China DOS Union

Doing experiments in VMware, I installed Windows 98 in the first extended partition (hd0,4) using a Ghost system (which can boot from hd0,0). hd0,0 is DOS 98, and GRUB is the latest version of grub4dos. I added the following in the menu:
map --in-situ (hd0,4)+1 (hd0)
map --hook
root (hd0,0)
chainloader +1

After booting into Win 98, it just freezes and doesn't reach the desktop. I wonder if anyone has done Win 98 booting. Please give me some advice.

Windows (at least the 98 series) has a feature that it remembers which drive letter its system files are on. If your 98 is installed on drive D, then after it starts, it will only look for system files on drive D. If it can't find them, it will crash or blue screen. If you simulate drive D as drive C at this time, then Windows 98 may fail to find the system files on drive D, and problems will occur.

Simulation should only be used as a last resort. If you can achieve the goal without simulation, then do not use simulation.

For example, if your 98 is installed on drive D and can be used normally, then when cloning to other machines, you don't need to use simulation technology. You just need to properly hide some partitions that cause drive letter confusion (or add a FAT - formatted drive C partition if there isn't one) (to ensure that after Windows 98 starts, it can find the system files and related configuration files such as system.ini, system.dat, and registry files on drive D), and then directly use chainloader to start IO.SYS. Sometimes, COMMAND.COM is on an extended partition. This is not recognized by Microsoft's boot program. Windows 98's boot program can only start COMMAND.COM from the primary partition. So, actually, you only need to copy COMMAND.COM (and config.sys, etc.) to the (unhidden first FAT) primary partition.

Probably it's because there's too much memory :)

Originally posted by Budian at 2009-6-28 03:14 AM:
Windows (at least the 98 series) has a feature that it will remember which drive letter its system files are on. If your 98 is installed on drive D, then after it boots, it will only look for system files on drive D. If it can't find them, it will crash...

command.com being on drive D is okay. The key point is that io.sys and msdos.sys should not be on drive D. These two can only boot if they are on the active primary partition.