Multi Boot XP, Vista 64bit and Windows 7

[neocor]

Let me first say I am completely ignorant about how to install multiple Os'es on one machine. I have tried to read up and tried to do what ever i understand but it has not worked out. First i need to understand a few of the basic things.

1. What do people mean when they say they installed OS1, OS2 in dual boot configuration.
a. Do they mean they installed a software that helps to dual boot multiple OS'es
b. Does installing multiple OS'es automatically makes your computer dual boot?
The question here is that do you simply try to install two OS'es and then when the second one is installed and the computer boots up you get a screen where you can choose?

2. Whenever any discussion of Dual boot is there they always talk about disk Partitioning. What about if i have multiple disks? Do i still need to partition?
a. Is it imperative that all the OS'es reside on different partitions on one disk?

I think these above two points are absolutely basic things that are never addressed anywhere. I know its either i am a complete moron and its like duh! that is always understood as in Sun always rises in the east, or there is really something wrong i am doing. I am absolutely not a novice either, I usually don't need much help in any PC hardware or software issues, but this thing has me stumped. Last time i had dual boot my PC was way back in 1995.

Now coming to what i was doing.

I am looking to install XP Pro 32 Bit, Vista Business 64bit and 7 64Bit.

I have 2 IDE drives and 2 SATA drives and a SATA Solid State drive.

I was trying to install the XP on the Solid State drive and Vista64 on the SATA drive. Never was able to make it work. Previously my Vista64 resided in the SATA drive and the XP on IDE when they were the only OS.

Can XP reside only on an IDE drive if one is present? And if i want to install XP on SATA then there should not be any IDE drive present? Why i am asking is because i was not able to boot the system after installing XP (standalone) on a SATA drive, while i can do that on IDE.
I can install the Vista64 on a SATA drive properly.
Also I tried partitioning the SATA drive and install XP on the seond partition, but again the computer wont boot up.

Can someone post a link to what is the order of the things and details how to go about this. I am open to installing Linux also as a first OS if that will make things easy.

Help is greatly appreciated.

Neo

 

[techmanc]

The main basic thing if you want to dual or multi boot Windows OS without using a software boot manager is to make a partition for each OS you plan to use with enough space to install all your software for that OS and 50% for freespace. That said install the oldest OS first and the newer OS will be able to add the proper entries to the OS boot screen. So e.g. install Windows XP - Windows Vista - Windows 7. The reason for that is an older system wont know about how to behave properly with with a newer OS and just install itself with setting up the newer OS properly to boot.

 

[neocor]

That makes sense.
So all the OS'es need to be on the same disk with partitions?

 

[techmanc]

No but they each need there own partition.

 

[McLovin]

I have not fooled around with making partitions on the disc as this seems like the most logical choice if you only have one drive or to just use the rest of your multiple HDDs as storage space.

When I first "upgraded" to vista, I bought a 640 GB Western Digital and installed Vista Ultimate x64 on that and I had a 500 GB Seagate already installed with XP on it. Basically what I did if I wanted to switch back and forth between the OS'es was jsut boot from the bios to the corresponding HDD. That is until my sata controller went bad and took out my XP drive

I feel like you are restricting yourself if you run more then one OS on a disc because at the very least if one of your HDDs goes down, at least you'll have a working OS on another drive. To each his own I suppose.