dual OS's/other win98 problems/... HELP please!

[zskillz]

I have installed win98 on my new 14 gig hdd. The drive has been partitioned into 2 7gig partitions. I want to install winNT on the D (2nd) partition, but I don't know how. I don't know if winNT needs like fat16 or what, so when I say "I don't know how", I mean I am totally clueless!

The other thing that I was wondering about was in my system properties. I have 3 different "unknown" devices all with yellow !'s... 1 is a "pc input device" and the other 2 are something like "mass storage devices" or something close to that. Every time windows tries to install the drivers, it can't find them in the win98CD...
I can't even tell what the hell these devices are supposed to do.
suggestions??
thx,
-Z

[SB]

Yes, NT needs either Fat16 or the NT file system NTFS.

What's in your system andis everything running properly?

[nilknarf]

zskillz, do you know much about computers?

SB is right NT needs either a FAT16 or NTFS formatted drive. If you haven't done much with NT, I recommend picking up one of those 1500 page books about it. AND READ IT! I learned enough from those books to get me going, the rest I learned along the way.

On my system at home I installed my NT first with the boot partition formatted FAT16 so that I could install other OS's. All of my NT data and SW is on a NTFS partition and the Win98 stuff is on a FAT32 partition. The only thing that they can both see is my boot partition. Beyond that they ignore each other.

Those yellow !'s are devices that either have a problem or need there drivers installed. When you install the drivers and it says it needs the Win98 CD, there should be the option to specify where the CAB files are, or to BROWSE for the where they are. Generally they should be either in the \Win98\ directory on the CD or in the \windows\options\cabs\ directory on your hard drive.

Good Luck, hope this helps!

[nilknarf]

zskillz, just two more things,

Contrary to what the books and MS say, NT needs to boot from the first available drive, even if the system and program files exist elsewhere. It took me 4 installs to figure this out.

Also, be sure to have all information about your computer handy, as well as any drivers that are more recent than the NT drivers. Be sure that if you install SP4 for NT, that you have not instlled SP2 or SP3.

Any Questions? I check this forum daily, so if you have any problems, don't hesitate to ask!

[zskillz]

actually, I'm not really sure if I want to put the NT on there at all. I'm trying to decide b/t that and LINUX, but I don't know witch. I want to keep win98 on there for gaming, but I want to spend the next year at school learning at least the basics of linux, and hopefully as much more as possible.

nilknarf, my knowledge about computers is increasing by the day, but there is just so much to know that I have trouble keeping up.

I know what the yellow !'s mean, I just didn't know where exactly to find the correct drivers for them... thx for the help. My general understanding of windows is lacking. I don't really know what a .cab file is amongst other things, but like I said... day by day!
-Z

[SB]

zskillz -

You can delete those entries that are in yellow and reboot, seeing if WIN looks for them again.

[zskillz]

The reason I was asking was not because I don't know what to do with them...
It's just that I would like to know what exactly they are or what they do, and I don't know how to find that out. I'm sorry that I didn't make that clear earlier on.
-Z

[SB]

Sometimes it's a guessing game with WIN98 when it doesn't even know what it's finding.

[zskillz]

hahhahaAHAHHAHA... I had a very strong feeling that that was gonna come up sometime along the line!... I just installed win98 for the first time, so I'm not used to how it deals with stuff like that. I don't like the feeling that a lot is going on behind the scenes of win9x that I don't know about. That's why I want to move towards linux or perhaps NT...
thx again
-Z

[zskillz]

anyone?... please>>

[TC61]

Z, Did you ever find out what the PCI Device and mass storage devices where I am having the same problem.