Discussion Locked

Dual boot Windows NT/2000 & Unix

0 helpful
5 replies
Closed to new repliesThis discussion is closed. It stays readable, but it takes no new replies.

I have a Unix server running Scolaris Unixware 7.

I'm adding another hard drive to the server which I want running either NT or Windows 2000.

Is there any way that I can have the server to be dual bootable between the 2 o/s?

5 replies

by shanghai sam

Look at boot magic. That is not partition magic, but something a little different. You can still use partition magic to set up volumes, but boot magic will install on the primary disk in the front. boot magic will allow you to determine which OS you want to load. Boot Magic may have some requirements so read the guide after you purchase this. Also be aware that some operating systems won't boot if their boot block isn't in a certain region of the disk. Windows NT needs to be on the first 2 GB of the primary disk. Windows 2000 needs to be on the first 8 GB of the primary disk. This is only the boot block (C:\). This folder can be 1 GB in size for NT or 2 GB in size for 2000. You can have another Windows partition of any size, anywhere on either disk to store your Windows data. Unix may also have some requirements. According to the partition magic guide Linux boot sectors need to be on the first 8 GB of either disk. This may or may not apply exactly for Unixware. If boot magic guides don't have info for Unixware try looking at the Unixware web sites. Here is an example config to summarize all of this

Windows boot sector on first 2 GB of primary disk. Linux boot sector on next 1 GB of primary disk. Windows data partition on rest of primary disk. Linux data partition on secondary disk.

Unfortunately, you may have to reconfigure some things to make this all fit in the correct place.

I hope this helps.

by nickmkhn

It is not necessarily to use third-party boot loaders. Both Win2K and Solaris provide you with their own boot manager/loader.
Especially be very careful with Partition Magic. Some versions are not compatible with newer OSes, and there are some issues with volume size reading, install/uninstall, and full backup of your harddrives is strongly advised before Partition Magic, and PowerQuest doesn’t provide a proper support and rejects any claims, and even well-known Peter Norton has mentioned in one of his articles that he lost his data because of Partition Magic’s bug.

I have dual and triple boot of Solaris 7, 8 with Win2K/WinXP/Win98SE on different machines. I have installed Win2K as a system partition C:, or as boot partition D: with Solaris on E:, and other interesting possible variants with large partitions.

I found as a very helpful guide that I’m gonna recommend you, it’s the “Multy-booting Solaris and Other Operating Systems” by Mariuz Zynel:

http://multiboot.solaris-x86.org/index.html

In my opinion, it is a very comprehensive guide, and I hope it would help you greatly.

This discussion is closed to new replies.