triple boot windows 7 winXP and Linux

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sri_rng

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Hello everyone,

I had a XP partition for 3 years now. I installed windows 7 beta 64 bit over it and it was working fine. I had some problems with XP and decided to go for a clean install. I installed XP again, and now the boot menu is gone!! In the diskmgmt.msc utility, I see the win7 partition referred to as unallocated space.

I am on Ubuntu Live CD now, liking it..So I would like to triple boot with Linux too.. How do I go about it? any luck for me to rescue my hidden partition?
 
????????

During Install Process Select Manual Partition. Gparted Will Load. Delete the hidden partition you were talking about, Then In free space you get create partitions as necessary,

I recommend Min 10GB+ (If you ubuntu regular) and 1GB of SWAP !!

Format 10Gb as ext3, and Set Mount Point as /

for 1gb set Type as SWAP instead of EXT3.

Google search Ubuntu Install Videos

Etc......
 
Thanks guys. I have installed Ubuntu before, I just wanted to know the order of install. So now, winXP, Win7 and then Ubuntu is the safest bet right?
 
^^yeah.. But I would recommend Mandirva :P There are few reasons.. You don't have to go command line even if you messed up grub there are easy tools to restore right away .. No tools for Ubuntu :P Though I am using Ubuntu atm but still nothing beats Mandriva Control Center and Yast in openSUSE :)
 
gotta download Mandriva for that now :) Any idea how I can add Windows 7 to my XP boot manager by editing the boot.ini file? I don't want to reinstall windows7 as it takes quite a long time..
 
sri_rng said:
gotta download Mandriva for that now :) Any idea how I can add Windows 7 to my XP boot manager by editing the boot.ini file? I don't want to reinstall windows7 as it takes quite a long time..
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Can't be done.XP bootloader can't load any higher versions of Windows.
 
sri_rng said:
gotta download Mandriva for that now :) Any idea how I can add Windows 7 to my XP boot manager by editing the boot.ini file? I don't want to reinstall windows7 as it takes quite a long time..
Click to expand...

+1 for Mandriva and
how I can add Windows 7 to my XP boot manager by editing the boot.ini file?
Click to expand...
EasyBCD will do the job .
 
Best way is to install xp-->win 7 then linux without grub or any boot loader. Boot in windows 7 and install easybcd which provides loads of boot options for various OS and you don't have to worry about grub messing with win7's loader. Same is applicable for vista too.
 
virus32win said:
+1 for Mandriva and

EasyBCD will do the job .
Click to expand...
AFAIK, EasyBCD is for tweaking Vista Bootloader and not for XP.
Best way is to install xp-->win 7 then linux without grub or any boot loader. Boot in windows 7 and install easybcd which provides loads of boot options for various OS and you don't have to worry about grub messing with win7's loader. Same is applicable for vista too.
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Or he can install Linux last with the Grub in MBR.It will pick up the XP and Win7 entries just fine.
 
Actually if you are using Grub to boot you can do the following if you want.

hide the XP partiton and install Windows 7 then unhide Windows xp, then install Ubuntu and point grub to each OS partition by editing the menu.lst (If your lucky Grub will find them anyway when you install Ubuntu) then you can boot from each os independently from Grub. (this is how my system is setup pm me if you want help)
 
no need to hide XP partition for that.

just make backup of boot files of XP.

things will be easy if the XP boot files are not on the win7 partition.

to start off from starting...

hide win7 partition from XP.

do XP repair install or fix boot cmd if that works. (this shall bring XP bootfiles on XP partition (or whatever primary partition available apart form win7)

then unhide win7 partition.

repair win7.

install linux n let grub do the rest.
 
^^ Not sure... but I think you are mistaken :) If he already has XP installed you would want to hide the XP Partition so that Windows 7 does not put boot files on XP Partition and add it to the Window 7 Boot Menu.

If it does this, then every time he boots to xp from Linux, he will have to go through the Windows 7 Boot Menu 1st (a royal pain in the ass)

If however the XP partition is hidden when Windows 7 is installed... then both Windows 7 and XP will retain their own boot files and then all the OS's can be booted from Linux independently without having to go through any secondary boot loaders.
 
grub will list XP no matter win7/vista lists it in its bootloader or not.

u can choose to boot into XP via both routes.. i.e

via grub >> XP

or via grub >> win7/vista >> XP
 
Haven't used Win7 but yea Grub does everything perfectly with Vista and XP .. So guess no prob. should be with Win7 entry ..
 
thanks for the input guys.. I could not repair using easyBCD, it doesn't work well with XP. Formatted the hidden partition in Gparted and it is now ready to use..

While using Gparted, I resized c: to something bigger. I am not sure if it was me or grub, but the boot flag was removed for c: and I was unable to boot into any partition. I am glad I remembered seeing that option and changed that again to save time!
 
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