Recommended install order on a multi-boot system?

MinoGryphon

MinoGryphon

Member
Ok, first I'll say I tried a couple other boot managers and could manage to get a dual-boot.

However things kind of went to hell with a multiboot, although I'm new to dual/multi-booting.

However it seems EasyBCD might actually be the best solution and work.

So,

1. I've downloaded EasyBCD 2.0 Beta Build.

2. I've read a bit on the documentation on EasyBCD, and it seems that you can oftentimes install your OSs before or after Vista and get it to work.

However

If I install say Windows 95, WinXP, Windows 7, Ubuntu, Fedora, and maybe Mac Os X,


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My questions:

1. Will their bootmanagers screw each other over in some way that EasyBCD won't be able to add them all after Vista is installed, and then EasyBCD is installed?

2. With primary partitioning or whatever, is there a certain number of harddrives that would be needed to install the 7 OSs?

(I have a spare 600 GB Sata, a 320 GB IDE, and another 160 GB Sata, and a 120 GB Sata, and the computer has 5 available Sata ports (1 is used by DVD burner))

3.For some reason when I tried earlier, I can't seem to install Windows 95, the Win95 boot floppy disk says "I/O disk error", and Windows 95 doesn't boot straight from CD.

Same thing with Windows 1.0, except it just says something along the lines "no bootable media inserted, Insert boot media"

4. If I can install Windows 95, does it require a FAT32 formatted partition?
5. Can EasyBCD hide OSs or partitions from other OSs? Is that recommended if possible?

6. If it is possible to have this 7 OS multiboot with EasyBCD, what order would you install each OS? (and at what point(s) to use EasyBCD)



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Thanks,
MinoGryphon
 
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You shouldn't need Windows 95. If its to run some older apps then Compatibility Sword might help under XP/Vista/W7. You might want consider VMing some of the OSes... maybe an XP VM you can use in W7? My best advice is install oldest to newest and to avoid problems install W7 last. Adding entries for the other OSes when that's done is easy enough to do with the latest beta of EasyBCD.
 
1. Short answer: Yes. Longer answer: What will happen is you will end up with an Mac OS X MBR, and you'll only be able to boot OS X, and perhaps one Windows. Not very useful...
To avoid problems, install the OSes in this order: Ubuntu (use the "Advanced" option to install Grub to the Linux partition instead of the MBR), Fedora, OS X, and then Win 95, XP, and then finall 7. Then use EasyBCD 2.0 Beta to add entries to your W7 BCD to boot all the other OSes.
2. Technically, you could install them all on one HDD, if its big enough, but some of the OSes will need to be installed to logical partitions, since the limit is 4 primaries. Probably best to install the 3 windows to one HDD, and then the 2 Linuxes, and OS X to the other HDD (with the second HDD first in the boot sequence in the BIOS, so the boot stuff goes to the correct HDD, or the first HDD disconnected if you can manage it; if you adjust the boot order, make sure to change it back to put the other HDD first, once all the OSes are installed).
3. Sure you have the floppy drive first in the boot sequence of the BIOS?
4. Yes.
5. No, this is not possible with EasyBCD. You'll need a 3rd party boot manager for that.
6. Refer to above.
 
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Coolname007 said:
1. Short answer: Yes. Longer answer: What will happen is you will end up with an Mac OS X MBR, and you'll only be able to boot OS X, and perhaps one Windows. Not very useful...
To avoid problems, install the OSes in this order: Ubuntu (use the "Advanced" option to install Grub to the Linux partition instead of the MBR), Fedora, OS X, and then Win 95, XP, and then finall 7. Then use EasyBCD 2.0 Beta to add entries to your W7 BCD to boot all the other OSes.
2. Technically, you could install them all on one HDD, if its big enough, but some of the OSes will need to be installed to logical partitions, since the limit is 4 primaries. Probably best to install the 3 windows to one HDD, and then the 2 Linuxes, and OS X to the other HDD (with the second HDD first in the boot sequence in the BIOS, so the boot stuff goes to the correct HDD, or the first HDD disconnected if you can manage it; if you adjust the boot order, make sure to change it back to put the other HDD first, once all the OSes are installed).
3. Sure you have the floppy drive first in the boot sequence of the BIOS?
4. Yes.
5. No, this is not possible with EasyBCD. You'll need a 3rd party boot manager for that.
6. Refer to above.
Click to expand...

Thanks Coolname.

2. I have no problem disconnecting and reconnecting hard drives if it is necessary? If I change the boot order of Hard Disk Drives in BIOS, that would do the trick?

So I'm assuming you are implying the 3 Windows on say
1. 1st Master: IDE 320 GB
2. SATA 1: 120 GB
3. SATA 2: 160 GB

Then go into BIOS and change the Hard disk boot order to
1. SATA 1: 120 GB
2. 1st Master: IDE 320 GB
3. SATA 2: 160 GB

and install GRUB and then Ubuntu on it, and then Ubuntu.

And then BIOS change the Hard disk boot order to
1. SATA 2: 160 GB
2. 1st Master: IDE 320 GB
3. SATA 1: 120 GB

and install Mac OS X

Then change the hard disk boot order back to
1. 1st Master: IDE 320 GB
2. SATA 1: 120 GB
3. SATA 2: 160 GB

Then install EasyBCD 2.0 Beta, and then get to add/remove entries screen and add Grub ( or Ubuntu & Fedora if they shown individually), and then also add Mac OS X.

So is that your recommendation? or are some things to be fine tuned before I do this?






#3. Yes the floppy drive was first in the boot sequence in the BIOS, well technically it is called "Removable" (you know, same thing), and under a submenu "Removable Devices" Floppy is the only listed one.

1st Boot Device [Removable]
2nd Boot Device [CD-ROM] (although it really is a DVD-RAM or whatever.)
3rd Boot Device [Hard disk]
 
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MinoGryphon said:
Thanks Coolname.

2. I have no problem disconnecting and reconnecting hard drives if it is necessary? If I change the boot order of Hard Disk Drives in BIOS, that would do the trick?

So I'm assuming you are implying the 3 Windows on say
1. 1st Master: IDE 320 GB
2. SATA 1: 120 GB
3. SATA 2: 160 GB

Then go into BIOS and change the Hard disk boot order to
1. SATA 1: 120 GB
2. 1st Master: IDE 320 GB
3. SATA 2: 160 GB

and install GRUB and then Ubuntu on it, and then Ubuntu.

And then BIOS change the Hard disk boot order to
1. SATA 2: 160 GB
2. 1st Master: IDE 320 GB
3. SATA 1: 120 GB

and install Mac OS X

Then change the hard disk boot order back to
1. 1st Master: IDE 320 GB
2. SATA 1: 120 GB
3. SATA 2: 160 GB

Then install EasyBCD 2.0 Beta, and then get to add/remove entries screen and add Grub ( or Ubuntu & Fedora if they shown individually), and then also add Mac OS X.

So is that your recommendation? or are some things to be fine tuned before I do this?
Click to expand...
Yes, that sounds about right. Concerning the Ubuntu and Fedora part, you can add one normal Grub entry for Fedora, and one Grub2 entry for Ubuntu (assuming you're planning to install the 9.10 version, that is, which uses Grub2). Select the EFI option for the Mac OS X, and select the correct hard drive number (2 most likely) for the entry. You will also need to add an XP entry to your BCD, and let it auto-configure.

Once doing all that, reboot, select the Fedora entry in the boot menu, and attempt to boot it. If it fails, get back into Windows, remove the Fedora entry, and add it again, this time selecting the "Grub is not installed..." checkbox. Then it should work.

Then all your OSes should happily multiboot with each other. :smile:

About the floppy thing: I have no idea why that's not booting. Maybe its limitations with the BIOS, or something. You can try using the "BIOS Extender" option in EasyBCD to extend the capabilities of your BIOS. That may work.

EDIT: Or maybe its a problem with your floppy disk drive...
You sure that's working ok?
 
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Coolname007 said:
Yes, that sounds about right. Concerning the Ubuntu and Fedora part, you can add one normal Grub entry for Fedora, and one Grub2 entry for Ubuntu (assuming you're planning to install the 9.10 version, that is, which uses Grub2). Select the EFI option for the Mac OS X, and select the correct hard drive number (2 most likely) for the entry. You will also need to add an XP entry to your BCD, and let it auto-configure.

Once doing all that, reboot, select the Fedora entry in the boot menu, and attempt to boot it. If it fails, get back into Windows, remove the Fedora entry, and add it again, this time selecting the "Grub is not installed..." checkbox. Then it should work.

Then all your OSes should happily multiboot with each other. :smile:

About the floppy thing: I have no idea why that's not booting. Maybe its limitations with the BIOS, or something. You can try using the "BIOS Extender" option in EasyBCD to extend the capabilities of your BIOS. That may work.

EDIT: Or maybe its a problem with your floppy disk drive...
You sure that's working ok?
Click to expand...

Thanks again coolname

I was planning on using the Ubuntu 8.04 DVD I had dled a little while back, but since there is 9.10 I guess I'll DL that DVD now.

So should I install Fedora before Ubuntu or after?

and although it would be better if they have separate entries on the boot manager, I wouldn't mind if they were chainlinked from the BCD bootmenu to Grub with both of them in Grub.

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I'm not sure if the floppy drive is working properly.

Although I started some boot disk off the floppy. However 2 other bootable disks didn't work and said "I/O disk error" and "Invalid bootable disk"

I installed the floppy recently, and used a new ASUS ribbon cable, but the weird thing is on the motherboard the 3rd pin is empty, while on the floppy drive the 2nd pin is empty. I don't know if that is standard or not.

Anyway it at least partially works, because it did boot one of the Dos disks, although it wasn't the Win95 DOS disk that I needed.

I'll post some pictures in 10 minutes on photobucket and then embed here to show what I mean.
 
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MinoGryphon said:
Thanks again coolname

I was planning on using the Ubuntu 8.04 DVD I had dled a little while back, but since there is 9.10 I guess I'll DL that DVD now.

So should I install Fedora before Ubuntu or after?

and although it would be better if they have separate entries on the boot manager, I wouldn't mind if they were chainlinked from the BCD bootmenu to Grub with both of them in Grub.
Click to expand...
They will have separate entries in the BCD if you use the method I described. However, you can also boot both from a single Grub menu.lst, now that I know you're thinking about using 8.04 instead of 9.10. However, if you end up using 9.10, you'll definitely want to use Grub2 in EasyBCD for Ubuntu, and Grub (Legacy) for Fedora (unless of course Fedora uses Grub2 now, but I don't think so).
Its possible getting both to work from NeoGrub too, I believe, but it would require some manual configuring of the NST menu.lst, and I figured the automatic method was easier for you. :wink:

As for which OS you should install first, Fedora or Ubuntu, I figured it might be better to install Ubuntu first, but it should work fine either way.

Cheers.

Jake
 
Well I'm going to DL Ubuntu 9.10 DVD now. (it'll take a little while for a bit, I have torrent throttling during certain time periods)

But I'll take some quick screenshots of the floppy situation in a little while.

And to confirm what you said earlier, a HDD can have 4 primary partitions no problem? (I just put the 320 GD IDE in my working comp, and there are 3 primary partitions and the remaining partitions are extended)

Screenshot320GBIDE.jpg


edit nvm I see the 4th primary partition from within the extended partition.
 
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MinoGryphon said:
Well I'm going to DL Ubuntu 9.10 DVD now. (it'll take a little while for a bit, I have torrent throttling during certain time periods)

But I'll take some quick screenshots of the floppy situation in a little while.

And to confirm what you said earlier, a HDD can have 4 primary partitions no problem?
Click to expand...
Yes, that is correct. If you want to have more than 4 partitions on a single HDD at a time, you will need to make one of those 4 an extended partition, and create logical partitions inside the extended (I think the limit for logical is 16, if I'm not mistaken, which is far more than you'll ever need).
 
MinoGryphon said:
edit nvm I see the 4th primary partition from within the extended partition.
Click to expand...
Yeah...that's wrong. :smile: Sometimes Disk Management gets confused, and thinks its seeing primary, when its really logical inside extended (no such thing as primary inside extended). :tongueout:

Addendum:

MinoGryphon said:
Hmmm, I'm not sure why it didn't make my Windows 7 partition a primary partition.

screenshot2.jpg
Click to expand...
Did you install it to a pre-formatted partition? Or was it to empty/unformatted space?
Sometimes Win 7 will do funny things when you install to empty space.
 
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Coolname007 said:
Addendum:


Did you install it to a pre-formatted partition? Or was it to empty/unformatted space?
Sometimes Win 7 will do funny things when you install to empty space.
Click to expand...

I haven't installed anything yet.

I just am pre partitioning things right now, with my other Vista computer, because if I didn't the drives had boot managers screwing things up, and I probably couldn't try to install Windows 95 on a system with 7 already installed.
 
Why are your 2 DM screenshots so different?
The first one you posted showed multiple logical partitions, the 4th partition on the disk a 20 GB I: partition, while the second screenshot you posted shows a 118.09 GB partition with drive letter J....:wtf:
And that's on the same HDD as far as I can tell.

Addendum:

MinoGryphon said:
I haven't installed anything yet.

I just am pre partitioning things right now, with my other Vista computer, because if I didn't the drives had boot managers screwing things up, and I probably couldn't try to install Windows 95 on a system with 7 already installed.
Click to expand...
Ok, that explains it. DM will, by default, create logical partitions instead of primary (though I think you can specify to use primary instead).
 
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Coolname007 said:
Why are your 2 DM screenshots so different?
The first one you posted showed multiple logical partitions, the 4th partition on the disk a 20 GB I: partition, while the second screenshot you posted shows a 118.09 GB partition with drive letter J....:wtf:
And that's on the same HDD as far as I can tell.
Click to expand...

They are both the identical Disk 3, just formatted and then re-setup.

"Previous setup attempt with multi-boot that things were messed up with another boot manager"

Screenshot320GBIDE.jpg


"New setup with drives formatted, but nothing installed"

screenshot2.jpg


Addendum:


Ok, that explains it. DM will, by default, create logical partitions instead of primary (though I think you can specify to use primary instead)
Click to expand...
I can't see anywhere in DM to set the Windows 7 logical partition within the extended partition as a primary partition.
 
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Ok, that setup SHOULD work fine, but you'll want to set the XP partition to "active" status (with Disk Management) first before installing any of the OSes. That way all of the boot files will install themselves neatly on the XP drive, and you'll be able to multiboot the 4 Windows OSes without any difficulties.
 
Coolname007 said:
Ok, that setup SHOULD work fine, but you'll want to set the XP partition to "active" status (with Disk Management) first before installing any of the OSes. That way all of the boot files will install themselves neatly on the XP drive, and you'll be able to multiboot the 4 Windows OSes without any difficulties.
Click to expand...
Ok done and done for setting XP to active.

but the Windows 7 partition should be fine even when it is designated as a logical partition?
 
MinoGryphon said:
Ok done and done for setting XP to active.

but the Windows 7 partition should be fine even when it is designated as a logical partition?
Click to expand...
Yes, because W7 will put its boot files (IF it installs them; it may not if it detects Vista's bootmgr/bcd already there, in which case it would only add itself to the Vista BCD) in the XP primary partition.
 
First picture shows different pins on either side:

3rd pin on motherboard is empty,

DSCF6057-1.jpg


2nd pin on floppy is empty

DSCF6055-1.jpg


Not sure if that is an issue.

I put in my Windows 95 CD and boot floppy
DSCF6062.jpg


Error message:

DSCF6066.jpg


Then I try a Vista made MS DOS boot disk, and then I try Windows 1.0 startup disk

DSCF6067.jpg


Then I try Windows ME boot disk, which kind of works

DSCF6068.jpg


but then CD-rom driver fails lol

DSCF6069.jpg



Addendum:

Oh shit, just realized the floppy I thought was a windows 95 boot floppy, is a "microsoft intellipoint floppy".

Found the win 95 floppy, but it also failed to pick up the DVD rom.

Addendum:

Ok, I managed to install Windows 95, but it says insufficient memory to boot the system lol.

Forget 95.
 
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