Setting up a triple boot

[Eric998765]

I have been planning on a vista/kubuntu x64 dual boot for some time now, but i think while I'm at it (now that I finally bought my new hard drives) that I might as well put the windows 7 beta on too to play with it some. a few things I need to know before I get started. I will be triple booting the 64 bit version of vista enterprise, kubuntu, and 7.

What size partions should I make for each OS? I know how to make them when installing, but I have never done so before. I've read vista needs like 25-30, but that seems like a lot, after having vista a year an a half, my system folder is only like 3.8GB

Does it matter which order I install the OS's in? I've heard vista and 7 use some sort of different method of finding other operating systems and to do vista, then 7, then kubuntu.

And is there anything else i need to know before starting?

Thanks

 

[MrChad]

If you just want to play around with the OS, save yourself the trouble and use something like VMWare.

 

[VinDSL]

Originally posted by: Eric998765
I will be triple booting the 64 bit version of vista enterprise, kubuntu, and 7.

And is there anything else i need to know before starting?

I just did the same thing - more or less!

I'm triple-booting Vista HP (x86), Windows 7 (x64), and openSUSE (x64), all on the same drive.

It took me 4 days of experimenting to figure out how to do it the BEST & RIGHT way...

http://forums.anandtech.com/me...id=34&threadid=2267003

Might want to check out the above link before you start!

 

[lxskllr]

Originally posted by: VinDSL

Originally posted by: Eric998765
I will be triple booting the 64 bit version of vista enterprise, kubuntu, and 7.

And is there anything else i need to know before starting?

I just did the same thing - more or less!

I'm triple-booting Vista HP (x86), Windows 7 (x64), and openSUSE (x64), all on the same drive.

It took me 4 days of experimenting to figure out how to do it the BEST & RIGHT way...

http://forums.anandtech.com/me...id=34&threadid=2267003

Might want to check out the above link before you start!

That seems more complicated than The way I'd have tried it. I would install Vista-Win7-Kubuntu, letting Kubuntu use GRUB for the boot loader. I have no idea if that would work, but it did on older versions of Windows(XP-Vista-Ubuntu)

 

[VinDSL]

Originally posted by: lxskllr
That seems more complicated than The way I'd have tried it. I would install Vista-Win7-Kubuntu, letting Kubuntu use GRUB for the boot loader. I have no idea if that would work, but it did on older versions of Windows(XP-Vista-Ubuntu)

Thank you for your honesty! :thumbsup:

The way most ppl do multibooting is by fiat, e.g. a crapshoot! Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Or, it worked once, but they can't duplicate their success a second time. Or, dual-booting worked fine, but triple-booting (or more) was an unconquerable mountain.

As a matter of fact, that's the problem I ran across in my experimenting...

I would get my lappy triple-booted, then an hour later GRUB (a Linux bootloader) was missing - the Microsoft twins would conspire, overwrite GRUB, and install their own heinous MS bootloader which looks more like an error screen than a bootloader, and purposely ignores anything to do with Linux. Or, I would get GRUB tacked down, but when I clicked on W7 or Vista in the menu, the MS dual-boot loader would come up again, e.g. one bootloader would point to another bootloader. And, yes, I tried BCDEdit - and all that did was add yet another bootloader to the mix, sooo... I ended up with 3 $#%^ bootloaders! :|

That's when I ran across THE CONCEPT of hiding the partitions from each other, depending on which OS you're booting - and using GRUB to control the process.

LoL!

I know it takes a while to wrap your mind around THE IDEA of hiding partitions from the various OSs during boot up (and installation), but it works great!!!

Using THIS METHOD: Every OS *thinks* it's running on 'C-drive' - the bootloaders don't intermingle and fight with each other - AV software (et al) doesn't see similar copies of files sitting on your system and *think* you're being attacked - and your file managers, media players, and so forth will work just like normal, e.g. they'll see the 'hidden' partitions and be able to access the data in them.

Hiding your partitions during installation and boot up are THE ANSWER to multibooting your system correctly - and THE FIX, if you're having problems! :beer:

 

[Eric998765]

so what size do i need for each?

i plan on using kubuntu for my primary os, vista for my work, and 7 to "play" on

 

[VinDSL]

Originally posted by: Eric998765
so what size do i need for each?

i plan on using kubuntu for my primary os, vista for my work, and 7 to "play" on

Heh!

That does it... Have fun!