Boot help for Win7,Xp,Ubuntu via wubi & Redhat enterprise 5

roger7

Member
Hi folks,
I own a HP DV6516tx series laptop n currently i have Vista Ultimate running. But lately due to study purpose i require a tripple boot, that consists Windows seven, Windows Xp Sp3 and RedHat Linux Enterprise 5. Also in addition i want to install Ubuntu 9 via the wubi installer. ( i have all the OS's ready in hand )
Now Please help me in a very precise step by step instruction as i m new to all this but this great forum seems to be real bless.

Please please please help me !
 
Hi Roger, welcome to NST.
Firstly, if you haven't already done so, use the HP recovery partition to create backup CD(s) of your Vista environment. It's a large part of the value of the PC you paid for, and it would be silly to throw that value away by destroying it. If you ever want to sell the PC, the Vista software OEM licence is tied to that particular hardware, and the value of the kit will be reduced without it.
How are you intending to proceed ?
a) Replace the Vista system with 3 others leaving the HP recovery partition intact ?
b) Overwrite the entire HDD including the recovery partition ?
c) Use a new HDD and install the new systems on that ?
 
thanks a million for that wonderful advice but i have created the recovery discs and i would want to start afresh on the entire HDD.

Please let me know what to do next brother !
 
OK. assuming one of your Linux flavours is burned as a live CD, boot it directly from the CD and use the partition manager (or any other partition manager you have available on bootable media), to format your HDD and repartition it with the layout and sizing you require.
XP Primary NTFS 10-20Gb
W7 Primary NTFS 25-50Gb
Extended remainder

Inside the extended
10-50Gb left unallocated (for Linux install)
USER DATA Logical NTFS remaining space

Adjust the sizes as appropriate for the size of your HDD. (I'd recommend using descriptive labels for the partitions as in blue above, to avoid confusion as to which you're using during the install phase)

boot the XP disk and install it to the 1st partition
boot the W7 DVD and install it to the 2nd partition
boot the Linux CD and install it to the largest available free space
(use the advanced boot options to ensure that grub installs to the Linux bootsector not to the MBR)
Boot from the HDD
There should be a boot menu for W7 and "previous version of Windows".
choose W7 and then download and install EasyBCD 2.0 latest build.
run EasyBCD 2 and use "change settings" to rename "Previous version...." to XP
use add/remove entries to add an entry for Red Hat, using the Linux tab and selecting the partition from the dropdown menu. Don't tick the "grub isn't installed....." box.
 
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ok, now here is some more info bout my laptop.
I have a 160gb HDD, Nvidea 8400Gs, 2Gb DDR2, C2D T5250 @ 1.5Ghz

There are currently two partitions on my system:
1] C drive @40 gb Unformatted ( would be installing win 7 here )
2] D drive @109 gb NTFS ( has xp installed and my other college study material)

Note: i want to keep say only 10-20 gb for the Linux OS. Also i would want to know that which one is a better OS Redhat Enterprise 5 or Ubuntu 9.04. Actually i require to work on MYSQL and bit of other C, C++ programming. So will ubuntu have these as packages in them coz i think RHEL5 has it .
Also will 10-20gb be enough for it.

As of now i m using paragon partion manager and creating a new partion of say 20 gb for linux.
 
Ah, you said earlier that you had Vista installed and wanted XP/W7, but if you already have XP as your main OS and you just want W7 and Linux to play with, then I'd divide the 40Gb 25/15 W7/linux NTFS /empty with your Paragon PM, then proceed from the "Boot W7 DVD" line.
As regards relative merits of different Linux, I'm not your best source.
I happen to use Ubuntu 9.04, but I'm a fairly recent adopter and only really use Linux as a tool for circumventing Windows permissions and restrictions.
 
No, i think u got me wrong. i had vista home premium pre installed on c drive when i bought my laptop.
And i had installed xp D drive before formatting C:
NOw i have installed win 7 in that 40gb of where vista existed. just the last os is is left to go on the third partition.
 
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