Triple Boot Windows XP, 7, and Ubuntu

[flamefox_9]

Hi, i have a question that needs answering. I have an acer aspire 5517 with a dual boot of windows 7 and ubuntu 9.04. Im thinking about making a triple boot by adding windows XP to the mix. Can anyone tell me how to do this and if this is recommended? I am a noob at this sort of thing and ubuntu itself. Thanks in advance!

P.S. I am using GRUB bootloader and i dont want to get rid of it.

[garvinrick4]

Hello,
I am going to give you a Link to read about gparted and partitioning. There are certain rules
about Windows installs using primary partitions only. There are 4 available per hard drive so this should help you in your decision on how you should partition your drive.

http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/gparted.html

[flamefox_9]

Hello,
I am going to give you a Link to read about gparted and partitioning. There are certain rules
about Windows installs using primary partitions only. There are 4 available per hard drive so this should help you in your decision on how you should partition your drive.

http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/gparted.html
Ok, I understand, but my laptop came with system reserved and recovery partitions. These and the two operating systems make 4 primary partitions. What should I do in this case?

[garvinrick4]

Go to terminal and enter Code:

sudo 'fdisk -l" without qoutes that is small L not and I and post results.

[raymondh]

If your Jaunty and swap are logical partitions inside and EXTENDED partition, then you possible have capability to add 1 more primary partition to house XP.

The rule is 4 primary partitions or 3 primary + 1 extended

If you insist on installing XP in a logical partition .... make sure it is SP2 and, there will be more work to do. Also note that the bootloader files have to be in primary, active partitions.

http://www.sousuke.org/wiki/Installing_Windows_on_a_logical_partition
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/306559#f1
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/102873

Back-up ... good luck.

Raymond

[flamefox_9]

Go to terminal and enter Code:

sudo 'fdisk -l" without qoutes that is small L not and I and post results.

Here is the result:


Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 1567 12586896 27 Unknown
/dev/sda2 * 1568 1580 104422+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda3 1581 36956 284150210 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda4 36957 38913 15719602+ 83 Linux

[raymondh]

Here is the result:


Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 1567 12586896 27 Unknown
/dev/sda2 * 1568 1580 104422+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda3 1581 36956 284150210 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda4 36957 38913 15719602+ 83 Linux


I believe one of the primary partitions has to go .... if you insist on installing XP in a 3-boot configuration.

Raymond

[Orlando84]

Don't forget to back up MBR with your GRUB in case WinXP erases MBR and writes its own loader. To do this you need to run command from console

$dd if=/dev/hda of=MBR-backup bs=512 count=1
And later you can restore MBR using this command

$dd if=MBR-backup of=/dev/hdx bs=512 count=1

[flamefox_9]

I believe one of the primary partitions has to go .... if you insist on installing XP in a 3-boot configuration.

Raymond

According to my partition list,
/dev/sda1 is my recovery
/dev/sda2 is my system reserve
/dev/sda3 is Windows 7
/dev/sda4 is Ubuntu

I have the recovery on several disks, so should i get rid of the recovery partition?

[flamefox_9]

Don't forget to back up MBR with your GRUB in case WinXP erases MBR and writes its own loader. To do this you need to run command from console

$dd if=/dev/hda of=MBR-backup bs=512 count=1
And later you can restore MBR using this command

$dd if=MBR-backup of=/dev/hdx bs=512 count=1
Ok, I'll get that covered. Thanks for the code and reminder.

[raymondh]

According to my partition list,
/dev/sda1 is my recovery
/dev/sda2 is my system reserve
/dev/sda3 is Windows 7
/dev/sda4 is Ubuntu

I have the recovery on several disks, so should i get rid of the recovery partition?

You'll have to consult your machine's manual. In some systems, it's ok to delete the recovery partition once recovery discs have been made. Some, require a recovery partition still.

What is system reserve? Is that the 100mb partition win7 installs by default? On my 3 boot, I have chosen NOT to install that.


My 3-boot fdisk -l on a 320gb Hd:


Disk /dev/sda: 320.0 GB, 320072933376 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xb1080654

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 7833 62914556+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2 * 7833 31081 186740900 af Unknown
/dev/sda3 31082 38913 62910540 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 31082 31316 1887606 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda6 31317 33230 15374173+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda7 33231 38913 45648666 83 Linux

sda1 is win7. sda2 is OSX. Sda3 is an extended housing logical partitions for swap, root and /home. Notice that I do not have the above-mentioned 100mb partition that win7 installs by default. That, btw, is a bootloader recovery image.

Your call. Do have a working/tested back-up of your files. Good luck.

Raymond