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Installing Multiple OSes on One Machine

C

calpha

Golden Member
I'm trying to set up a test environment for a product that I develop.

I have to test it on
Win ME
Win 98
Win 2k

That being said I need the following OSes
Win ME only
Win ME with Office and other programs
Win 98se only
Win 98se with Office and other programs
Win 2k only
Win 2k with Office and other programs
1 partition for images as well
All OSes must be installed on a separate partition

I've used Partition Boot Magic, and System Commander, but cannot find a way around a limitation:

Each physical disk can only have 4 primary drives. Win 9x & ME must be installed on a Primary Drive, but Windows 2k can be installed on a logical drive.
Since an extended partition takes up 1 primary drive spot that leaves me with

3 primary drives & 3 logical drives. Boot Magic and System Commander automatically handle setting the active partition once they're set up so that's no probelm.

Do I have a choice other than getting another hard drive?
Part 1 Prim- Win ME 1
Part 2 Prim- Win ME Office +
Part 3 Prim- Win SE 1
Part 4 Log 1 Win 2k
Part 4 Log 2 Win 2k Office +
Part 4 Log 3 NO OS--Images only






 
dont use boot magic...

What i would do is install 98 and ME on the primaries and install everything else on logicals.

Then instead of using boot magic use FDISK. Thats right FDISK. All you have to do is boot up with a boot floppy. Just leave the boot floppy in there all the time untill your done testing your product or whatever.

From the boot floppy boot without cd rom support (its faster) then type fdisk at the prompt. when fdisk is on hit "YES" then hit "4" to show partition information. Then all you have to do is set the "Active partition" to whatever OS you want to boot.

This sounds like alot but believe me youll be booting ANY os within seconds after getting the routine down.
 
That still gets me to the same place though.

What I can't figure out how to get around is the 4 primary partition limitation.

Win 98 on 2 Primaries
Win Me on 2 Primaries

Then I can't create an extended partition.

 
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