I bought Partition Magic and Boot Magic. Despite following the instructions, no matter what I did I get stuck with the Windows OSs using the NT booter. Thus when I boot I get BootMagic selection screen followed by a NT boot selection screen. What I wanted to do was have 4 OSs installed: XP x 2, W2K client, and W98. I need two XPs since with one I am instaling a development environment (Visual Studio) and will keep asking me to debug web pages while I surf First question: Is the 4 OS configuration doable? Second question: Is there a way to bypass the NT booter on OS installation? Third question: Is there any place in town that would set this up for me? and how much would it cost? Thanks in advance. BTW, I need this multi-boot config to support my shareware game which needs to install/run of the various Windows platforms.
To do this you would need to edit the boot.ini file. I have to run but here is a little documentation that might help you out. I'll post again tonight and explain it better. http://www.jsifaq.com/SUBM/tip6100/rh6137.htm#Task5
I am grateful for any help. I think the strategy Partition/Boot Magic uses is to mark the drive with the desired OS as active and to marke the remaining OS drives as inactive. This is not the same strategy as the NT boot manager and this is the rub. After I install the OS, I can get the boot.ini right. It is when I try to switch over to using the BootMagic sceme, things go awry.
I multi-boot (Win 98 and Win 2k). I'm not sure about how to install an OS on two partitions twice, but I think you have the option to install it to another partition when you run the installation for each OS. I didn't have to edit any files, but then again I am using two OS's, not four as you are. It might be different for you.
4 OS boots is certainly doable. I have set up 5 OS (Linux, WinXP, WinME, OpenBSD, and FreeBSD) on my computer at the same time once, but it messed up my hard drive afterward. I suggest u try VMware, it's really easy and safe to use.
I managed to get W98SE installed into the second partition on the first disk. BootMagic even did the right thing. I now stuck trying to get XP to install onto the third partition of the first disk. I can set it as the active partition in PartitionMagic and reboot to DOS floppy. But when I try to run setup (from the first disk where I copied the install disk to), I get a message saying that "setup can not be run from DOS". WTF. BTW, I don't have an IDE CDROM. I have a SCSI CDROM, which may be the root cause of the problem (since the system may use an IDE to boot from). Any ideas would be extremely helpful and appreciated.
It might have something to do with the order in which you are trying to install the operating systems. Check out this extensive information site at: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/using/howto/gettingstarted/multiboot.asp You can also browse the forums at www.geekradio.com and post your questions there. Some of my listeners might be able to help you out. The suggestion about using VMWARE is solid and sound. With VMWARE you can run an operating system in a Window of your existing operating system. No muss and no fuss. Plus, if you copy the session file you can screw up the install and then just reload it. Great for development and testing. Jay Lee Technology Bytes Radio http://www.geekradio.com
I do believe that your forums were down when I tried to post a message. Anyway, thanks for the links. I am off to ms.com.
