one you are presently

using Would you like to upgrade to Windows 2000?

7 Click Yes (we will not actually upgrade Win 9X).

8 This may result in the following error:

The option to upgrade will not be available at this time because Setup was

unable to load the file

C:\WINDOWS\UpgDlls\w95upg.dll\WIN9XUPG\W95UPG.DLL

The system cannot find the file specified.

Ignore the error and click OK.

9 This will produce the following message:

Welcome to the Windows 2000 Setup Wizard....

What do you want to do?

o Upgrade...

o Install a new copy of Windows 2000 (Clean Install) ...

In the resulting window click the Advance Options command button to produce

the following screen:

Advanced Options

You can select options to customize setup

Location of Windows 2000 files

E:\I386\WINNT

Copy all setup files from the CD to the hard drive

I want to choose the installation partition during setup

Check the last checkbox I also checked the first checkbox so I would not need

to fetch the Win 2K CD every time Win 2K needed to install a new driver, etc

You should be able to leave the defaults for the Location of the Win 2K files.

11 Click OK That will take you back to the menu in step 10 Click Next

Setup will then copy files to the hard disk drive and Restart your computer when

it is done.

I have omitted several restarts from this tutorial Just select Win 2K Setup

from the list.

12 Setup will then boot to the following screen, or something similar,

depending on how your hard disk drive is partitioned:

Windows 2000 Professional Setup

===========================

Setup will install Windows 2000 on partition

D: FAT32 21242 MB (14615 MB free)

on 29307 MB Disk 0 at Id 0 on bus 0 on atapi

Us UP and DOWN ARROW keys to select the file system you want, and then Press

Enter

If you want to Select a different partition for Windows 2000, press ESC.

Format the partition using the NTFS file System

Format the partition using the FAT file System

Convert the partition to NTFS

Leave the current system intact (no changes)

If you have made a partition for Win 2K and it does not have files that you want

to keep on it then choose to format it for NTFS (NT or Win 2K file system) or

FAT (the Win 9X file system) Win 9X cannot read and write files, etc on NTFS

formatted partitions Win 2K can read and write both kinds of partitions If

you already have files and folders on the partition on which you want to install

Win 2K and you want to keep them you can either Convert the partition to NTFS or

Leave the current system intact (FAT) If you want to install Win 2K in the

free space on the hard disk drive as I did, then press ESC We will continue

now assuming the ESC key option was selected...

13 ESC will produce the following screen:

Windows 2000 Professional Setup

===========================

The following list shows the existing partitions and unpartitioned space on this

computer.

Use the UP and DOWN ARROW keys to select and item in the list.

To setup Windows 2000 on the selected item, press ENTER

To Create a partition in the unpartitioned space, press C

To Delete the selected partition, press D

29307 MB Disk 0 at ID 0 on bus 0 on atapi:

C: FAT 32 4001 MB (1125 MB free)

D: FAT 32 21242 MB (14615 MB free)

Unpartitioned space 4063 MB

Here, you can see my 4 GB C: drive, which has Windows Me installed on it, my 21

GB D: drive which has a lot of files I do not want destroyed on it, and 4 GB of

unpartitioned space earmarked for Win 2K Scroll to the unpartitioned space and

press the C key to create a new partition for Win 2K.

14 The following screen will then appear

Windows 2000 Professional Setup

===========================

The following list shows the existing partitions and unpartitioned space on this

computer.

Use the UP and DOWN ARROW keys to select and item in the list.

To setup Windows 2000 on the selected item, press ENTER

To Create a partition in the unpartitioned space, press C

To Delete the selected partition, press D

29307 MB Disk 0 at ID 0 on bus 0 on atapi:

C: FAT 32 4001 MB (1125 MB free)

D: FAT 32 21242 MB (14615 MB free)

F: New (Unformatted) 4055 MB

Unpartitioned space 8 MB

As you can see, I just wasted 8 MB Well, not really, because after I finished

installing Win 2K, I used a third party software utility to expand the NT

partition so it occupied the 8 MB.

15 Scroll to F: and hit ENTER.

Windows 2000 Professional Setup

===========================

The partition you selected is not formatted...

...

Format the partition using the NTFS file system.

Format the partition using the FAT file system.

I scrolled to the 2nd choice...

16 ENTER

Windows 2000 Professional Setup

===========================

Because the partition is greater than 2048 megabytes (MB), Setup will format it

with the FAT32 files system.

17 ENTER

This will produce a screen showing the format progress The next screen

examines the disk and proceeds to install Win 2K.

After the Win 2K install a boot-up looked like this on my computer:

Please select the operating system to start:

Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional

Microsoft Windows 98

Use UP arrow and DOWN arrow to move the highlight to your choice.

Press Enter to chose.

Seconds until highlighted choice will be started: 29

For troubleshooting and advanced startup options for Windows 2000, press F8

| | | | | Inbox

Get the latest updates from MSN

MSN Home | My MSN | Hotmail | Search | Shopping | Money | People & Chat

Feedback | Help

© 2004 Microsoft Corporation All rights reserved TERMS OF USE Advertise TRUSTe Approved Privacy Statement Anti-Spam Policy

About the author

Posted by Michael of Katharine Gibbs School - New York on November 2, 2004

Need Help with this Issue?

We help people with technology! It's what we do.
Contact or Schedule an Appointment with a location for help!