OK Gurus! English w2k, Japanese XP dual boot advice needed
 

Today I bought a Sharp Mebius laptop, model PC-CB1-CD. Athlon mobile 1.1G, 256K, 30G HDD, CD-r/rw DVD combo drive, LAN, 2xUSB 2. It was a super bargain!

I don't mind using the Japanese XP. However, my desktop is English W2k, as is all of my software (Office, ClipArt, etc.). I know there can be conflict w/ English software and Japanese OS's, so I'd like to load my w2k to the laptop. Can I do this by just inserting the w2k cd and creating a new partition? I could also use a USB HDD for w2k, but would rather not.

Any advice?

You will have to create another partition on your hard drive with a program like partition magic first.

Each os has to be on a different partition.

As soon as you create another partition, install windows 2000 on it and then the computer will automatically create a boot menu for you. If not it's easy to manually set one.

The problem is...I think it's better too install 2k first, then install xp. Then follow the steps above except change 2k for xp when I mention it.

Thanks Konichiwaneko,
That's one possibility. The software for the laptop is all on three restore cd's, all in Japanese, including the OEM XP. I would have to wipe the drive, install w2k, set the partition, then install the restore disks, right?

I know that my English version of Partition Magic can't be installed on the XP because of the double-width characters in Japanese. I don't know if that means I can't install a double width OS on a PM partition created with an English OS. English programs usually work fine on Japanese OS's, but the reverse is not always true. I should be able to use English Office and other progy's just fine, but I wonder if those programs will transfer to my desktop unaltered if they are saved using the J.OS.

If I put the w2k install cd in the laptop, will it ask me if I want to create a partition to install on (basically, ask me if I want to fdisk)? I seem to remeber this happening on previous installs of w2k. I just don't want to mess with the XP install too much at this point.

Do you have a dos bootdisk? if not go here Bootdisk
Then load the disk and type fdisk at the prompt. Create your partitons, restart the computer as it will prompt you to do, format the drives and install your OS's.

Thanks ToiletDuck. That's probably the route I will go. I don't think I'll do it before the weekend, when I have the time to mess around, so any other advice or recommendations are still appreciated.

why can't you install partition magic ? it should be ok, all XP's are unicode compliant.

You can install japanese on an "english" system, and vice versa, all you have to do is install the fonts and select "japanese" in the languages, change the IME annd bobs your uncle.

set system locale to japanese
set user locale to japanese
switch on japanese IME
set code pages to japanese

you wont get japanese text on the dialogs, at least on anything that doesn't have it, but everything else will change.


There should be no conflicts, only the locale and the text changes.

Partition Magic warns strongly against installing English versions (single character width) on Asian OS's (double charachter width). Something to do with screwing up the file paths and names, etc. That's why native English proggy's run fine on Asian OS's, but not vice versa.

I have Japanese laguage support on my English w2k, and it's not always consistent for input, even with a Japanese keyboard.

Yea 2KS' IMEI is dodgy it wasn't designed in from scratch . XP's on the other hand though is entirely different. You ought to be able to switch back and forth.

English PM7 couldn't handle unicode, but i *believe* 8 can. i am pretty sure they are talking about installing Pm7 on the system, you can boot it instead and there is no problem, since it doesn't care about filenames when dealing with resizing partitions.

Toiletduck...dos doesn't create NTFS, which would be better then fat16/32.

I would recommend doing the partioning via windows xp or 2000 install. It available when you boot up with the cd.

Thanks everyone! I installed all of my English software on the Japanese XP. It went very smoothly. All of the installation windows came up in English, and so far no conflicts. I will run it this way for now and try the w2k install later. You guys rock!