Here is my scenario... I have 2 versions of windows (2000, and XPx64) that i wish to dualboot using WinGrub (because it can natively install on NTFS) in such a way that 2000/XP is selected directly from grub and not from the NTLDR menu
I currently have 3 hard drives, one for 2000, one large data drive, and one for XPx64
What i would like to see is a procedure to do this
HD0,Part0 = GRUB, Boots first
HD0,Part1 = Win2k
HD1 --DATA--
HD2,Part0 = WinXPx64
I understand some of the booting limitations of windows at a very basic level, and know about partition hiding/drive mapping as a workaround, but i would like to avoid that if possible as i regularly access the other OS's partition in my daily work...
Previously i have managed to make both versions of windows work this way:
HD0,Part0 = Win2k (NTLDR calls either OS)
HD1 --DATA--
HD2,Part0 = WinXPx64
... so perhaps it may be best to let grub hide itself (making 2k believe it is the first partition), and then somehow pass NTLDR a parameter as to which OS to load? is that even possible?
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oops, forgot this one was still outstanding... i ended up finding a version of grub that is happy to live on the same partition as windows (in an NTFS file system) and just chainload into NTLDR... it seems that it isnt possible to call the windows kernels directly from GRUB :(
I did however start playing with VMWare, and i like it quite a bit more than MS Virtual PC... thanks for the tip! Now all i need to do is figure out how to get MacIntel to run in vmware :)
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by: rleepyPosted on 2005-11-29 at 01:52:07ID: 15378684
Normally for multiple boot, i would use Vmware workstation. This is a much better way to manage each OS at a granular level without too much hassle. Only a config file and a database file will be created for each OS and thus disaster recovery for each image will be much easier. A number of large corp is using the Vmware ESX for live servers, some using it for CA servers, etc. Only thing you need to consider is the amount of disk space and RAM you wanna assign to each image. It will allow you to boot more than 1 image at a time and switch platform quickly from one OS to the next.