Triple Boot

[fatboyjim]

Hi,

My friend, Gantic - coming soon (he can't get to his email to activate his PCMECH account) has got 2 HDDs (one 30GB and one 20GB)

The 30GB drive has Windows 98 on it. The 20GB Drive has Windows 2000 on it but he is going to have Linux installed shortly.

We were wondering how to get a triple boot between the 3 OSes, at the moment, Windows 2000 organised the dual boot with itself and 98. If we install RedHatLinux onto the 20gig drive along with 2000 will it automatically set the triple boot?

If not, could somebody give us a detailed tutorial as to which operating system to install 1st, 2nd and 3rd?


Thanks very much,

Jim (and Gantic )

[Statica]

Ok there's basically a LOT of sites devoted to HOWTOs abt multiple OS', and I wont flog the departed horse any further. Without further ado you should find all that u need from:
http://www.linuxdoc.org/docs.html#howto
especially wrt to Win95+Linux and WinNT+Linux.
You can simply combine the two to get a working knowledge. And the ins and outs of multiple boots and boot loaders etc.

From a personal experience (more systems than I have a count for) here's what I have to tell u:

Start from the dumbest OS to the cleverest one for install
Win9x then Win2K then Linux
(if you have an issue with Linux being the cleverest too bad )

Now there are a few things abt partitioning your drive. Oh yeah, I am assuming that NTFS is going to be used when putting in W2k. Obviously your friend isnt going to have 30GB simply devoted to Win98 so say your friend has drives C, D, E on the hard drive partitioned with FAT32 for Win98. Leave the rest of the space, be it on that drive or on the second one UNPARTITIONED (Win9x is very stupid .. and to top it stubborn, if it finds that it cant recognize a drive that it previously saw .. it gets confused).
The gist being install Win98, partitioning and formatting ONLY what you need!

Install win2k next, using NTFS and again partitioning only the space that you will need! If you prefer you can use the NTLOADer to dual boot between Win98 and W2K for you at that point.

Finally install Linux, using grub or LILO are fine, personally I use LILO more often than not. Linux will recognize your other 2 OS just fine.

Having said that, there is another smart thing to do before you start. Decide which OS is going to be the one that is outlasting the others, it helps to make that decision. Suppose Win98 is the one that you believe will be staying and Linux is the one you will be kicking frequently, then use Win98 to partition off the drives with Win98's FDISK. Of course you can always use Linux' partioning progrs to get rid of it as well but this might be the best

The last advice I have is once you get to the stage abt your Linux installation, depending on the distrib u use (say Mandrake 8), prior to partitioning for Linux, you have the option of storing your partitioning schema to a floppy .. do it, you will enjoy to luxury of reverting to before you had Linux.

Cheers.

[c-hoppe]

Statica is right on, I will just add my 2 cents. Having used many Linux distros on several Windows OS's: The newer versions of Suse and Mandrake come with a partitioning utility that can shrink the size of your Windows partition and partition the rest for Linux based on your preference. No need to use windows fdisk. In Mandrake or suse use the Expert or Custom installation and choose to do your own parttitioning. Yast in Suse, Diskdrake in Mandrake. They are slick, almost as easy as Partition Majic. Before you begin, decide the size and type of partions you want in Linux, (read howto). Lilo is okay, hte older one have the 1024 boot limitation- I like the GRUB interface.

[Gantic]

If windows 2000 is on NTFS can it still see windows 98 partitions?

[Statica]

Originally posted by Gantic If windows 2000 is on NTFS can it still see windows 98 partitions?

Windows 2000 can see all Win 9x partitions at all times.