I have read several items which are very similar but not exactly the same as this and as I am still fairly new to Linux (Ubuntu) I want to make sure of what I am doing.
I have discussed installing 3 operating systems and I know it can be done and I also have a fair idea of how I could do it but there are some Windows foibles that are making it difficult and I am hoping that by installing the Ubuntu system last that it may solve the problem for me.
I will try and explain. I want to keep windows 7 for the Media centre which my wife uses all the time (not computer savy at all) but I prefer Linux and also wanted to try Windows 10 which doesn't support media centre.
So I installed Windows 7 on two different drives (C and D) using Bios to switch.
Then I upgraded windows 10 on the D drive with a dual boot to windows 7. The only problem is that Media centre will not load when booted in this fashion so I still have to change the drive in bios to get it to work.
I was hoping that if I put Ubuntu on the C drive with windows 7 that the Grub (if that is the correct term) created will allow me to triple (multi) boot and thus allow Media centre to keep working. I have had it set as a dual boot for some time and that worked fine. The other option is to dual boot the C drive And use bios then switch to D for windows 10. Hope that makes some sort of sense and that I am not being a total Div.

I'm really not sure I'm understanding your problem. Are you saying that the windows 'media center' software is not available on windows 10? Nothing comparable? That would be a little weird. What fashion do you mean? If you boot windows 10 which doesn't have the media center it won't load? Wouldn't expect it to if it's on the other OS, windows 7. I haven't used windows for years so I'm not really sure this is what you meant?

No, that won't work. Ubuntu/Linux operating systems use different filesystems than windows and you can't install Ubuntu to the ntfs partition and expect it to work. You need to create a separate partition or partitions for Ubuntu. Ubuntu had software called WUBI which you could use to put Ubuntu inside a windows partition. Development of that software stopped and according to their site, it will not work with windows 8 or later.

Have you installed both windows systems using MBR or are you using UEFI to boot? You should be able to chainload the two windows systems from the Grub bootloader but the method of doing this using UEFI is considerably different than what was used with the older method.

I would recommend sticking with BIOS switching between 7 & 10 as there seems to be many problems with 10.
So I suggest you dual boot W7 & Ubuntu on one disk, & keep W10 completely separate on the other disk.

Hi thanks for answers. The problem since yesterday has been partly resolved for some reason the drivers for t.v. card) were working on windows 7 if I booted directly to that disk but not when I dual booted and then selected it. I did two things and I suspect the later was the cure. first thing I did was to change the boot order. This was simply to allow it to boot to 7 if I was distracted. I then re ran the tv card software up to the point where the divers had been installed and bingo tv (Freeview on twin tuners) working again.
I changed the dual boot option back again and it still works so all I need now is to install Ubuntu.
What I had hoped to do was install it on the drive that windows 7 is on (and have that as the bootable dive) and have the boot option for all 3 systems rather than just Win 7. I have done just the dual boot with windows 7 before but was not sure if it would install the option for windows 10. This is running the Ubuntu install from a DVD and setting drives up during install.
I think that I may have given the wrong idea of what I have/want. I have windows 7 on one drive and windows 10 on different drive I now want to install ubuntu on windows 7 drive and be able to select any O.S.
If it is not possible I will just put ubuntu on completely separate drive and change boot options on windows 10 drivve to include it.
Once again many thanks for replies. they are great help to people like me.

meant to say special thanks to fatmac or url's

I am not as familiar with Grub as LILO, but what you want to do is quite possible. First, you do have empty space on the first drive, right? That's where you will install Ubuntu. Then, as I said, I can't help you with all the details, but if someone knowledgeable enough can help you make chainloaders to (/dev/sda1)? and (/dev/sdb1)? then you should be all set.

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Hi,

I would use the Win/7 disk manager(maintenance tools) to reduce the size of the Win/7 install then create your partitions on that drive with the distributions tools during the install. Be sure to defrag the win/7 before re-sizing.
Hope that helps.
Have fun & enjoy!

Thanks Onebuck, I agree about re-sizing but I thought defrag should be avoided on this drive as it is S.S.D. or is that only a recommendation and not a complete no no?

Hi,

Not aware this was a 'SSD'. So you can rely on the 'SSD' to take care of the data alignment. You should still use the MS tools to resize the drive.

Many thanks. Unless I hear of any reason not to proceed with this I will go down this route sometime next week and post outcome.
Lots of thanks to all who replied. I am having great experience and getting more help than I ever imagined when I started out on Linux
Great!

Sorry about the delay I have finally got everything up and running. Several mishaps along the way which were often of my own doing but as I had all data backed up in several places I simply did re installations when needed.
Some of the problems were because I had partitioned drives incorrectly (for my purposes, making too small etcetera)
I finished up with Linux Ubuntu and Windows 7 on SSD drive but although I had the grub for booting these and windows 10 (on separate drive) it would not work because of some legacy booting code on the win 10 drive. To solve this (wasn't sure it would work) I reformatted and repartitioned the drive with win 10 on then installed windows 7 and used the disc with ISO file I had created to install windows 10. To my surprise, after so much had seemed to go wrong, when I finished it all worked.
Just as a point of possible interest I had unplugged the SSD drive while re jigging the other drive and then I had to change the boot order back to the SSD drive when I had installed win 10.
The disc configuration I now have is a small SSD with windows 7 and Linux Ubuntu on, a 2 TB disc which has all data and some programs on and a 500 GB disc (Partitioned as two drives) with windows 10 on The 2 TB disc is accessed from all 3 operating systems and also holds a temporary backup of data (which I copy to external drive periodically) The extra partition on the 500 GB drive is going to be used for anything that is specific to just windows 10 but this will probably change.
Sorry this is so long and once again thank you all for helping and keep enjoying Linux I am Loving it now I am all set up.