Best boot manager?

[Damien]

Anyone have recommendations on the best boot manager on the market these days? What I'm intending is setting up one PC with multiple copies of Windows XP on it to compare different web browsers, AOL, etc, all separate from each other. Each partition will be about 2-4gb and will need to be completely excluded from each other. A few years ago I used to work at a computer lab where we used Ranish Partition Manager, but last time I looked it was in a major state of flux, basically the author was rewriting it and nothing really worked in his then latest builds, so what works well today?

Thanks.

Damien

 

[scottws]

If you install multiple copies of Windows onto the same system, Windows will automatically set up its own boot manager.

 

[Damien]

scottws, the problem with doing that is that each installation is not completely separated from the other one, e.g. if I set up C: and D:, install a second copy of Windows onto D: then the D: install still sees the C: drive - I want each one to be completely separate and believe it is the only OS installed.

 

[cleverhandle]

XOSL is always my recommendation for serious multi-booting. I know it also supports hiding partitions to accomplish what you're describing, though I've never used that feature and don't know if it will be completely satisfactory for you.

Is there some reason apart from aesthetics that you want each OS not to see the other partitions? I can't see that it would make any difference as far as testing software is concerned.

 

[Damien]

cleverhandle: I want to be able to use Ghost to manage the partition images, I can't do that if each one is configured differently. Xosl looks interesting but I'm concerned about using software that hasn't been updated in 4+ years. Right now I'm going to try out MasterBooter, OSLoader and GAG.

 

[cleverhandle]

Originally posted by: Damien
Xosl looks interesting but I'm concerned about using software that hasn't been updated in 4+ years.

What's changed about the low-level PC boot process in the last 4 years?

 

[Damien]

Partitions have changed, specifically Windows XP's NTFS 5.1 came out after many of common partition managers were released. Also, some of them seem to be less flexible in how they work, they'll only accept partitions that they recognize, which kinda sucks if it doesn't recognize e.g. XFS on your Linux partition.

 

[sourceninja]

Grub works great and will let you hide and unhide partitions as well as all the other fun stuff you might need in a boot loader. You can run it off a CD, floppy, or drive.

A quick google found this tutorial which might help you if you are not familar. I use grub on all my machines

http://www.faqs.org/docs/Linux-mini/Multiboot-with-GRUB.html

 

[Damien]

sourceninja: that's awesome, I didn't know Grub could do that!

 

[kamper]

VMWare maybe as an alternative solution?

 

[Damien]

kamper, that's what I'd love to do, but if I can get a free or even $30-ish utility to work for me then I can save $300 in the deal. Good idea though.