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  • February 23, 2006 at 4:45 pm #2177709

    Partitioning for multiple O/S’s

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    by sgcuda · about 16 years, 4 months ago

    First, I’d like to say how great everyone in this forum has been. I perform local upgrades, repairs and builds and recieve a lot of phone calls for help. Can I partition a hard drive (250GB W/D), install several different Windows operating systems (XP Pro, Home, 2000, 98) and boot on demand to view what clients are talking about as opposed to having different computers with different O/S’s like I have now?

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    • February 23, 2006 at 5:41 pm #3100810

      Reply To: Partitioning for multiple O/S’s

      by jmgarvin · about 16 years, 4 months ago

      In reply to Partitioning for multiple O/S’s

      Yes. You simply have to install the various Windows versions and the Windows boot loader will take care of it.

      Just make sure to name the install directories something different (eg: Win98, Win2k, WinXP)

    • February 23, 2006 at 7:01 pm #3100789

      Reply To: Partitioning for multiple O/S’s

      by wcp · about 16 years, 4 months ago

      In reply to Partitioning for multiple O/S’s

      Yes.

      You need to create a FAT32 (or FAT16) partition first, System Partition. This is where boot files, boot.ini, ntldr, ntdetect.com, and others reside for Windows NT, 2K and XP.
      The order of installation should be Windows 98, 2K, and XP (Home and Pro).
      The system partition may be as small as 125MB provided that no Windows or program will be installed here.
      Windows 98 may be installed in System partition or different partition (in Fat32).
      It is the best practice that each Windows be installed in a separate partition (or drive).

      For more info, see http://tinyurl.com/hb39o How to create a multiple-boot system in Windows XP (MS KB 306559)

    • February 23, 2006 at 7:35 pm #3100776

      Reply To: Partitioning for multiple O/S’s

      by rob miners · about 16 years, 4 months ago

      In reply to Partitioning for multiple O/S’s

      The other alternative is to use Microsoft Virtual PC 2004. It is relatively inexpensive. VMWare has a free Server emulator. I havent used it so i am not sure whether you can setup a workstation on it.
      At the moment I have DOS6, Win95, Win98 and Windows ME installed. It is only a couple of seconds to load the OS.

    • February 23, 2006 at 8:21 pm #3102376

      Reply To: Partitioning for multiple O/S’s

      by gary56789 · about 16 years, 4 months ago

      In reply to Partitioning for multiple O/S’s

      VMware Player will allow you to use different operating systems without rebooting. You just install it into your favorite OS, then install the other OS’s. You can even have multiple operating systems in different windows on the desktop at the same time. O yes, its free.

      http://www.vmware.com/products/player/

    • February 23, 2006 at 11:52 pm #3102300

      Reply To: Partitioning for multiple O/S’s

      by kevinotakos · about 16 years, 4 months ago

      In reply to Partitioning for multiple O/S’s

      yes you can provided each o/s is in a different partition.

    • February 24, 2006 at 5:08 pm #3273801

      Reply To: Partitioning for multiple O/S’s

      by sgcuda · about 16 years, 4 months ago

      In reply to Partitioning for multiple O/S’s

      This question was closed by the author

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