Which Boot Loader?

[Piyono]

I've decided to set up my new system drive with at 2 installations of XP, one Ubuntu and another spare primary partition (Vista? What's Vista?)

It's been a looooong time since I've done this so I sat down to do some reading; bit of a refresher course, if you will.

I'd like all my OSs to be invisible to one another and I want both the XP installations to think they're on drive C. This necessitates the use of a boot loader, of course, and in researching these I realized I don't know where to begin. I only want to do this once.


What's good? What should I avoid? I know about GRUB and LILO from years gone by. Are these still standard or is there a new sweetheart on the block?

 

[Mercutio]

Pretty much everything these days - SuSE, Fedora, Debian, Ubuntu - uses GRUB. Unfortunately, they all customize it a bit differently from the others, so if you ever have to repair it, you might be in for a couple minutes of poking around /boot or /grub looking for the config files.

 

[Bozo]

Partition Magic used to come with a boot loader for multiple OSs.
I believe Acronis does too.

Bozo :joker:

 

[mubs]

The older boot loaders from Partition Magic and System Commander need to be installed in a FAT primary partition to make one OS partition active and the other OS partitions invisible, so they don't see each other. I used to dedicate the first primary for this purpose, keeping the partition size to 20MB or so.

This is their biggest drawback. I don't know if they have been updated to run from an NTFS partition. I don't dual boot any more.

 

[Piyono]

OK, so there are two alternatives to multibooting:

1. Swap drives using a frame and carrier (or one of those newfangled carrier-less frames, although I'd be concerned about the SATA connector's ability to survive multiple insertions and removals).

2. Buy dedicated systems for graphics, gaming/general work and audio work.

Alternative 1 makes me nervous and alternative 2 makes me poor. Bootloader it is!

I was reading up on GRUB and am quite baffled as to how I'd go about installing it. I know absolutely nothing about Linux. I'm hoping to find a "GRUB installation distribution", or something, where all I need t'do is boot from CD/USB/floppy and answer a few questions. I'll keep looking but if anyone cares to share a painless way to install GRUB I'm all eyes.

 

[Mercutio]

Step 1. Install whatever version of Linux you want

There is no step 2.

 

[Piyono]

Step 1. Install whatever version of Linux you want

There is no step 2.

What, so GRUB installs itself with Linux? UI and everything?

Well if that don't beet awl!

Should I first install Linux to my partition of choice and then use GRUB to hide partitions whilst I install XP and XP? Is that easy to do with the Ubuntu GRUB UI? Is there a need to hide partitions while installing Linux they way you have to when you install multiple NT Kernel OS's (assuming you want each OS to think it's on drive C)?

 

[Mercutio]

I thought this was common knowledge but...
The order of operations for multibooting is to start with the least complex system and work to the most complex. If you're dealing with more than one version of Windows, you do the older before the newer, and you do your *nix last, because it's always going to have the most accommodating boot loader (LILO or GRUB).

Almost every Linux distro will offer to install a boot loader to your MBR or the first sector of its /boot partition, or to a floppy, or not at all.

 

[Piyono]

I thought this was common knowledge but...
The order of operations for multibooting is to start with the least complex system and work to the most complex. If you're dealing with more than one version of Windows, you do the older before the newer, and you do your *nix last, because it's always going to have the most accommodating boot loader (LILO or GRUB).

Almost every Linux distro will offer to install a boot loader to your MBR or the first sector of its /boot partition, or to a floppy, or not at all.

Merc, I know about installing Windows in ascending order of vintage; that's simply function of the older OS not being able to boot the newer one.

Basically what I'm looking for is a way to hide partitions from the XP installer so that both installations of XP think they're on the C drive. I know I can boot to a partitioning application and hide the partitions that way between installations but I was wondering if there was a more streamlined way to go about it, since I'm already installing a boot loader as flexible as GRUB (which, admittedly, I know nothing about).

 

[sechs]

Why do the Windows installations need to think that they're on the "C" drive?

 

[Mercutio]

He needs to install in parallel to get his stuff back...
Piyono, you can put both installs on your "C:" partition. That's fine. The problem is when two different versions of Windows are trying to share non-\Windows Windows folders like Program Files or the swap file.

Just install the second XP to \winnt or something.

 

[Piyono]

He needs to install in parallel to get his stuff back...
Piyono, you can put both installs on your "C:" partition. That's fine. The problem is when two different versions of Windows are trying to share non-\Windows Windows folders like Program Files or the swap file.

Just install the second XP to \winnt or something.

Merc, I'm not sure what you mean by " 'C:' partition". Windows gives the name "C" to the first visible primary partition on the first hard drive in the system. If I hide the first partition on the drive then the Windows installer will recognize the second partition — now the first visible partition — as drive C.

I want my two Windows installations to be as separate and distinct from one another as possible. No shared anything. That means separate NTLDR for each partition. Each one will see itself as being on drive C, thereby allowying my tidy sequence of drive lettering to continue from drive D onwards, regardless of which installation I boot into.

I want the installation to think they're on the C drive because
a) I like the consistency of it
b) I'm used to how my drives are sequenced in terms of letter names
c) I've run into some programs that will install only to drive "C" for whatever sadistic reason.


So here's how I think I'll do it:

1. Back my shizzle up.
2. Repartition to create 4 primary partitions: A, B, C and D.
3. clone A (this current partition) to D.
4. Format A
5. Install XP on A. Update. Tweak.
6. Clone A to B
7. Hide A and B
8. Install Ubuntu to C
9. Configure GRUB to hide B and D if booting to A and so on.

I guess I could install Ubuntu at any point after creating my 4 partitions, really, but, whatever.

 

[P5-133XL]

If you are that picky, why not simply get 4 HD's and a removable bay. Pick the OS, by choosing the HD that is in the bay.

It's simple, it's clean and it works.

 

[Piyono]

If you are that picky, why not simply get 4 HD's and a removable bay. Pick the OS, by choosing the HD that is in the bay.

It's simple, it's clean and it works.

http://www.storageforum.net/forum/showpost.php?p=104648&postcount=5

 

[Mercutio]

That is entirely too much work when two instances of the same Windows will happily share a drive.

 

[Piyono]

That is entirely too much work when two instances of the same Windows will happily share a drive.

What's too much work— Swapping drives?

 

[Mercutio]

Setting up a complex boot loading system.

 

[Piyono]

Setting up a complex boot loading system.

Yeah, but it's fun, and I have more time than either money or good sense right now.