[pchelpers] Partitions and dual boot

Hello - and help.  My name is Phil and I have just joined this group upon the 
advice of one who is already a member.  Said I could get some good advice here. 
 

My problem is this.  I recently 'had' to buy a new computer because the 
motherboard in the old one cooked.  Hey, if you need a reason, I figured that 
was a good one.  The new one came with Windows XP Pro, thought this would be a 
good idea.  Not.  I have lost the use of several programs that I used a lot and 
the use of my scanner.  Past its prime and not to be supported by HP or MS 
under the XP regime, so the story goes.  The one good thing to happen was that 
the TMSScheduler (DOS) still works.  However the Talk Scheduler (Access 97) 
does not.  (I also moved up to Office Pro XP from Office Pro 97)  I had 
converted the original Talk Scheduler program to 97 so that I could change some 
of the forms as the originals were leaving some information off.  Some of the 
other Access files converted to the new program just fine, others not so fine.  
A hit and miss adventure.  

The new machine has an 80 GB HDD, no partitions.  Run Speed Disk on that!  I 
was advised to get a program, such as Partition Magic and divide it up into 
more meaningful segments.  I have a lot of real estate so why not.  While 
looking at this type of program on the net, I found that they talked about dual 
booting.  If I could do that then I could get my old programs reloaded and 
files to work and scanner back.  Then my hands started getting sweaty like just 
before getting up and giving a major talk.  I know nothing about either of 
these aspects.  Of course all the information from the software company is 
glowing about how wonderful its product is.  Then there are the stories 
floating around about how horrible things have happened to some who have gone 
this path.  I don't want to run into a problem such that I might have to start 
all over again because of some little oversight or quirk in some program that 
'everyone' knows about, but me.  I have heard to many things about this 
registration thing with MS and XP.  I've already had one program that came with 
the computer stop working on me after 30 days because I hadn't registered it 
after looking at it once.  Still haven't got it running.

The question I have is, does anyone have any experience using Vcom System 
Commander 7 or Power Quest Partition Magic for partitioning a large HDD and 
setting it up for a dual boot using different file systems.  Which would be the 
easier program, or is there a better program out there to do this?  What kind 
of problems might I run into?  I want to run XP and 98SE off the same HDD so I 
can get my old programs and equipment working again.  

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.

Phil Beasley
Grover Beach, CA
potgn@xxxxxxxxxxx

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