Some triple-boot/partion scheme questions

[Maverick]

Hey all,

I've tried searching the forum and found multiple posts regarding dual boot Win2k/WinME systems as well as partioning schemes. My situation is a little bit unique in that it requires some planning for a third operating system, FreeBSD.

I recently purchased a 61.4G IBM hard drive from spliffstar69 and I'm going to redo my entire computer's operating systems and data storage scheme.

Right now I'm running 2 6.4G hard drives and I'm going to keep one of them for data storage (probably just mp3s). The other things I'll need to store are apps, games, and operating systems.

If I were to do a dual boot system starting with WinME on C: with a 3.5gig, Win2k on D: with a 3.5gig, how much space should I allocate for FreeBSD? I really know nothing about FreeBSD, but I have to install it for an operating systems class I'm taking next semester. Is it possible to just assign the partion in fdisk, then format it later? Or will Windows ME/2k not like that?

Now comes my second question, is it possible for WinME and Win2k to share certain programs? Like if I had Outlook on both, would it be possible for the two operating systems to share a single installation? I'm assuming its impossible...but I thought I'd find out just for kicks. I'll probably just use win2k for most things and just have my games installed on WinME.

So basically this is what I've broken down my partion scheme into:

IBM 60 gb HD:

3.5 gb for WINME
3.5 gb for WIN2K
10 gb for Apps
40 gb for Games
3+ gb (whatever's left over) for swap space and FreeBSD.

WD 6.4 gb HD:
all for mp3 storage

I'm really not into squeezing every possible performance tweak out of my system (other than some o/cing of course). But I'd like to know if this seems like a reasonable setup, or are there some major bottlenecks that I need to work out? Thanks for all the help you guys have given me 🙂

 

[Maverick]

bump for the night

 

[pyr]

3.5 gb for WINME
3.5 gb for WIN2K
10 gb for Apps
40 gb for Games
3+ gb (whatever's left over) for swap space and FreeBSD.

reduce how much you give to ME since I expect youll find yourself in 2k a lot. its much much nicer.
a lot more for 2k since it needs lots of space (the default install is really big) try at least 5gb
10gb for apps... do you really use that much stuff? sheesh...
40gb for games... im thinking you are fairly well set here.. that is just an assload of games you have.
increase how much you give to FreeBSD. at least 5gb so if you get into that you wont have to redo anything. Use Partition magic to create all the partitions since MS partitioning programs arent very flexible.

 

[pyr]

Oh, yes you can have them share installs, but you need to install it separately in both OSes. so install app X in ME then go install it in 2k in the same directory and youll be all set.

 

[Maverick]

Yah I've decided I don't want to worry about storage for some time 🙂
I don't really have that much stuff, but I can foresee it happening in the future...some games are like 1.5 gigs to install! (diablo II). So FreeBSD needs like 5 gigs free huh? Interesting, I heard it needs almost nothing. I'll probably use FreeBSD for a while then convert it to linux or something later on.

Does partition magic have a DOS version or something that will run without an OS installed? I'll need that to do this partitioning. Will it work for allocating FreeBSD space too? Thanks pyr.

 

[SUOrangeman]

To ease booting, FreeBSD *may* need to lie withing the first 8GB of a drive so that the BIOS-limited 1024th-cylinder issue doesn't come in to play. I have yet to try this OS, so this may not even be a factor. Heck, BootMagic or System Commander may be able to sidestep this issue as well.

As someone mentioned before, be absolutely sure that you want app abc on both sides of Windows. For example, if you are using WinME for games, there is no need to install office apps there.

Also, read the sig for more ideas. 🙂

-SUO