Does anybody here do a dual boot/triple bootset-up on their pc's?

I'm tryin' to load linux (Ubuntu), and a second windows OS (XP)on a vistabox. I wanna' have each OS unseen by the other. Yeah - XP and Vista won't even recognize linux, so no problem there. But the MS OS's I don't know how to manipulate the master boot record (or even if ya have to).

Help?

 

look into partitioning the drive. I'm not sure about running multiple OS's at the same time on the same drive. if memory serves me the OS is loaded into ROM? at startup and can only be one. I know IBM machines had the OS on a chip at one time. You may need complete separate hard drives as, I think, all of the boot info is storedon the boot sectorin the root directory on the drive. the very first thing that's read. You could passably change directories if the drives were separate units containing the different OS on the boot sector. This laptop I am using now has been partitioned for two separate drives but they share the same OS.if I can remember correctly you can choose which drive you boot from in the BIOS. you can enter the BIOS at startup by holding down a certain key like F8 or ESC. depending on the machine. Not much help huh? I hope I didn't confuse you as much as I did myself. Geesch!

 

1) get ahold of the "system rescue cd" and use it to partition the drive into 3 pieces for linux, XP, and Vista (just google it, you'll find it)

2) install your windows stuff first

3) when you install linux, it will find the windoze stuff, and offer to install a boat-loader (GRUB) that lets you choose which you want to run when the machine boots.

bill (geek).

 

There ya go Chuck. Bill knows his dookie about this stuff. Couldn't ask for a better tech on this. He's not a geek like he said but more of a guru. He could probably set your whole system up in his sleep. He does this type of stuff for a living, cool stuff too. See how easy he made it for ya? Hell he could probably write you a program to do anything you want with it.

Bill, Will the "grub" come up first before anything else? thats kinda cool that you can actually run different OS's on one machine. I'll have to look into that myself. For some reason I really like Win ME better than XP pro but don't want to get rid of XP. I have ME on Two of my desk tops with some components of XP added/updated in. The other is an ancient 1988 Zenith 286 machine that runs Windows 1 or just MSDOS or something back before "point and click LOL! But it's got a great monitor.LOL!

 

Bill's route is a good way to go. Here are a couple of alternate solutions:

If you don't mind running a different version of linux then you can use one of the smaller versions that boots from a USB drive (or even from a CD). I think one is called "puppy linux". Another is called "damn small linux" or dsl. I think that this one will run inside of windows. There may be others.


Another option is virtualization. vmware can do this for you. It will allow you to run multiple OS's at the same time.

You should be able to Google right to these so I won't add links or detailed descriptions.

Just my two cents.

 

from this months Maximum PC

"To get started, download and install Microsoft's Virtual PC 2007 (free, http://tinyurl/2jr7a7); then follow the prompts to set up a virtual hard disk. Pop yourWindows CD into your optical drive, fire up your VM, and install Windows.

Once its up and running, install the Virtual Machine Additions package (found under the Action menu), which will let you move seamlessly between your VM and main system. You're ready to go.

Useyour new sandbox to surf those, uh, adult-friendly websites or to experiment with suspicious programs."

 

I use ME too there George, for a media file server, forthe sattelitemovies. Gettin' them off the DVR was a bear with XP there. With Vista, no luck yet...[:@]Somethin' to do with device driver signatures and recognition. DRM jam??? no, not doug rippie motorsports

Bill - the app you suggest - will it allow me to createa partition boot record for each OS?This is sorta'what I wanna' get done here (different sizes and OS's tho')
0.1 GB Pri-1 FAT16 (DOS)
3 GB Pri-2 FAT32 (Win98)
6 GB Pri-3 NTFS (WinXP)
28 GB Pri-4 Extended partition containing:
6 GB Logical-1 NTFS (Win2000)
3 GB Logical-2 FAT32 (another Win98)
3 GB Logical-3 FAT32 (My Data)
16 GB Logical-4 FAT32 (Backups)

riley - does vmware allow separate boot partitions for each OS there?
I got Fedora 7, but it's a 6 disc load. I've heard of DSL there, just haven't navigated it.
What's GRUB? Is that like a MBR controller? Or a partition boot record controller???

3blk - the MS VM app sounds okay for invisible web browsin' - does it stop cookies and TIF's from loadin' as you browse there?


And does anybody know hardware here? I'm buildin' a box here too, and got a few questions there, if you can imagine that...

 

Looks like a common problem here, with a few surprises.... I was somehow able to increase Vista's space on the drive. Decreasing might have been a different story.

Funny how ya' learn stuff there...





User23





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Joined: 28 Aug 2007
Posts: 3
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Using the Vista disk management console tool, I could not shrink the Windows partition by enough to install Linux. I even did a defrag, disabled the swap file, and booted into safe mode, but severe limits on resizing the partition were still present, so I had no choice but to let the Linux installer resize it. This is a known Vista bug, which is described in more detail on TechRepublic:

"Repartition your hard disk on-the-fly with Windows Vista" by Greg Shultz

Only now, after the fact, do I learn that VistaBoot support (ImNuts) says you should not let Linux resize the Vista partition. Well, if Vista can't do it, and Linux can't do it, then what CAN? The Linux installer seemed to work fine for me (mostly):

I installed Freespire 2 (which is a bit different from what is described in the instructions at the start of this thread--it uses something called "jiffyboot" to automatically detect partitions, then modify the grub config file for you). After installing Linux, the Vista partition was automatically detected & installed on the grub boot menu, but is not the default option. When grub loads Vista, it bypasses the Vista bootloader completely. Vista runs fine, but the sleep/hibernate feature doesn't do anything now... like it can't write the hibernate file anymore. How can I fix this?[/align]


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User23





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Joined: 28 Aug 2007
Posts: 3
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Just a follow-up, since I moved forward with this on my own: I checked the drive with Partition Magic and got an Error #108 (Partition didn't end on cylinder boundary!) Something nasty happened when Linux resized that partition (unless it was corrupted to begin with). Also, Freespire's Jiffyboot kept erasing the boot flag on the Vista partition every time Linux started. This did not prevent Vista from booting, but it has the effect of hiding the Vista partition from the repair tool on the Vista DVD, so I had to manually change that in Linux just before booting the DVD. (No doubt somebody else will need to know this sooner or later!) However, an automated repair with the Vista install DVD accomplished nothing. Same for a "bootrec /fixboot" - and "/fixmbr" - and a "chkdisk" repair. Oh yes, that got rid of grub, and I was hoping to install Vistaboot in its place, but somewhere along the line, this only made it worse: it froze during boot and eventually dropped to a BSOD with the error: UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME. So I conclude that the folks who sucessfully deleted grub with "bootrec" (of which there are many) probably did not have a corrupted partition table too.

An experiment with "Partition Table Doctor 3.5" just blew the poor thing away: after an "automated repair", the Vista & Linux partitions were merged into one large unallocated segment, and now only the Linux swap partition remains. Can anyone suggest a decent partition table repair tool which can scan the drive and find deleted partitions with operating systems installed on them? Maybe nobody cares, but I mention all of this for the sake of anyone else who goes to install another OS on the same drive without using the right partition resize tool. Microsoft seems to have intentionally made it difficult for anything else to peacefully coexist with Vista (but then again, destroying interoperability with proprietary standards has always been their game). Yes, maybe the Linux developers should have tested this more... but what reason would Microsoft have for not properly documenting the workings of NTFS, other than to frustrate the competition? All the more reason to explore other options. I confess to being a heavy multitasker, but Vista is surprisingly slow, unstable, disk intensive and memory hungry on all of the platforms I've seen (not just mine, where I push it to the limit). I hate it, and only want it around for the sake of compatibility, not for daily use. 'nuff said, I guess... but insightful observations always welcome.[/align]

 

I only pitched that in there cuz I saw it in this months mag...

others here are far more advanced than I when it comes to 'puter stuff

I really can't answer your question, but my best understanding is the purpose of VM is to make computing much safer. I liked the 'Sandbox' term they used

someone here can answer much better than I can.

break a leg

J

 

no thanks - already got 2 broken and still re-cup'in'...

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