How do you install multiple OS's?

Captain Kirk

Captain Kirk

Member
My computer crashed last time, and I lost 20 gigs of data. None of this was able to be recovered! So I want a backup plan. If my system crashes, I want a backup OS on a different partition that I can boot to.

Therefore, I want to be running two OS's at the same time. I only have XP, Puppy, Mint, Fedora, Dos 7.1, and Dos 4 to work with.

Does anybody know how to do this?
 
I don't think that multiple OS's will do you any good. If a file is lost, is lost in any os. Maybe you weren't paying attention, and you deleted all your files when you fixed the problem. The only reliable thing in backups is either a partition for data, in which you install no OS, or an extenal hard drive to store your data.
 
Is this for your laptop? If it's a desktop I'd recommend getting 2 hard drives and running them in RAID1 (mirror image) so if the primary drive dies, you have a backup.
 
voyagerfan99 said:
Is this for your laptop? If it's a desktop I'd recommend getting 2 hard drives and running them in RAID1 (mirror image) so if the primary drive dies, you have a backup.
Click to expand...

^ This. RAID-1 can really be a life saver, especially for somebody like you Kirk who appears to have a lot of issues with hard drives.
 
How do you install multiple OS's?

My computer crashed last time, and I lost 20 gigs of data. None of this was able to be recovered! So I want a backup plan. If my system crashes, I want a backup OS on a different partition that I can boot to.

Therefore, I want to be running two OS's at the same time. I only have XP, Puppy, Mint, Fedora, Dos 7.1, and Dos 4 to work with.

Does anybody know how to do this?


That is what I did: I installed XP on one parition, and Puppy on another.

I heard it was possible. I installed Puppy on a second partition with the ext 2 format, but when I rebooted, it did not boot into puppy; it booted to windows. During boot, it did not give the option.

I heard that if you install a newer windows first, AND then an older windows OS, this is possible, but I have never done it; and I don't have two windows OS's

I wasn't able to install Dos 7.1 because you need the partition to be the "Primary" drive. However, since I already have Windows installed, I'm not sure if I need this partition to be the "Primary" drive, and so if I change the Windows drive to a logical one, that windows maynot boot anymore, or in the future if I change it back!

Spirit,
Nice link. The Windows Boot Manager is only good for 2+ windows OS's?

Ayan,
Interesting idea. I save my data to a CD instead of to another drive. However, this does present some possibilities...

What is RAID-1? Is this a faster hd or the cord with better performance?

I have a laptop...
 
Buy an external hard drive to back up your data to. Thats the best thing for you to do right now. Then I would also back up to a dvd or however many it takes to do it. With you having a laptop, an external drive is your best bet.
 
"Raid-1" means that you combine 2 hd's into 1 partition. But this doesn't make sense because if one of your hd's dies, then the computer will no longer be able to "see" the hd's anymore, so I don't see how this could help you -- in fact, it could make things twice as bad. I didn't know that you could only do this with a desktop, though.

So what are you saying, that you don't know how to install 2 OS's [Windows and Linux] on separate partitions that are able to boot indepently of eachother [and that does not "require" needing to BOOT into 1 OS to be "able" to run the other OS]?

Example:
Multiple OS's
If one OS was disabled, the second OS would still boot

[possible user interface to choose between OS's upon boot BEFORE loading "into" any OS; and hopefully a 30 second timer that defaults to loading to 1 OS if no selection is made]
 
Not sure what has been said before but my rules are:

Do all of this at once, and then create image back-ups that can reinstall at 3AM daily. Replace HDD annually, and you're good. Especially if you have online backup. I don't. So if my apartment in Sydney burns down, im screwed. That should change soon as the Labor Govt. here is installing direct to home optic for everyone. 1,000GB connections aparently- realy world speeds of a a DVD per 10 seconds. Bring that on... but until then...

Rules:

Back-up image and files (unencrypted or compressed) - Keep at your mum's.
RAID arrays provide mirror duplicates so if one drive fails, you don't lose data. I overlay a RAID 5 from memory and you have speed as well. Requires 4 drives plus a SSD.

Off topic completly sorry.

Always install the newest OS last. Set BIOS to default everything, remove USB that isn't critical and build up from earliest to latest. Don't bother about config until you have MS Activation on all installs and can boot freely in between each. Use BCDEditor to customise boot options.
 
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Captain Kirk said:
What is RAID-1? Is this a faster hd or the cord with better performance?
Click to expand...

Read this. Unless you can RAID a portable Harddrive, I don't think this will work on a laptop, best thing is to probably back everything up to an external source every so often, cause if the whole HDD fails, you wont get any partition to work, (or so I guess).
 
bigfellla said:
... Replace HDD annually, and you're good. ...
Click to expand...
This is pretty extreme advice. I could see doing this if your data is very critical business data but even so with good, redundant backups I probably wouldn't replace an HDD unless it failed or showed signs of imminent failure.
 
strollin said:
This is pretty extreme advice. I could see doing this if your data is very critical business data but even so with good, redundant backups I probably wouldn't replace an HDD unless it failed or showed signs of imminent failure.
Click to expand...

Depends on what workload you give them.
 
Captain Kirk said:
"Raid-1" means that you combine 2 hd's into 1 partition. But this doesn't make sense because if one of your hd's dies, then the computer will no longer be able to "see" the hd's anymore, so I don't see how this could help you -- in fact, it could make things twice as bad. I didn't know that you could only do this with a desktop, though.

So what are you saying, that you don't know how to install 2 OS's [Windows and Linux] on separate partitions that are able to boot indepently of eachother [and that does not "require" needing to BOOT into 1 OS to be "able" to run the other OS]?

Example:
Multiple OS's
If one OS was disabled, the second OS would still boot

[possible user interface to choose between OS's upon boot BEFORE loading "into" any OS; and hopefully a 30 second timer that defaults to loading to 1 OS if no selection is made]
Click to expand...

http://www.computerforum.com/214295-how-multiboot-computer.html - I just made a guide to Windows MultiBooting if you want to read it, it might help you :)
 
jaydeee said:
I have my important files on removable drive and online drive. Guess I can leave with it.
Click to expand...

Google Drive. Enough said.

Slighty off topic for the OP
Google Drive can give you a fair amount of free storage and can also install onto your computer and create a folder in your user directory that you can save files to, and once you have saved them into this folder, the GD Client can then upload them onto the online storage, if your computer crashes often, you may find this useful.

But going back to the OP...
Has your machine done this before the last time it happened?
 
I read your entire how to. BCD editor is an excellent program.This is only for Windows and requires for W7 to be one of the OS's. I don't want W7, as this takes up WAY too much RAM, and will not allow me to have enough memory to run other programs along side it. W7 is a RAM guzzler, a RAM hog; like vista, it is overbearing in this way.

I read wolfeking's linux how to, but I don't see how this relates to installing multiple OS's.

Anyways, I already installed Puppy and XP at the same time, but it didn't appear to work, as there was NO option upon boot to choose, and it ALWAYS booted into XP. I know that ext2,3,4 are "invisible" to Windows, so maybe this could be part of the problem.

What about something easier, like 2 OS's with XP and DOS 4, 6, or 7.1? I tried this, but failed on the part where 7.1 requires a "primary drive" to install or it CANNOT install. I thought that XP "also" needs a "primary drive" to boot, so if you were to change this, it might cause XP to not boot up, even if you changed it back...

NOTE
The screenshots are excellent, but not needed if you want to make a quick how to.
A simplifed how to with just the basics that a intermediate/expert can readily understand would be quicker and not take as long, such as the description below, and take up just as much space:

example:
1> Make 2 partitions
2> Install XP [part 1]
3> Change "primary drive"
4> Install Dos 7.1 [part 2]
5> Install Bootloader [gives option at boot for OS boot choice]
6> Change Bootloader settings and select OS's location
7> Reboot
 
It does not require windows 7 at all. It just will not be able to edit a BCD file without it as XP and before did not use BCD. If you are only installing windows 2000 and XP then you don't need to edit anyway. 99.999% of Linuxes will do the Grub install and update all by themselves.
 
wolfeking said:
It does not require windows 7 at all. It just will not be able to edit a BCD file without it as XP and before did not use BCD. If you are only installing windows 2000 and XP then you don't need to edit anyway. 99.999% of Linuxes will do the Grub install and update all by themselves.
Click to expand...

Yeah, as long as you install Linux last. Thats why I do not like Linux because I hate the interface and options like this. Might be easier but it doesn't work for me really.
 
Captain Kirk said:
I read your entire how to. BCD editor is an excellent program.This is only for Windows and requires for W7 to be one of the OS's. I don't want W7, as this takes up WAY too much RAM, and will not allow me to have enough memory to run other programs along side it. W7 is a RAM guzzler, a RAM hog; like vista, it is overbearing in this way.

I read wolfeking's linux how to, but I don't see how this relates to installing multiple OS's.

Anyways, I already installed Puppy and XP at the same time, but it didn't appear to work, as there was NO option upon boot to choose, and it ALWAYS booted into XP. I know that ext2,3,4 are "invisible" to Windows, so maybe this could be part of the problem.

What about something easier, like 2 OS's with XP and DOS 4, 6, or 7.1? I tried this, but failed on the part where 7.1 requires a "primary drive" to install or it CANNOT install. I thought that XP "also" needs a "primary drive" to boot, so if you were to change this, it might cause XP to not boot up, even if you changed it back...

NOTE
The screenshots are excellent, but not needed if you want to make a quick how to.
A simplifed how to with just the basics that a intermediate/expert can readily understand would be quicker and not take as long, such as the description below, and take up just as much space:

example:
1> Make 2 partitions
2> Install XP [part 1]
3> Change "primary drive"
4> Install Dos 7.1 [part 2]
5> Install Bootloader [gives option at boot for OS boot choice]
6> Change Bootloader settings and select OS's location
7> Reboot
Click to expand...

XP does not need a primary drive to boot, as long as the Boot Loader works correctly and is set up, I ran it before on a Slave.

Just install DOS first, run the Fdisk Utility, Partition and then install XP on the second partition, either that or you could try to install XP first, then install DOS, then try and install XP over where it already is to fix it then continue from there. If you want to use DOS, why dont you just run it in a VM? It works smoothly on a low spec PC? Its just a waste of time using it to multiboot when you can use it in a VM on hardly any resources?
 
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