I recently buy a new laptop which comes with Vista installed and because I find it very slow, I try to install another OS while retaining the original Vista to play with. I encounter several problems but finally I succeed in putting 3 OS’s on the same laptop and everything works. Here I explain what I do.
The computer I use is an Acer Aspire 9300 with AMD Turion64x2 processor, 2 Gb of memory, 120 Gb on disk drive and 17″ screen 16:9 format 1440×900 pixels.
Step 1 ? Before doing anything else, create system restoration disk using the software provided by Acer.
Step 2 ? Repartition the disk drive. First try was made using gparted from a LiveLinux CD and keeping a first partition of unknown type which contains the Acer Vista system and utilities before first system start. So I create :
1 ? original 8Gb primary partition.
2 ? NTFS 19 Gb primary partition with Vista installed (C: drive)
3 ? NTFS 19 Gb logical partition to install XP (D: drive)
4 ? Ext2 19 Gb logical partition to install Linux.
5 ? FAT32 50Gb logical partition for data shared by 3 different OS (E: drive).
Step 3 ? Reboot the computer : Vista is working !
Step 4 ? Install XP Pro on D: drive.
Step 5 ? Reboot the computer : XP starts but unable to start Vista !!!
Step 6 ? Reinstall Vista from the recovery DVD (C: drive only, no choice !)
Step 7 ? Reboot the computer : Vista is working but unable to start XP.
What happens : The multiboot feature of previous Windows versions is not recognized by Vista and the XP installation has but some XP files on the C: drive (boot.ini, NTLDR & ntdetect.com) cancelling Vista boot.
There is an MS utility to install multiboot in Vista, but it does not exist in the Vista Premium OEM from Acer (The OEM install includes only the drivers needed by the model of computer, it is not a full install !!!)
Step 9 ? Erase everything on the disk drive and repartition with Ranish utility (available on SystemRescueCD), I note that first 8 Gb primary partition was described as “Compaq Diagnostic” (seems strange ?) :
1 ? NTFS 19 Gb primary bootable partition for Vista
2 ? NTFS 19 Gb primary partition for XP
3 ? Ext2 19 Gb logical partition for Linux
4 ? FAT32 58 Gb logical partition for data
Step 10 ? Try to reinstall Vista from recovery DVD. I get a message saying no disk drive available !!! Probably need the “Compaq Diagnostic” partition to work ?
Step 11 ? Using Ranish utility, I change the size of the FAT32 partition to 50 Gb and create a new 8 Gb primary partition (Remark : you can have only 3 primary partitions on a disk drive and an extended one in which you can create several logical partitions). What partition type for this partition ? Ranish has no option to format a “Compaq Diagnostic” partition, so I create a FAT32 one and after formatting I change the type to “Compaq Diagnostic”.
Step 12 ? Reinstall vista from recovery DVD. Now it works !!!
Step 13 ? Reboot the computer, Vista is working as previously.
Step 14 ? With Ranish, makes the second primary partition bootable instead of the first.
Step 15 ? Install XP Pro on the C: drive which is now the second primary partition.
Step 16 ? Reboot the computer, XP is working.
Step 17 ? With Ranish again, makes the first primary partition bootable.
Step 18 ? Reboot the computer, Vista is working.
At this step, the two Windows version are working but I need a boot manager which is not provided by Vista, nor XP.
Step 19 ? Install Linux openSUSE 10.2 on the third partition, which includes GRUB multiboot on the first track of the disk drive.
Now I have 3 OS’s on my laptop with an easy to use boot manager :
Windows Vista Premium Acer OEM version, Windows XP Pro and Linux openSUSE 10.2
Hopefully, Acer provides all the XP drivers and utilities for this computer on the support Internet site and I found madwifi driver for Linux !!!
