"Bruce Chambers" wrote:

> Ram wrote:
> > hi,
> >       I wanted to load three opeerating systems on my system on single
> > machine on differnt drives. I have already loaded Windows98  and windows 2000
> > server, now i want to load windows professional too on my system. Is it
> > possible...Do i need to take any precautions for it. Just let me know is it
> > advisable...if its possible them do let me know the precautions to be taken.
> >
> > Thanks
> > Rama
>
>
>     It's both possible and easily done.
>
>      The simplest way I've found to multi-boot between Win9x/Me, Win2K &
> WinXP would be to partition your drive roughly as follows:
>
> Primary Partition:
>          C:         FAT32      Win9x
>
> Extended Partition:
>
>      1st Logical Drive     D:            NTFS        Win2K
>      2nd Logical Drive    E:             NTFS        WinXP
>
>      Adjust the partition sizes according to your actual hard drive(s)
> size and the amount of space you'd like to allocate to each OS and its
> applications.
>
>      Create the partitions using Win9x's FDISK so you can enable large
> disk support (FAT32).  (No need for 3rd party partitioning
> utilities/boot managers and their occasional complications.) You need
> only format the Win9x partition at this time, the Win2K/XP installations
> can format their own respective partitions as part of their setup routines.
>
>      Install Win9x first, being sure to select "C:\Windows" when asked
> for the default Windows directory.  When you subsequently install
> Win2K/XP, be sure to specify "D:\Winnt" and E:\Windows," as
> preferred/applicable) when asked for the default Windows directory, to
> place them on the other partitions. The Win2K/XP installation routines
> will automatically set up the Multi-boot menu for you.  The default
> settings for this menu can be readily edited from within Win2K/XP.
>
>       This method can be adapted to using 2 physical hard drives by
> placing the boot partition (C:, which still must be FAT32) and either of
> the operating systems on the Primary Master hard drive, and the second
> and/or third operating system(s) on the second hard drive. Just remember
> to keep each OS in its own partition.
>
>      It is also possible to have a 4th partition for shared
> applications, but it would be necessary for such a partition to be
> formatted in the common file format (FAT32).  The applications would
> also have to be installed into each OS (to ensure proper system file
> placement and registry updates), one at a time, but the bulk of the
> program files could be located on this common partition.  I do not,
> however, actually recommend doing this as, if you were to uninstall such
> an application from one OS, you may not be able to gracefully uninstall
> it from the second/third OS, having already deleted crucial installation
> data during the first uninstall action.
>
>      Just about everything you need to know (URLs may wrap):
>
> http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/techinfo/administration/management/mltiboot.asp
>
> http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/using/howto/gettingstarted/multiboot.asp
>
>
> --
>
> Bruce Chambers
>
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>
> You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having
> both at once. - RAH
>