For 3 or 4 of days now, I've been trying to install Xp, Vista and Ubuntu on my PC in such a way that
1. They all reside on the same hard disk on different partitions.
2. They are all accessible on individual choices from a Grub menu on startup.
3. All three OS' are independent from each other so that if I choose to reformat one partition, the other 2 OS' are not affected by that.
I've looked around on the web and came across some helpful articles. Here are the links.
http://www.techenclave.com/guides-and-tutorials/create-triple-boot-vista-xp-linux-95295.html
http://ubuntuguide.org/wiki/Multiple_OS_Installation
http://www.multibooters.co.uk/multiboot.html
Based on the above information and some more, I did the following after multiple attempts of installing and reformatting.
1. I partitioned my hard disk into 2 with Gparted from a LiveCD. One 30 GB partition first for a Vista install and a 25 GB partition following that for the Xp install. I formatted them both to the NTFS filesystem. I had space left unformatted on the 120GB hard disk.
2. I flagged the 25 GB partition as the boot partition.
3. I installed Xp in that.
4. I tried booting into it. It went fine.
5. Next, through GParted, I flagged the 1st 30GB partition as the boot partition and hid the Xp partition.
6. I ran the Vista install (Surprisingly, it went fine this time. I had problems with running the install previously after hiding the Xp partition). I installed Vista in the 1st 30 GB partition.
7. I restarted the computer.
8. It booted into Vista with no menu to get into Xp.(as I expected)(I assumed Vista installed itself as it would on a brand new harddrive; with all its files in its partition; not disturbing the Xp partition at all; overwriting the Xp entry in the MBR; not disturbing the PBR in the Xp partition. But later, complications that came up made me realise that this might not be what actually happened).
9. Then I created an extended partition(with GParted) in the unpartitioned space. I created swap and ext4 partitions and installed Ubuntu.
10. In the process, I let the Ubuntu setup write Grub to the MBR.
11. I restarted.
12. I was presented with 3 options in the Grub menu, one each for the 3 OS'.
13. I tried booting into all of them. They went great.
Now, I wanted to find out if both the Windows were independent of each other(that was the whole point of this exercise). I had no clue as to how I could find out which partitions the Ntldr and Bootmgr were residing in. So I thought, I'd do the whole process listed above twice(Yes! I did that!); delete the partitions containing the Windows, each in turn, and see what turns out.
Okay.
Steps 1 to 13(the first time).
14. I deleted(through GParted) the partition containing Xp.
What turned out:
I had the Grub menu on restart.
Boot into Ubuntu: fine
Boot into Vista: fine (Yippee!)(So, Vista, when installed after Xp, did not write any of its files in the Xp partition).
Boot into Xp: I was presented with an error report.(Obviously!Duh!) But the error message slapped me hard! "BOOTMGR is missing!" and I was left thinking what Bootmgr had to do with Xp.
Fine.
I deleted all the partitions again!
Steps 1 through 13 again:
14. I deleted (through GParted) the partition containing Vista.
I restarted.
I was presented with the Grub menu.
Boot into Ubuntu: fine
Boot into Vista: Error: "no such partition".
Boot into Xp: (Moment of truth!) Error: " Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: <windows root>\system32\hal.dll."
As I'm searching with the error messages, I'm wondering what exactly happened behind the scenes during those installs. I have no idea if the Vista install changed things in the Xp partition. Can anyone offer me an explanation? Or more theory behind those multiple Windows installs?
Thanks!
1. They all reside on the same hard disk on different partitions.
2. They are all accessible on individual choices from a Grub menu on startup.
3. All three OS' are independent from each other so that if I choose to reformat one partition, the other 2 OS' are not affected by that.
I've looked around on the web and came across some helpful articles. Here are the links.
http://www.techenclave.com/guides-and-tutorials/create-triple-boot-vista-xp-linux-95295.html
http://ubuntuguide.org/wiki/Multiple_OS_Installation
http://www.multibooters.co.uk/multiboot.html
Based on the above information and some more, I did the following after multiple attempts of installing and reformatting.
1. I partitioned my hard disk into 2 with Gparted from a LiveCD. One 30 GB partition first for a Vista install and a 25 GB partition following that for the Xp install. I formatted them both to the NTFS filesystem. I had space left unformatted on the 120GB hard disk.
2. I flagged the 25 GB partition as the boot partition.
3. I installed Xp in that.
4. I tried booting into it. It went fine.
5. Next, through GParted, I flagged the 1st 30GB partition as the boot partition and hid the Xp partition.
6. I ran the Vista install (Surprisingly, it went fine this time. I had problems with running the install previously after hiding the Xp partition). I installed Vista in the 1st 30 GB partition.
7. I restarted the computer.
8. It booted into Vista with no menu to get into Xp.(as I expected)(I assumed Vista installed itself as it would on a brand new harddrive; with all its files in its partition; not disturbing the Xp partition at all; overwriting the Xp entry in the MBR; not disturbing the PBR in the Xp partition. But later, complications that came up made me realise that this might not be what actually happened).
9. Then I created an extended partition(with GParted) in the unpartitioned space. I created swap and ext4 partitions and installed Ubuntu.
10. In the process, I let the Ubuntu setup write Grub to the MBR.
11. I restarted.
12. I was presented with 3 options in the Grub menu, one each for the 3 OS'.
13. I tried booting into all of them. They went great.
Now, I wanted to find out if both the Windows were independent of each other(that was the whole point of this exercise). I had no clue as to how I could find out which partitions the Ntldr and Bootmgr were residing in. So I thought, I'd do the whole process listed above twice(Yes! I did that!); delete the partitions containing the Windows, each in turn, and see what turns out.
Okay.
Steps 1 to 13(the first time).
14. I deleted(through GParted) the partition containing Xp.
What turned out:
I had the Grub menu on restart.
Boot into Ubuntu: fine
Boot into Vista: fine (Yippee!)(So, Vista, when installed after Xp, did not write any of its files in the Xp partition).
Boot into Xp: I was presented with an error report.(Obviously!Duh!) But the error message slapped me hard! "BOOTMGR is missing!" and I was left thinking what Bootmgr had to do with Xp.
Fine.
I deleted all the partitions again!
Steps 1 through 13 again:
14. I deleted (through GParted) the partition containing Vista.
I restarted.
I was presented with the Grub menu.
Boot into Ubuntu: fine
Boot into Vista: Error: "no such partition".
Boot into Xp: (Moment of truth!) Error: " Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: <windows root>\system32\hal.dll."
As I'm searching with the error messages, I'm wondering what exactly happened behind the scenes during those installs. I have no idea if the Vista install changed things in the Xp partition. Can anyone offer me an explanation? Or more theory behind those multiple Windows installs?
Thanks!
