Use the following steps to set up a system with one boot menu that will boot DOS, Windows XP, Windows Vista and Linux
1. Use the Ghost Machine or something else to wipe the hard drive clean - often with a drive with a bunch of
junk on it, partition magic may encounter an error, so it is better to start clean
2. Use the "partition magic" CD and make sure that bios is set to boot off the CD drive.
3. In partition magic, create your first partition. IT IS CRITICAL THAT THE FIRST PRIMARY PARTITION THAT YOU CREATE IS FORMATTED IN FAT32
THIS IS NECESSARY FOR DOS TO BE ABLE TO WORK. I normally just create this one partition (72000 KB) and exit partition magic.
4. You can format / create the other partitions now if you like, but its pointless because if you format them
in NTFS with partition magic then you have to re-create the partitions in the XP / vista installs anyways.
However, it may be a good idea to set up all the partitions just to have good disk management.
MAKE SURE TO LEAVE EMPTY SPACE FOR THE LINUX PARITION... DO NOT CREATE A PARTITION - LEAVE FREE SPACE!
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At this point you should have your FIRST PRIMARY PARTITION FAT32 and 2 NTFS partitions and some free space on the drive
YOU HAVE 2 OPTIONS AT THIS POINT - YOU CAN INSTALL DOS 7.1 OR JUST INSTALL WINDOWS 98 DOS FROM A BOOT DISK
THERE IS A WINDOWS 98 BOOT DISK FOLDER IN THIS DIRECTORY...
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i) THE WINDOWS 98 METHOD - RECOMMENDED
5. Create a windows 98 boot
6. Put the boot disk in the system being set up, and power up the system. RUN FDISK and make the first primary partition (the one created earlier) the ACTIVE PARTITION
7. At the dos prompt type "sys c:" - this will copy all of the necessary system files to the drive - you will now have a system that boots to DOS without a boot disk - it is a very bare bones install, but wait until windows is fucntioning to update (makes life MUCH easier)
ii) THE DOS 7.1 METHOD
5. Put the MS DOS 7.1 CD in the drive and reboot the system
6. Install DOS to the C drive, when prompted to re-write the MBR say ok (you WANT to re-write the MBR). Also,
when it asks you to check the partition for an active FAT32 then do the check, and say "fix it"
7. Do NOT install ACCESSDOS or any of the addons (we dont really need them) and just install whatever you deem necessary
8. Once the install is complete, restart the system.
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At this point you should have a system that boots to DOS when it restarts
WE MUST NOW INSTALL WINDOWS XP ON THE SYSTEM
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9. Put the Windows XP installation CD in and reboot the system.
10. Once the XP install starts, it will show you the drive set-up. I recommend deleting the 2 partitions that you
created in step 4 (IF YOU CREATED THEM AT ALL... I SUGGESTED NOT DOING SO...) and then re-creating them. Then select to install XP on the **E DRIVE** and do a quick format.
11. Finish the XP install
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At this point you should have a system that can DUAL BOOT DOS AND XP. The dual boot is configured AUTOMATICALLY!
WE MUST NOW INSTALL LINUX ON THE SYSTEM...
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12. Put the RED HAT LINUX installation CD in the system and reboot.
13. Run through the installation as normal, and when prompted about the bootloader select to go to "advanced bootloader options"
14. In the advanced bootloader options make sure to select "Install bootloader on first sector of /boot partition"
DO NOT SELECT TO INSTALL THE BOOT LOADER ON THE MBR - THIS WILL MESS EVERYTHING UP AND YOU WILL NEED TO START AGAIN FROM SCRATCH!!!
15. Complete the linux installation, and restart the computer.
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At this point you should have a system that can DUAL BOOT DOS AND XP. The dual boot is configured AUTOMATICALLY!
Your system will have LINUX installed as well, but since the bootloader is on the partition, you will not be able to boot linux YET
IT IS NOW TIME TO INSTALL WINDOWS VISTA
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16. Put in the Windows VISTA CD and reboot the system
17. Run through the WIndows VISTA Installation as normal. If you did not re-create the partition during the XP install,
then delete the partition that VISTA is going to be installed on, and re-create the partition.
18. When the VISTA installation is complete, then re-start the system. I recommend you to DISABLE THE UAC and the windows security alerts.
TO disable UAC - press window + R key to open "run" and type "msconfig"go to the "tools" tab and select disable UAC and then click "LAUNCH"
The shield for the security center will pop up... on the left side there is text that says "CHANGE THE WAY SECURITY CENTER ALERTS ME" click that and say "dont notify me and dont display icon"
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At this point you should have a system that has 3 entries in the bootloader, DOS, "Older Versions of Windows" and VISTA
HOWEVER, the DOS entry will not work...
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19. Boot to VISTA, and install EASYBCD
20. Open EASYBCD and click on the "Add/remove entries" tab on the left side
21. On the bottom, click "Linux/BSD" and change the type to GRUB, label the Name whatever you want "Red Hat Linux"
and select the drive (probably partition 5 or 6) that says "Linux native xxGB" where xx is the size of the drive.
Then click on "Add entry"
22. Click on the Windows Tab, and select "Windows NT/2k/XP/2k3" for version, select drive E for the drive, and Name the entry Microsoft Windows XP
Then click on "Add entry"
23. Delete the entry that says "Older versions of windows"
24. Change the order of the boot things using the "up" and "down" buttons - I put Linux on top, then Vista then XP
25. Click on the "Configure Boot" tab on the left side, and for Default OS: select whichever OS you want to default to.
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NOW WE HAVE A SYSTEM THAT WILL BOOT XP, VISTA, LINUX and we need to configure the boot.ini to finish up...
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26. Show all hidden files, and hidden system files by going to the control panel and clicking on folder --> view (from classic view)
Uncheck "Hide protected operating system files" and make sure the dot is on "Show Hidden files and folders"
27. Go to the D:\ drive (which is the boot drive since VISTA defaults to C...) and right click on the boot.ini and un-check "read only"
28. Open the boot.ini
in the operating systems menu you have to make the DOS line read (without the quotes on the outside):
"C:\bootsect.dos="DOS" /WIN95" -> NOTE: it has to be C because that is the first primary partition and the DOS drive... its just D in VISTA because thats what Vista does
I have included a copy of the boot.ini in this directory just in case there are any problems...
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NOW THE SYSTEM SHOULD BE ABLE TO BOOT ALL 4 OPERATING SYSTEMS FROM THE SAME BOOT MENU!
THE LAST THING TO DO IS CONFIGURE THE DOS DRIVE... JUST COPY WHATEVER YOU NEED WHEN YOU BOOT IN XP OR VISTA
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AND THATS A WRAP!
Now just install all the applicable programs, and play around with the operating systems a bit
to make sure that everything is in good working order!
ENJOY!
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