Windows Last XP V22 DVD 2009 Multibootable
Lutero Chaloux
Manjaro is the last system i have installed. currently my pc is booting via Manjaro grub.
I need to use other Linux OS such as Fedora & Debian.
So i need a information on how to add the above (Fedora and Debian) OS to be installed in my pc so i can boot all the 5 OS in my pc.
Just my 50cents about dual booting: I understand, why people dualboot with windows, but another distro? I would say: choose the distro you prefer and if you need another distro, then use distro containers with podman or docker. distrobox makes it really easy to have several Distros with their specific apps tightly integrated (not sandboxed).
So right now I have mine set up a little differently. According the the Episode 5x24 thread booting the .iso won't work. I boot an iso it starts to load and then as soon as it starts to install it goes to a BSOD. This is because there is a protected mode on the kernel that forbids installing like this. (Keep in mind I'm still using the older Grub and not Grub2 yet) To fix this a I created a second partition on the drive, loaded the boot record from the image and then copied all the files onto the drive. When I did this it booted and went to install but gave me another error about missing drivers. I believe that error has to do with a bad image so I am downloading a new one now and will try again.
I'm stuck again. Spent all day trying different configurations of partitions and grub settings but nothing seems to work. I have been able to create a second partition on my USB drive and load windows installation files from an ISO. I know the files are good I did an install off of them earlier. I can get grub to boot this second partition and it starts to load but then I get a missing drivers error. From what I can tell this is because windows can still only see the first partition on a USB Flash drive and the installation files are on a second partition it doesn't know where to find the files.
I have tried 'makeactive' (gives me an error 29 half of the time). I have tried setting the root and hiding the first partition either way when the windows bootloader takes over everything is lost. I've even tried to play around with the map command to see if I can map partitions with no luck.
I have one last avenue I'm looking into right now and that is slip-streaming a hacked driver for the USB key to appear as an external HDD. I'm hoping that this will allow the windows vista installation program to read from both partitions of my USB drive.
Do you know if WinToFlash uses grub4dos? I know WinSetupFromUSB uses grub4dos as the bootloader, which would be good since I already use that. If WinToFlash also uses grub4dos too then I'm not sure which one to use, or which one is better.
I've been trying to think of a way for this to work. Would it be possible to have for example 2 partitions and boot managers on the drive (one for linux dists and the other for windows), and then be able load the windows boot manager from the other?
The thing I am going to do different is instead of having it load from the .ISO, I am going to dump the files from the install image into a folder on the multipass ("vista32bit_install"), it might have to be put on its own ntfs partition and loaded from something other than grub though, I'll see if I can talk grub into loading it. Theres a good chance that Im going to b0rk the drive on my laptop and have to reinstall xp, so it might be a while before I post what happens with my attempts and any progress I make either way.
Now I installed Win98SE on the C drive, many many times over and over until I got it exactly as I want it (and clean). Made an image of the drive as well once all was in order. Next up should be Win 2000 as I read you should go in order oldest to new. So I now just install Win2000 on the D:\ drive and do all my drivers and stuff? After that I install WinME to the E:\ drive?
I just recently set up a Windows 98/XP multiboot, and IMO the advice to install the oldest OS first is not the best idea. The problem is XP (and likely Win 2K) will install itself to drive D:, meaning that whenever using XP or 2K, you have to remember not to install stuff to C: as is common convention. So my solution was to install XP first, and 98 second. That way each OS thinks it's on C:, even though residing on separate partitions. Win98SE installer will leave the XP partition alone, but make its own partition bootable instead. So you need a partition managment tool to mark which partition will be bootable (aka Active), of which there can only be one at a time on an MBR disk.
I used UBCD with build in partition tools to set the XP partition as Active, and that makes only XP boot. Afterwards I used a hex editor HxD and saved the first sector of the Win98 partition to a file called bootsect.dos, placing the file in the C: root directory of the Windows XP partition. Then add the following entry to boot.ini of your XP install to use the XP boot manager:
As for file systems, I prefer NTFS for NT systems, simply because it's more robust against corruption. I can copy files between partitions when running XP. Win98 can't see the XP partiton, and that's the way I intend to keep it.
It's not really a prob;em I could remember different that windows install always assigns drive letter C to the Active partition during install. Could be wrong about that, but it should not matter which order with formatted partitions and active partitions set before running install..If you run independent disks or independent primary partitions it also shouldn't matter again I could be wrong it's been awhile.
I thought the latter OS's you install needed to "see" the previous disks as the master boot record would always be updated with each new OS? If I disconnect my Win98SE "C" drive, won't Win2000 think it is installing as a "C" drive as well (and not know about the other OS/partition)
I'd use some loader like XFDisk for this to work since W9x always will want a primary partition of its own and a bootloader's necessary to hide the other primaries to get the other to boot. 2000 however can live happily on an extended partition with the loader put on a primary.
No, it won't. It will trash and overwrite the MBR and you won't be able to boot XP until you do something to fix it (or unless you do something preventative like "hiding" the active partition from it.
I think I remembered it wrong; it may not trash the MBR except in some cases.
However, in this particular case, there may be no other way around it, since OP wants to install two different "9x" operating systems (98 and ME), and I have no idea whether the 9x/ME installer can handle such a situation cleanly. So one may have to manually put different variants of BOOTSECT.DOS (one for 98, one for ME) on multiple partitions and use a third party loader to juggle the 'active' flag, or whatever.
GRUMPY OLD FART - On Hiatus, sort'a
Mann-Made Global Warming. - We should be more concerned about the Intellectual Climate.
You can teach a man to fish and feed him for life, but if he can't handle sushi you must also teach him to cook.
Catch is the built in boot manager can only support 1 version of dos and Win9x family. It can do as many NT family as you like though.
So if you really do want 98 and ME you'll need a 3rd party boot manager
Re NTFS. It's nice but not necessary.
I usually have my final partition as NTFS and install NT/2k on that. NT versions really dont care whice drive they are installed on, and having it on the last drive letter stops the letters changing between the different versions.
If you still wish to play DOS games on PC3, then go with Windows 98SE. I think you will find that, on such a type of build where you have both Windows 98SE and Windows ME installed, you'll hardly ever use one of the two.
Just make sure you have all of these OSes on their own primary partition each, that are hidden from each other at boot, which always lets you boot the desired OS stress-free.
A simple boot manager will suffice.
Hiding them from each other will also let you install these in any order you want. And it will make sure that the existing bootloaders are not destroyed by the new system you install.
I used to unhook a drive doing this, and then at the end plug them all in, and use the bios to switch which drive i booted to. If you do too many OSes simultaneously I could see it getting messy.
Keep in mind DOS must be on the first partition of the primary master drive, 2gb max unless you're doing a dos 7.1 or something (which doesn't make sense alongside a win9x install on another hdd).
I format all my HDDs Fat32 unless Im planning purposely to make them Dos accessible. Or if they are 8gb or less.
On huge drives (160gb or larger) I will make a separate partition for the 121+ section and make it ntfs since win9x wont like it anyway.
In aid of reducing the number of boxes sitting around here I've been looking a several ways to do that again.
For my needs the best solution I've found is to:
- Use bootable CF cards for the various OS's in a front accessible CF reader.
- Use a Promise RAID card in RAID 1 (DOS compatible) for a non-bootable archive drive with partitions as required for the various OS's.
- I will probably use laptop drives to reduce power, noise, weight and the needed space for drives in the case.
Rebooting to change OS's is not that much different that shutting down to swap CF cards.
The cards can easily be backed up and maintained on a modern system with a CF reader.
No issues with one OS screwing up another or drive letters switching around.
.
I never even tried CF cards until this year. Now that I have I wish I'd started using them YEARS ago.
They make things SO much easier.
.
Same-same with those Floppy Emulators that take USB sticks.
No more futzing with floppies that are going bad.
.
Between the two - I'm in Retro Heaven!
.