Mark's Method for Dual-Booting
Windows NT and Windows 95


This page provides a brief description of how I managed to set up a Windows NT / Windows 95 dual booting system. Before attempting to follow this procedure, please read my DISCLAIMER first.

REFERENCES

In creating the following procedure, I referred to the following web pages:

Note: The above references all recommend that you install Windows 95 and/or MS-DOS and then install Windows NT. I did it "backwards". I installed NT first and then Windows 95. I did not install MS-DOS. It all worked for me. Your mileage may vary.

PROCEDURE

Information on the PC configuration is here.

Step One -- Install Windows NT Server 4.0 on Drive One
Ran a standard Windows NT 4.0 server install. I installed into C:\WINNSVR in case I want to install Windows NT Workstation on the same partition in the future. I formatted C: as FAT and it spans the entire Disk One.

Step Two -- Use NT Disk Administrator to Partition Drive Two
Using the disk Administrator, I partitioned Drive two into two partitions. Drive D: is 1.0 GB and drive E: is 1.4GB. Both partitions were formatted as FAT.

Step Three -- Create DOS boot disk
I created a DOS boot disk by hand using the DOS CD-ROM drivers that came with the CD-ROM drive. Configured a simple CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT which leads the CD-ROM drivers.

Step Four -- Install Windows 95 on D: Drive
Using the boot floppy created in Step Three above, I booted to DOS and inserted the Windows 95 CD (in my case Japanese version) into the CD-ROM drive. Then, I ran F:\setup.exe to install Windows 95. I installed Windows 95 into D:\WINDOWS.

Step Five -- Repair Windows NT MBR
After booting the Windows NT Setup Disks, I chose to repair a Windows NT installation and then chose to only repair the Master Boot Record. This process copies the Windows 95 boot sector into C:\BOOTSECT.DOS. After rebooting, the Windows NT boot menu returned.

Step Six -- Create entry for Windows 95 in C:\BOOT.INI
I Added the following entry in the C:\BOOT.INI to enable the ability to boot into Windows 95:
C:\BOOTSECT.DOS = "Windows 95"

Step Seven -- Test
I then tested booting back and forth between the two operating systems to verify that the boot switching process worked correctly.

Go Back to the Main Index Go back to Mark's Dark Side Homepage
This and all pages in this site are Copyright 1999, Mark Andres. All rights reserved.