Win 98 - Disk I/O error

[Anunes]

Hi,
I have a Laptop with multi-OS , DOS, Win 98 and Win XP and it has the MS Boot-Manager.
I did a P2V project of the complete HDD.
On the Host I did a VM for Win XP 32 bit and it works very nice.
I did another VM for DOS (same image) but when I start Win 98 I get at Boot the error "Disk I/O error, Replace Disk".
Any idea of what I should do?

Host : Win 8.1 - 64bit
VB : 4.3.12 + Extension Pack
Both Laptops have Intel based Hardware

[Anunes]

No answer, means that Win XP Boot Manager is not supported on VB?
On the Physical Machine I can start both Win 98 and Win XP from the the Boot Manager Menu.
On the Host and as Guest , the Win XP Boot Manager is poping up normaly and I can start Win XP. It fails when I try to Boot Win 98.

[Anunes]

I did a new P2V and now booting WIN98 I get the error "Invalid System Disk, Replace Disk".

I have tried the following things, all inside the Guest Image:
- Installed XP Recovery Console > FIXBOOT + FIXMBR
- Restored Physicalls Images of Drive "C" (Boot) and DRIVE "D" (Win98) to the Guest Image.

Will that Dual Boot ever work or I am losing my time?

[mpack]

No answer, means that Win XP Boot Manager is not supported on VB?

No, it means that it isnt a VB question. We can answer questions about VB, not on the software you choose to run inside: for that you may need to ask the source, e.g. Microsoft.

What you've done is the same as if you moved a system image between two PCs. So just because one of your PCs is a VM doesn't automatically make it a VM question.

Also, Win98 is not an officially supported guest type.

[Anunes]

No answer, means that Win XP Boot Manager is not supported on VB?

No, it means that it isnt a VB question. We can answer questions about VB, not on the software you choose to run inside: for that you may need to ask the source, e.g. Microsoft.

What you've done is the same as if you moved a system image between two PCs. So just because one of your PCs is a VM doesn't automatically make it a VM question.

Also, Win98 is not an officially supported guest type.

Well, in the Physical Machine everything is running as it should.
So, what exactly should I ask e.g. MS for?
I assume that it is a problem of W98 not beeing officially supported and I will not lose any time more with that.

[socratis]

You did a P2V, yet you created multiple VMs. Why? If you installed a boot manager and it points to a specific part of the disk, it expects that specific part to be there. In your case you split that "part" in 3. Why don't you try to have just one VM only with the disk that you created from your P2V attached? Think of it like this: would it work if you bought 3 PCs and tried to migrate your old PC into 3? Chances are no.

[mpack]

Splitting a dual boot (or n-boot) PC to multiple VMs shouldn't be an issue, but I would do it in a way that's least likely to fail, e.g. first P2V the n-boot and get it working. Then clone the working VM n times, and delete unwanted boot options and partitions from each clone.

[Anunes]

Thank you mpack and socratis,

I actually do not need to have win98 installed at all, I am trying that only for learning purposes since I am a beginner in Virtualitation "World".

Still I would like to ask you to be a little more precise about "Splitting a n-Boot". You mean using the tool CloneVDI or how to splitt a .VMDK file?

The "boot.ini" on my drive C: has 2 entries:
1) Multi(0)Disk(0)rdisk(0)part(6) - That points to WIN XP
2) C:\ - That points to WIN98 Bootloader . Win98 itself is not on C: but on D: (2nd partition)

Something goes wrong in the process P2V . Trying to Boot to option 2 result in "System Disk error". Seems that it is not finding the BOOTSECT.DOS on Drive C:\

[mpack]

Read the complete sentence in my previous message. I explained what I meant by that term.

I don't believe you previously mentioned that Win98 was on a separate drive. In fact your first post refers to "the HDD" - singular. In that case I would just access the P2V image and edit the boot.ini file to remove the Win98 reference.