Renoir,

> How would I get a partition of only the portion of the drive that contains the current OS if that's what I wanted also? <

Partition Magic allows you to dynamically resize partitions. I'd start by creating a FAT32 data partition using up to, but not more than, 90% of the free space on the hard drive. Then, by 1) copying what you want to save over to the data partition; 2) deleting it from the primary partition; 3) resizing the data partition to include the new space; and 4) repeating the process from #1, that will build a data partition. If your hard drive doesn't have much free space, this is the most time consuming part of the process. If you have lots of free space, you may be able to create a big enough data partition the first time through.

Then I'd uninstall all my apps (through the Control Panel) except Partition Magic. That would clear the space for Partition Magic to create an (empty for now) apps partition (depending on the size of your drive, you might want TWO apps partitions -- one for Win98 apps and one for Win2K apps). Once that was done, I'd remove Partition Magic. What's left on the primary would then be the OS and only the OS (once the partitions are created and sized, as long as you don't need to mess with them, Partition Magic is not required).

At that point, since there's nothing on the primary but the OS, you could wipe the primary partition COMPLETELY (if you wanted or needed to) and reinstall your desired OS(es) without losing any data. I believe that both Win98 and Win2K have an installation option that essentially "wipes" the target drive.

I'd also make certain I had the updated drivers for each peripheral that needed them (motherboard, mouse, video card, ZIP drive, CD-R or CD-RW, sound card, etc.) on separate floppies. You can always update the drivers after the OS does the "auto find" thing, but I prefer to have them handy.

Here's the (IMHO) really neat part of doing all this: once you've wiped the primary, reinstalled your desired OS, and reinstalled your apps -- open the Registry Editor and *export a copy of your registry* before using anything. Then, should you ever need to (or want to) start with a fresh OS copy, all you need to do is wipe the primary again, reinstall the OS, and *import* the saved registry -- no need to reinstall all your apps again. That's a -major- time saver.

Let me know if you need more specifics.

>Evan,
>
>So, let's say that all I want is W98, applications and data. I understand to create three separate partitions for these, but how would I get a partition of only the portion of the drive that contains the current OS if that's what I wanted also? Or are you saying that I will need to Format the entire drive first and reinstall both operating systems? Does doing any of this help preserve the functionality of the hardware or will I need to let windows reinstall it all again?
>
>Thanks! Renoir
>
>>Hi Renoir,
>>
>>If your Win2K installation uses any NTFS partitions, they're not readable or even recognizable under Win98.
>>
>>If you have to use Win98, or plan to run two OS's and double boot, then I'd recommend using Partition Magic to partition your drive into at least two partitions: one containing the OS and (at least) a second containing everything else. Make the second one a FAT32 partition, so it can be read by either OS. Move your data to the second partition. Then you can wipe off and reformat the OS partition and put anything you want on there. You'll have to reinstall your apps, of course.
>>
>>Personally, I split all my drives into three partitions. C is the OS and only the OS, D is for all installed apps and E is all my data. On a 60GB drive, I usually make about a 4GB partition for the OS, about a 12GB partition for the data, and leave the rest for the apps. YMMV :) ...
>>
>>HTH
>>
>>>I may have the need to wipe out a PC with W2K loaded and install W98 instead. How can I minimize the damage and preserve things like CD drive functionality, modems, sound cards, etc? Will I need to do a Format C: from DOS and then let W98 recognize all the hardware? Does it make a difference if it currently has a NFTS file system? Thanks!
>>>
>>>Regards, Renoir