Well, actually, it isn't a real "upgrade" of running NT to
2000, but a "fresh" installation of Windows 2000 Professional.
I hope it should also work for other Windows 2000 products. I
haven't tried its server-type installations yet, but I remember I
haven't experienced any problem with NT, regarding it was Server
or Workstation.
First of all, a backup of important data should be made! I do it
by having another Windows-like partition on the disk, where I
copy/move my texts, drawings etc. That partition is not
going to be handled during the installation. After the backup is made,
it's the right time to install Windows 2000.
You see, folks, whenever I (re)install a Windows NT product, I
like to see it on a clean partition. It means, I remove i.e.
delete the existing partition where NT "system" files were stored,
in order to get free ('unused') space. Then I chose to make
a new partition that will be formatted as NTFS type of file
system. After that, I opt to install Win2000 onto the new
partition.
The procedure of Windows 2000 Setup will remove LILO from the
MBR, so a couple of next re-bootings during the installation won't
show LILO prompt.
When the Win2000 installation is finished, you may re-install your
favourite applications and restore your data from the
backup. You should then check if everything goes fine with your
new and old Windoze stuff :-)
So far - so good. Now you have to look after your Linux boot
floppy diskette. If you can't find it, you are out of luck.
Actually, I am not sure if all Linux systems might be now
activated without boot diskette. Some Linux gurus
suggest to boot Linux from the installation CD, but I don't
know if it can help in case your system doesn't have
bootable CDROM drive, i.e. a modern motherboard's
BIOS. Any comment here?
Well, after you successfully boot your Linux, you should go to
/etc/lilo.conf to check it once again. You should have
there at least two options: Linux and NT. Case you don't see the
option to boot your beloved Windoze, you have to add it. It
was described in previous sections. Then you have to run
/sbin/lilo in order to put LILO boot loader into the MBR.
That's all. Next time you boot your computer, you'll get your
LILO prompt. Using <Tab> key you'll see your boot options.
From my experience - all work great! Although I removed
previous WinNT installation in order to make new Win2000
installation and also lost (temporarily) LILO boot loader,
at the end I got both of them, Win2000 and Linux, the same
way as I did with WinNT and Linux!
