Help: Triple boot Win XP, Win 98, and Linux (Updated)

[marius]

I wanted to install three OSs on my brand new hard drive. The size is
only 40 GB. I wish to install the following OSs:
1. Win XP Pro,
2. Win 98SE, and
3. Linux (either Red Hat 9 or Mandrake Linux 9.1)

I'll be using Windows most of the time. I'll be using Linux just for
educational purposes.
I also want the Win XP and Win 98SE to be able to share files between
them. Most of the programs/applications that I will use will be run
under windows.

What should I do first? Which OS will I install first?
What file system will I use?
How will I do the disk partitioning? How much will I allot for each
partition?

Thank you so much!

Follow-up: Can "Solaris 9 for x86" be triple-booted with Win XP and
Win 98?

[Jim Bowering]

marius wrote:

> I wanted to install three OSs on my brand new hard drive. The size is
> only 40 GB. I wish to install the following OSs:
> 1. Win XP Pro,
> 2. Win 98SE, and
> 3. Linux (either Red Hat 9 or Mandrake Linux 9.1)
>
> I'll be using Windows most of the time. I'll be using Linux just for
> educational purposes.
> I also want the Win XP and Win 98SE to be able to share files between
> them. Most of the programs/applications that I will use will be run
> under windows.
>
> What should I do first? Which OS will I install first?
> What file system will I use?
> How will I do the disk partitioning? How much will I allot for each
> partition?

Buy Partition Magic and partition your HD like this:

5GB primary - FAT32 for Win98
5GB primary - NTFS for WinXP
5GB primary - set aside for Linux
25GB extended - with logical drives 10GB FAT32, 10GB NTFS and 5GB set aside
for Linux.

Now go to a Windows forum for help installing Windows. When those are
working as you want them, come back here for help installing your choice of
Linux.

[Timo Voipio]

Jim Bowering wrote:

> Buy Partition Magic and partition your HD like this:

WTF? Linux fdisk does all the things that are needed.

> 5GB primary - FAT32 for Win98
> 5GB primary - NTFS for WinXP
> 5GB primary - set aside for Linux

Doesn't actually need to be a primary.

> 25GB extended - with logical drives 10GB FAT32, 10GB NTFS and 5GB set aside
> for Linux.

The amounts sound reasonable.

Here's the way I used to install 2k, 98 and Debian as triple-boot:

1. Use fdisk off the Debian install cd, partition as follows:

/dev/hda1, 8 MB - /boot, type 83 (Linux)
/dev/hda2, 5 GB - /win98, type FAT32 LBA (I can't recall the type number for
that)
/dev/hda3, 5GB - /xp, type HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hda4, the rest - FAT32 Extended (type 0e or 0f... IIRC)
/dev/hda5, 10GB - /shared, type FAT32
/dev/hda6, 10GB - /xp2, type HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hda7, 512MB - swap, type 82 (Linux swap)
/dev/hda8, rest - /, type 83

2. Use 98's CD's tools to format C: (/dev/hda2). Then install Win98 there.
3. Install XP on D: (/dev/hda3). Make sure that it does not just
automagically fdisk and format the whole 40GB disk...
4. Install Linux. Make an ext2 filesystem on /dev/hda1 and use it as the
/boot filesystem. This ensures that Linux can get around brainless BIOSes.
Make sure that lilo is installed on /dev/hda1, NOT on the MBR of /dev/hda.
5. Add linux to XP's boot menu by dd'ing the first 512 bytes of /dev/hda1 to
a file (say, bootsect.lin), copy that file to /win98. Then add the following
line in boot.ini under [operating systems]:
C:\BOOTSECT.LIN="Linux"

6. Boot and pray.

The method mentioned above worked with 98, 2k and Debian Woody. There's a
possibility that M$ has changed their boot method again -- in that case
configuring triple-boot might be bit more challenging.

-Timo

--
Timo Voipio | Helsinki, Finland | ICBM at: 60 11.800 N 024 52.760 E
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[marius]

Can you teach me how to partition my hard drive?
My hard drive still contains nothing. It's a 40 GB, brand new drive.

Most are suggesting the use of Partition Magic. Is that software
executable even if I have nothing (OS) installed on my drive?

What are primary and logical partitions?
I'm thinking of using NTFS for WinXP, FAT32 for Win98SE and ext3 for
Linux (RH 9). Actually, I just read that others have that kind of
setup, but don't know their justifications about it.

Thank you so much!

[Bit Twister]

On 2 Sep 2003 03:41:27 -0700, marius wrote:

> Can you teach me how to partition my hard drive?

Do not know, can you learn.

> My hard drive still contains nothing. It's a 40 GB, brand new drive.

That makes it pretty straight forward.

> Most are suggesting the use of Partition Magic. Is that software
> executable even if I have nothing (OS) installed on my drive?

Yes, you can boot from the cd.

> What are primary and logical partitions?

Primary is a stand alone partition. Logicals are partitions within
an extended partition.

> I'm thinking of using NTFS for WinXP, FAT32 for Win98SE and ext3 for
> Linux (RH 9).

That can work.

> Actually, I just read that others have that kind of
> setup, but don't know their justifications about it.

Same justifications as you, they want to be able to run all three.

What you can to do is create three partitions, One primary for XP, one
for SE and one Extended. Now the Extended partition allows you to
create one or more fat32 and as many linux partitions as you have space.

You have to decide how much space each OS is going to need for install
and all the updates. Example showing 2 primary, one extended partition
containg one logical fat32 partition.

..----. .----. .---------------------------------------------------
| | | | | .-------.
| SE | | XP | | | FAT32 | Free unformated space for growth
| | | | | `-------'
`----' `----' `-----------------------------------------------------

My xp is 8.2 gig with 3.1g space left in the xp partition.
My setup for XP, mandrake and redhat who share the swap partition.

..----. .----------------------------------------------------------.
| | | .-------. .------. .----. .----. .-------. |
| XP | | | FAT32 | | swap | | md | | rh | free space | bk xp | |
| | | `-------' `------' `----' `----' `-------' |
`----' `----------------------------------------------------------'

bk xp is a backup copy of the XP partition.

swap is shared between rh and md.
swap's size is 2x memory upto 512 meg max.
rh and md are ~4gig each.

[Nico Kadel-Garcia]

marius wrote:

> Can you teach me how to partition my hard drive?
> My hard drive still contains nothing. It's a 40 GB, brand new drive.
>
> Most are suggesting the use of Partition Magic. Is that software
> executable even if I have nothing (OS) installed on my drive?

Partition Magic is for after the fact, when you want to re-arrange
systems including NTFS partitions for Windows.

Partition Magic is no longer usable in their recent versions if you have
nothing on the drive, those accursed weasels!

> What are primary and logical partitions?
> I'm thinking of using NTFS for WinXP, FAT32 for Win98SE and ext3 for
> Linux (RH 9). Actually, I just read that others have that kind of
> setup, but don't know their justifications about it.

Why do you need Win98se for anything these days? Almost everything
Windows would be better under WinXP.

Install Windows first if you need it, try to keep it on the first
partition of the first available drive using, say, 20 Gig. Then put
RedHat on the next partition, and set aside a Gig or so on the last
partition for swap.

Wham-bam thank you ma'am, you're done. Don't get into breaking it up
into smaller partitions unless you *have* to, grub as a boot loader no
longers requires a /boot partition up front and there's not much use in
practice for home messing around in breaking it up further.

[Bit Twister]

On Tue, 02 Sep 2003 12:02:55 GMT, Nico Kadel-Garcia wrote:

>
> Partition Magic is no longer usable in their recent versions if you have
> nothing on the drive, those accursed weasels!

Which version of PM.
I was thing of getting a newer verison.

I have 8.0 and some freaking ms WIN98 update seems
to keep me from copying it to a backup partition.

[Thomas Thyberg]

Nico Kadel-Garcia <nkadel@verizon.net> writes:

>
> Why do you need Win98se for anything these days? Almost everything
> Windows would be better under WinXP.

Say after me, "Bloat". A vanilla Win98SE installation fits in around
350MB. Might not be such a big deal nowadays, but if you run your
win98 in a vmware instance than one appreciate a small footprint.
When I tried WinXP I ended up with around 1.3GB with nothing
left to remove or not to install.

--
//TT

[Nico Kadel-Garcia]

Thomas Thyberg wrote:

> Nico Kadel-Garcia <nkadel@verizon.net> writes:
>

>>Why do you need Win98se for anything these days? Almost everything
>>Windows would be better under WinXP.

>
>
> Say after me, "Bloat". A vanilla Win98SE installation fits in around
> 350MB. Might not be such a big deal nowadays, but if you run your
> win98 in a vmware instance than one appreciate a small footprint.
> When I tried WinXP I ended up with around 1.3GB with nothing
> left to remove or not to install.

Hmm. If you're going to be setting up triple-boot systems and trying to
run any applications in these days of cheap disk, I think miniaturizing
your OS installation should be the *last* of your worries.

[Thomas Thyberg]

Nico Kadel-Garcia <nkadel@verizon.net> writes:

>
> Thomas Thyberg wrote:

>> Nico Kadel-Garcia <nkadel@verizon.net> writes:
>>

>>> Why do you need Win98se for anything these days? Almost everything
>>> Windows would be better under WinXP.

>>
>> Say after me, "Bloat". A vanilla Win98SE installation fits in around
>> 350MB. Might not be such a big deal nowadays, but if you run your
>> win98 in a vmware instance than one appreciate a small footprint.
>> When I tried WinXP I ended up with around 1.3GB with nothing
>> left to remove or not to install.

>
> Hmm. If you're going to be setting up triple-boot systems and trying to
> run any applications in these days of cheap disk, I think miniaturizing
> your OS installation should be the *last* of your worries.

Well, I was just answering your question about "Why do you need to
Win98se for anything...", and I need win98 in a vmware instance to
read worddocs and other "windows" stuff. Small footprint is good
in vmware.

--
//TT

[Nico Kadel-Garcia]

Thomas Thyberg wrote:

> Nico Kadel-Garcia <nkadel@verizon.net> writes:
>

>>Thomas Thyberg wrote:
>>

>>>Nico Kadel-Garcia <nkadel@verizon.net> writes:
>>>
>>>
>>>>Why do you need Win98se for anything these days? Almost everything
>>>>Windows would be better under WinXP.
>>>
>>>Say after me, "Bloat". A vanilla Win98SE installation fits in around
>>>350MB. Might not be such a big deal nowadays, but if you run your
>>>win98 in a vmware instance than one appreciate a small footprint.
>>>When I tried WinXP I ended up with around 1.3GB with nothing
>>>left to remove or not to install.

>>
>>Hmm. If you're going to be setting up triple-boot systems and trying to
>>run any applications in these days of cheap disk, I think miniaturizing
>>your OS installation should be the *last* of your worries.

>
>
> Well, I was just answering your question about "Why do you need to
> Win98se for anything...", and I need win98 in a vmware instance to
> read worddocs and other "windows" stuff. Small footprint is good
> in vmware.

No, you set aside a partition for it and actually run it from hard disk,
not file images. It makes VMware a lot more tolerable, although it does
mean having local partition rather than, say, NFS mountable images to
share all over the place.