Dual OS WIN2K and WIN98

Hopefully this will be very easy to answer but I would simply like to add WIN98 OS to my PC. I have a secondary drive (D) that is currently unformatted where I can have WIN98 hosted and I already have WIN2K on my primary drive (C). Since youre supposed to install the older OS first, and since I do NOT want to reinstall WIN2K, can I not just disable the first drive (ie unplug it) while I install WIN98 on the D drive (making sure its FAT32 of course)? Therefore I wouldnt run the risk of WIN98 writing to the master boot and after everything is installed on D, I can then plug in the C physical drive and I should be set to go? I only ask because I have never seen this as an option ....

thanks in advance ..
Jester

Don't try this if you don't trust me (you probably shouldn't), but if you use a Win2k boot disk and type "fdisk /mbr" (fdisk master boot record) it will restore the win2k mbr.

w98 doesnt like being the second os to be installed. I dont think it can work out the booting procedures or somehting. w98, then w2k is ok as w2k will setup the dual booting stuff for you. This maybe outdated info, but thats how it was when I wanted to do exactly this a while ago.

I dont see why I should have an issue if I install WIN98 second if I unplug my primary drive - what exactly is the risk? Does anyone know? The new installation would only write to the master boot record during installation and not during a normal bootup, right?

http://support.microsoft.com
is a knowledge base with HEAPS of info.

the conflict will be that you will have, by default two drives with the drive letter C:, once 98 is installed and you try to boot the other drive back up, you will have to use a 2k bootdisk to go in and change it all to D: or atleast a different letter, then you will have to remove it's boot log then boot in 98 and append that boot log to multiboot 2k.

OK ... what if I merely want to install DOS on the second partition (because, ultimately thats all I would really need). Would my strategy be safe then? Also, would WIN2K recognize the other drive even though the only thing on it is DOS?

Thanks again!

BOOTING is the issue here and NO dos is not going to work either. The only OS of all3 you have that is capable of handling dual boot on its own , without stuffing other os's, is 2k.