Connect a laptop at home > Part II - Client/ServerStep 1 - Creating a dual-boot computer Here in Step 1, we're going to review how you set up a dual-boot computer. We're not going to provide detailed instructions on creating the dual-boot configuration because there are so many possibilities. Also, Power Quest, the maker of Partition Magic, does a great job of covering many configurations on their web site and in the book that comes with the software. However, we would to review some of the basic concepts so you can decide if you want to pursue this option without investing in Partition Magic or other utilities. Let's start at the beginning. Many of you have probably partitioned a hard drive. If you haven't, what you need to know is that a hard drive (some people know this only as their "C" drive) can actually be separated into several sections or "partitions." For example, a single hard drive could have a partition known as "Programs" and automatically labeled "C" by Windows and another partition known as "Data" and automatically labeled "D" by Windows. Partition Magic, and other partitioning utilities (including Fdisk included with Windows and DOS before it), help you create those sections of the hard drive. Partition Magic provides a simpler, graphical interface to make those changes to your hard drive. And, unlike Fdisk, it allows you to make those changes WITHOUT destroying the data on the drive (although a back up is always wise). With Partition Magic then, you'll create a number of partitions on your laptop's hard drive, including two that can be bootable partitions used as the main start up partition for your operating system and programs. Only one of these will be "active" at a time and the other will actually be "hidden" so that it won't interfere with the active operating system or programs. By alternating the active and hidden partitions, which is easy to do with a utility included with Partition Magic, your computer becomes two computers in one. Here's the graphical representation for our laptop from the Partition Magic main window.
Note that there is a primary partition that is active. This is the partition we use to run our machine as a Windows 98 machine. Note the partition under it that is "hidden". This is our Windows 95 operating system that we use at work. It contains all of the programs we use at work and all of the network configurations. But, because it is hidden while the Windows 98 operating system is active, there are absolutely no conflicts. Also note the logical partition that is labeled "D". This is, in fact, a partition with only data and it can be accessed from both the Windows 98 and Windows 95 operating systems. In other words, the two "computers" in the laptop can share the same data. Pretty cool, huh? Again, we'll leave it to Power Quest to explain how to set up the partitions and dual-boot configuration. In short, though, for this set up, you would create the partitions setup, set one to be active and then install Windows 98 as if you were doing it on a new machine. For this how to, we'll assume that those steps are done and we can now move on to Step 2 where we'll install the PC Card Ethernet adapter.
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