Install Win98 on /dev/sda4

[Doug]

On 02/26/2011 08:52 PM, Reinhold Rumberger wrote:
> On Samstag 26 Februar 2011, 23:32:27, Jerry Lapham wrote:
>> On Sunday, February 20, 2011 08:28:44 pm Reinhold Rumberger wrote:
>>> On Montag 21 Februar 2011, 01:27:24, Jerry Lapham wrote:
>>>> On Wednesday, February 16, 2011 08:55:09 am Reinhold Rumberger wrote:
>>>>>>> When I booted from the Win98 install disk it said DriveC wasn't
>>>>>>> the right format and wouldn't let me install without formatting
>>>>>>> it. How can I point it to /dev/sda4?
>>>>> I'm pretty sure it can't be done easily. Win9x wants to be installed
>>>>> to sda1.  You can try to use grub to swap sda1 and sda4 (basically
>>>>> so that Win98 sees sda4 as sda1). However, that needs to be done for
>>>>> the install CD, too, and I don't know how to do that.
>>>> Does the Win98 install CD use the existing partition table in the
>>>> master boot record?  Would it use the first entry there as Drive C?
>>> Yes.
>>>
>>>> If so,
>>>> swappng the bytes from the fourth entry and those from the first entry
>>>> ought to do it, correct?
>>> That seems pretty much like what I wrote. Or at least what I was trying
>>> to write... ;-)
>> Well, the swap worked -- that is, Linux still boots and GParted now shows
>> swap as sda4 and my new FAT32 partition as sda1.
> I think it may be more relevant what fdisk says, but I assume that either
> gparted uses fdisk or the both access the same table in the kernel, so this
> may be a moot point.
>
>> Unfortunately, the Windows installer still says DriveC isn't the right
>> format. I decided to take a chance and let it format DriveC assuming
>> DriveC = sda1 and it wouldn't touch my other partitions.
>>
>> The installer says  there's a disk error and can't format DriveC.  I'm
>> guessing it doesn't like the fact that sda1 is sectors 411521040 thru
>> 488392064.
> I'm not sure, but what is the max sector Win98 can address? Since I'm not sure
> what you need Win98 for, but would installing it in a VM be an option? That
> might save you some trouble and you wouldn't have to reboot all the time...
>
>> Assuming this is correct, I'm thinking about swapping the partition table
>> back and then sacrificing my Mandriva 2008.1 partition on sda2 by
>> combining it with sda1 and creating a new swap.  I assume this wouldn't
>> cause a problem with the other Linux partition numbers since they are all
>> logical.
>>
>> Sound like it would work?
> Logical partition numbers shouldn't be affected by any changes to the primary
> partitions apart from - perhaps - the changes to the primary that houses them,
> so this sounds like it may work.
> Anyway I so wouldn't trust the Win98 installer, so you should definitely do a
> backup first, including (at least) a copy of "sudo fdisk -l /dev/sda", so that
> you can manually restore everything, should the installer break it.
>
>    --Reinhold
>
I haven't been closely following this thread, but if you have two drives,
you can put Windows on one of them, on the first partition.  Disconnect
the other drive(s) while you do this, so Windows thinks this is the C\ 
drive.
What I did was to completely wipe the drive (it was a spare) and let
Windows--XP in my case--format it the way it wanted to, and then install.
I put the drive back in , when done, and let it be sdb1, and then modified
GRUB to look for the Windows booter.  If you need the instructions I used
for the PCLOS version of GRUB, I'll have to look up the script and copy the
section out for you.  At any rate, I have PCLOS on sda, XP on sdb1, and
Zorin on sdb5 and 6, and everything works.  These are IDE drives, but
I don't know why it would matter. (Old machine.)

--doug
the

-- 
Blessed are the peacemakers...for they shall be shot at from both sides. --A. M. Greeley