I have written this little help file because I was fed up with all the information on the net saying to dual boot Win2000 you have to install it after the other operating system. This makes like easier but it is by far not the only way. So heres my little guide on how to do it.

I know you can use this method to dual boot Windows 2000 with Win 95, Win 98 , Win ME, MS-DOS (the DOS partition must be within the first 2gig of your disk or it won't boot!) and Linux (RedHat, Mandrake).

The method described below is how I managed to get it to work, whilst there is no reason that this isn't a global solution I have NOT tested this on enough machines to claim otherwise. Do not proceed if you haven't backuped you machine. I can not be held responsible for anything that happens to your machine because of what you have tried to do

If the above hasn't scared you off then you need the following tools :

• Windows 2000 startup disks or Windows 2000 bootable CD.
• A recent ERD disk for YOUR installation of Windows 2000.
  [Search windows help for more info]
• A boot disk for your other OS and installation media. (From now on I will refer to it as Win98 as this is the most common option)
• A printed copy of these instructions!
• A second primary partition on your first harddrive. If you don't use a program like Powerquest Partition magic [Please send me the names of some freeware programs] which allows you to resize paritions without detroying the data on them.

• If your Windows 2000 drive is NTFS just reboot with the Win98 boot disk. If Windows 2000 is install on a FAT drive use Partition Magic or similar to hide its partition then reboot with boot disk.
  
  
• Install Win 98, it will overwrite the master boot record (MBR) so you won't need the boot disk any more.
  
• Once Win 98 has finished installing you need have a comand prompt [Best option is to Exit to MS-DOS] As you need to capture the boot sector for Win98.
  
  
• Edit a file called capture.scr [edit capture.scr]
  Type in the following
  
  L 100 2 0 1
  N C:\BOOTSECT.w98
  R BX
  0
  R CX
  200
  W
  Q
  
  [I assume that windows will be installed on C drive, if it is not change the 2 on the first line to one of the following, D = 3, E = 4, F = 5 etc]
  
  
• Exit Edit, and type debug <capture.scr if you get any error messages check that you have typed the above in correctly, and the drive number is correct.
  
  
• You now have a file in the root of C: called bootsect.w98, to make sure you have the correct boot file, type type C:\bootsect.w98 within the first 10 characters you will have on of the following strings:
  
  

  MSDOS5		DOS or NT
  MSWIN4		Windows 95
  MSWIN4.1		Windows 98
  MSWIN4.2 ?		Windows ME [email me]

  
  
• Now you need to restore the Windows 2000 MBR. To remove Win98 from you MBR type fdisk /mbr.
  If you had to hide your windows 2000 partition unhide it before the reboot]
  Now you should reboot into Windows 2000 again. If so Skip to the next section
  
  If you haven't gone into Windows 2000, then continue with these instructions below.
  To do this reboot with the Windows 2000 startup disks or Bootable CD. Once you get to the menu, press R to repair your installation, press M for manual repair. It will then ask if you want to repair using an ERD, press ENTER to use ERD (If you don't have one you can just use the locate installation option but ERD is faster). Insert the ERD and continue, you get prompted for what you would like to restore, selected only Inspect boot sector E.g.
     [ ] Inspect registry files
     [ ] Inspect startup environment
     [ ] Verify Windows NT system files
     [x] Inspect boot sector
     Continue (perform selected tasks)
  
  Once windows has restored the boot sector it will reboot your machine, remove any disk/CD-Rom.

• Boot into Linux.
• Log in as root
• To capture the boot loader type
  [Note This assumes your boot partition is hda5, if not change it as appropriate]
  [Note This puts it onto a floppy disk, make sure its a MS-DOS one!]
  
  "dd if=/dev/hda5 bs=512 count=1 of=/mnt/floppy/bootsec.lin"
  
  You can confirm you have the write drive by viewing the file by typing
  more /mnt/floppy/bootsec.lin
  If it has words LILO in the file it then everything is ok. If not check your boot drive
• Now reboot back into Windows 2000
• Copy the file bootsec.lin from your floppy drive and put it into the root of your boot drive (c:\)

• You will now be back in Windows 2000 [Don't worry your almost there!].
  You now need to copy the bootsect.w98 from your Win98 disk to your Windows 2000 drive. If your Win98 partition isn't visible then goto Computer Management --> Disk Management and assign it one.
  
  
• Now you need to end the boot menu for NT.
  As this is a system file you need to be logged in with Administrator rights
  Bring up a command prompt
  Do this by clicking Start->Run and typing cmd
  To be able to edit this file you need to reset its file attributes.
  To do this type attrib -r -h -s boot.ini [Make sure your in the root of you boot drive]
  To edit the file type edit boot.ini
  You then have something which looks like this
  [boot loader]
  timeout=30
  default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT
  [operating systems]
  multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional" /fastdetect
  
  At the bottom add this line to the bottom of the file
  C:\bootsect.w98="Windows 98"
  or> C:\bootsec.lin="Linux"
  Save the file and reboot your machine!



• You will now have a boot menu giving the option to boot into Win 2000 or Windows 98



• Pat yourself on the back and then have a pint to congratulate yourself!

Please e-mail me if you have used this page to dual boot, so that I know I didn't waste an evening typing it up for everyones use? Also if you note any mistakes or have any suggestions of how to make it clearer!