Can you triple boot with Win7 Xp and Ubuntu?

donrc · Joined: Feb 16, 2003 Posts: 882

I have XP and Windows 7 RC on separate hard drives. If I now install Ubuntu will Ubuntu's boot mechanism pick up all three or is it limited to two OS's?

drc

drwho07 · Joined: Nov 29, 2007 Posts: 1546 Location: Central FL, USA

Sorry, I don't know squat about Ubuntu, but as for booting from different HD's, to different OS's, I do it all the time.

Using the boot menu that comes built into my motherboard, I can boot to any drive in my system that contains a boot sector, and , all the other drives are readable by any OS capable of reading an NTFS drive.

On my mobo, the boot menu is accessed by pressing the F11 key during the early boot process.

Do you have a boot menu in your Motherboard's Bios, or do you have to use a boot loader program?

In short, if you can boot to two different OS's, then why wouldn't you be able to boot to three, four or even five or more?

Cheers Mate,
The Doctor Cool

donrc · Joined: Feb 16, 2003 Posts: 882

Doc,
Thanks for the post. My motherboard is an Asus M3A. I have not come across a bios based boot menu for it. When I installed Win 7RC it set up a boot loader program to switch between XP and Win7.
When you install Ubuntu it sets up a boot loader of it's own and I don't know if this will scramble the one for XP an 7. I guess one way would be to do an image backup and try it? Be a lot of work if it went south. We'll see.

drc

drwho07 · Joined: Nov 29, 2007 Posts: 1546 Location: Central FL, USA

I must admit I've not used an Asus mobo in a very long time.
But most of the currently available mobo's have some means to access a boot menu.

I have two mobo's, an Asrock that's about nine years old now and then my new one, an MSI that's only about three years old and they both have a built in boot menu that's accessible by pressing the F11 key during boot-up.

Many mobo's will display a help menu during boot-up, like Like "Press Del for Setup" or "Press F11 for boot menu".
It's usually at the bottom of the screen and It won't stay on your screen for very long so you have to 'Read Quick'. Rolling Eyes

Since I don't want any interrelationship between my bootable HD's, I make sure that the drive I'm installing an OS to, is the only drive connected to the system, during that install.
In years past, I've had OS installs go off half cocked and install to the wrong drive.

Almost daily, on some forum, someone is screaming for help because their OS install went to the wrong drive and wiped out all their data files.
Just a little bit of preparation can prevent that from ever happening.

Just a thought....... Rolling Eyes

The Doctor Cool

zzron357 · Joined: Oct 14, 2004 Posts: 43

Hi Donrc,
Should work well. Ubuntu sets up grub boot manager, with choice between
ubuntu and windows, and when you select windows, you can choose between
xp and win7. Since they are in different drives, grub might pick up on both
but the result should be similar. If not ok, just restore mbr to original state and
grub is gone. Did you plan to use a separate partition for ubuntu or use Wubi
to create a partition within one of the drives? I usually repartition in advance
using Gparted so ubuntu is not tempted to try to change any other partition.
Just create an ext3 or ext4 partition (10 Gb or larger) and a linux swap about the
size of your ram. These partitions could be in different drives. Win7 may be able to
resize it's own partitions, just as Vista does. Best to use win7 for this, same with
vista, then use gparted to format. Ubuntu may want to reformat anyway, which
is ok. Win7 must have the same shadow files that vista uses. Hope win7 handles
them better. Vista did fix some shadow file issues with sp1. The files were getting
bigger and never going away. Best wishes, zzron357

donrc · Joined: Feb 16, 2003 Posts: 882

zzron357,
Thanks for the comments. I have XP on one drive and Win7 on another. I have a completely blank partition (NT) on the XP drive that I want to put Ubuntu on. Do you think the Ubuntu install will pick up both of the other operating systems?

drc

zzron357 · Joined: Oct 14, 2004 Posts: 43

Hi Donrc,
Yes, Ubuntu will reformat the empty partition, probably sdb2,
to either ext3 or ext4. I believe Ubuntu 9.10 (still in alpha)
prefers ext4. You may get a choice. I would go for ext3 if
possible. Ubuntu 9.04 should use ext3. It will detect at least the
first windows partition, if not both. The first win part has the boot.ini
with which you choose between xp and win7 now. So the boot
will be a two step process. In grub, choose ubuntu or windows,
then choose which windows. Best case, it will pick up both.
During install of Ubuntu, choose manual choice of partition to be sure
you use the empty one. First drive partition is sda1. sda2 would be second
partition of first drive. sdb1 first part of 2nd drive. And, remember to create a
swap partition, maybe at end of first drive. Grub uses (hd0,0) notation for
first drive, first partition. You probably know all this already. Smile

Best wishes, zzron357

donrc · Joined: Feb 16, 2003 Posts: 882

zzron357,
I've played around with different distros for some time, but have never really gotten serious about it.
What I did try here is to install Ubuntu 9.04 under Windows. It's supposed to install just like a program. Didn't work. It trashed my XP and wouldn't work itself so I now have Windows 7 only on my box.
I will reinstall XP and then try to put Ubuntu on the unused drive. Live and learn. Smile

drc

donrc · Joined: Feb 16, 2003 Posts: 882

Check that. I decided to go hunting through the Ubuntu folder under Windows 7. I found a "Boot Helper program" and out of curiosity installed it. After running the program I now have Window's7, Windows XP and Ubuntu in the boot menu and they all work. Clever people!

drc