Triple boot OS help

xman

Member
Hi,
I'd like to have a three or four boot OS on the C drive with Vista Ultimate 32 and/or Vista HomePremium 64 and XP 32 and Win7 Ultimate 64. Firstly I'd like to know if this is even possible and secondly what order should I install these OS? I already have the Win7 Ultimate 64 installed so would I have to uninstall and format my C drive or can I just repartition C and install the other OS?

Thanx.
 
Hi,
I'd like to have a three or four boot OS on the C drive with Vista Ultimate 32 and/or Vista HomePremium 64 and XP 32 and Win7 Ultimate 64. Firstly I'd like to know if this is even possible and secondly what order should I install these OS? I already have the Win7 Ultimate 64 installed so would I have to uninstall and format my C drive or can I just repartition C and install the other OS?

Thanx.
Hello xman.
Install XP first, followed by the 2 Vistas, and then lastly Win 7. Install each to its own pre-partitioned/pre-formatted NTFS partition, so you wont encounter the problem of Win 7 creating its own hidden "system" partition. And yes, this is easily achievable with EasyBCd 2.0 beta (which will do all the hard work for you). Just add the entries, pointing the Vista and Win 7 (type: Longhorn) entries at their respective partitions, but letting EasyBCD automatically point at the XP (type: "../NT/XP") partition when you create the entry. EasyBCD will take care of the rest. Just accept the offer to do everything for you when you create the XP entry. And, on second thought, since you said you already have Win 7 installed, dont uninstall/format it, leave it there, shrink it, get the space you need, create the other 2 or 3 partitions out of the free space, and just install XP, and then Vista (or the two Vistas). Then just use EasyBCD to add the other entries to your Vista BCD.

Are you planning to put all the OSes on the same HDD?
 
Thanx for the info Coolname007. Yes I am planning to put all the OS on one hdd, my C drive. But how do I shrink an OS?

xman
 
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Thanx for the info Coolname007. Yes I am planning to put all the OS on one hdd, my C drive. But how do I shrink an OS?
Technically, the C "drive" is actually only a partition on a hard drive. You can not install all the OSes on that one partition. You will need to shrink the C: partition (hopefully you have enough space), and then use the free space to create the new partitions for each OS.

Just to clarify...:wink: I wasn't sure what you mean by "Yes I am planning to put all the OS on one hdd, my C drive." And, no, you dont shrink the operating system, you shrink the partition the OS is on (via a partition manager). This can be done in Win 7's Disk management, I believe, or you can use a 3rd party partition manager.

If you can go ahead, and post a screenshot of your Disk Management window, I'll be able to see how much space you have available on that HDD. It may not actually be possible. It'll depend on how big your HDD is, and how much space you have left.
 
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Thanx for your quick response. I have 500 GB and I'm going to assign 50 GB to each of the OS using Easeus Partition Master.
 
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Better do it using W7 Disk Management, just in case your 3rd party manager is not compatible with the latest large HDD partitioning standards adopted by Vista and W7.
It works fine.
 
Thanx Terry. I'll try W7 Disk Management though I've never had problems with Easeus partitioning large (500 GB +) drives.
 
It's not that they can't do it. It's that older software might align partition boundaries to the old standards.
That's OK on a blank HDD (I installed my Vista in a partition defined by a bootable Paragon floppy, circa WME). Vista and W7 are quite happy to install and run in old-standard partitions.
The problem arises if Vista/W7 aligned itself to the new standards, and you try to use software which doesn't recognize them.
In attempting to "correct" the alignment whilst shrinking the original partition, (It warns you it's about to correct it, but most people take it at its word and say "go ahead") it will make the partition unbootable, and everything on it unfindable.

Of course, if your software is new enough, the problem won't arise. Just a warning to be safe and sure.
 
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