Triple boot: Windows 7, Windows XP, Red Hat Linux 5.3
 

If possible, I would like to install three OS in one disk split into any partitions possible, Win 7 & XP and Red Hat Linux.
Can I do that and if so, how?
Thank you all in advance...

P.S. So far I tried installing Win7 first, then Win XP and then Linux (without a grub bootloader, so I can keep the Windows 7 one). No luck, as I couldnt find a way to make the Linux OS readable by EasyBCD.

Hi,
You should keep GRUB to boot into your desired OS, GRUB is always better than Windows bootloader and your Windows bootloader will never recognize the linux OS on the system.

What version of EasyBCD have you tried? I'm using the EasyBCD NeoGRUB option to multi-boot, which has worked fine booting Vista (which I need for cutomer support, unfortunately), Salix, Vector Linux and Fedora.

Paul.

OK, how do I do that once I didnt install it at the first place? How do I install the grubloader and to which partition?

Below is the whole setup of my partitions
1. System Reserved (Active, System)
2. Win 7 OS (Boot)
3. /boot, ext3 (part of an extended partition)
4. LVM (part of an extended partition)
5. Data Storage (NTFS)
6. Win XP OS

I am using EasyBCD 2.0.2.
Below is the Display Mode of the bootloader setup on EasyBCD

There are a total of 3 entries listed in the bootloader.

Default: Microsoft Windows 7
Timeout: 5 seconds
EasyBCD Boot Device: C:\

Entry #1
Name: Microsoft Windows 7
BCD ID: {current}
Drive: C:\
Bootloader Path: \Windows\system32\winload.exe

Entry #2
Name: Microsoft Windows XP
BCD ID: {8aa469e4-6ce4-11e0-bfcd-001e101f1ed9}
Device: \Device\HarddiskVolume1
Bootloader Path: \NST\ntldr

Entry #3
Name: NeoSmart Linux
BCD ID: {8aa469e5-6ce4-11e0-bfcd-001e101f1ed9}
Drive: C:\
Bootloader Path: \NST\AutoNeoGrub0.mbr

I'm using 2.02.117. I have two entries in the bootloader. One is identical to your #1 entry. The other (which I have set as the default) is:

In C:\NST, I have a menu.lst file which follows the normal rules for legacy Grub. As a sample:

For help installing NeoGrub (from EasyBCD, have a look here: http://neosmart.net/wiki/display/EBCD/NeoGrub

Can't help with booting XP - one version of Windows is more than I really want..... But the NeoSmart wiki has a lot of information on booting multiple copies of Windows.

Paul.

Thanks Paul for this tip.
I will give it a try, although I am just a newbie in Linux world. Just in case I wont make it, if I had to start all over again to install all these 3 OS, what would you recommend as a procedure to follow? In what order and is Grub bootloader to be the one I shall use for sure?

If you do end up having to install again, I would partition the disk to suit your needs - Windows always seems to need a primary partition, but Linux doesn't care. Once you have the basic partitions set up, install Win 7. I would then install EasyBCD (and its NeoGrub component), since that should make it easier to set everything else up later.

Not sure about installing XP - I've never tried having two versions of Windows on the same box. So that one I can't give you any suggestions on. Linux will happily install to logical partitions in an extended partition, which make life easier.

When it comes to installing Linux, if you can, skip the install of whatever bootloader is offered by the distribution - NeoGrub will work fine, so long as you can collect enough information to configure the menu.lst in C:\NST. One thing to watch is that Grub (and NeoGrub) number partitions from zero, where Linux numbers partitions from 1 - that is why the example I gave of a Grub menu item has (hd0,5) while the 'root=' uses /dev/sda6. Both mean the same thing, just a different numbering convention.

For a Linux install, I normally like to use three paritions - a / (root), a /home and a swap partition. That way, if I have to reinstall the distro, my user data is safe in the partition mounted as /home.

If you have specific questions, post them - if I can't answer them, I'm sure someone else on hee will have the knowledge to help out.

Paul.

If you do reinstall, you would be much better off installing xp before windows 7. windows 7 should detect and boot xp but to do the reverse will take some manual configuration on your part as older windows bootloaders have difficulty booting newer windows systems. You can find a lot of information on this at the support.microsoft site. You can install windows on a logical partition but that system will install boot files on a primary because windows needs boot files on a primary.

Grub usually detects windows installs and puts entries in its menu. You will likely get an entry for windows and a second menu to select from the windows bootloader, windows 7 and xp.

EasyBCD usually works pretty well for multiboot scenarios with Linux. Not sure what happened in your case.

You need to install GRUB where your boot resides. use fdisk -l and you'll get a * with one filesystem, that will be your boot partition, install GRUB in that partition.

Have a look at this site, though its only for UBUNTU but you can apply a similar approach for REDHAT also,

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Re...tallingWindows

Thank you Paul, and everyone for the responds.
I eventually managed to make it worked but cant tell whether I will be facing any issues in the coming future. Here 's what happened.

All this time I had Windows 7 installed first, then Windows XP. And that was long ago. If I remember well, what happened after Win XP installation, I needed to do some adjustments to my Win 7 bootloader, because Win XP took charge of everything. Both options of EasyBCD and Win7 installation CD (fixmbr, fixboot, rebuild bcd..etc) helped to bring back the correct bootloader configuration so that I can have a dual boot of both Windows OS.

The tricky part, in my case, was when I needed to install Linux. Due to lack of knowledge and only by collecting info online, I tried to install Linux without including grub bootloader. By doing so, I ended up kind of blocked because I couldnt find a way to collect the Linux boot info needed for the menu.lst file asked by EasyBCD. So, what I did, after having backed up all my partitions, I reinstalled Linux OS including the grub bootloader. It worked fine. Only thing now I have to bootloaders. :) Grub and Win 7. I have no idea whether that can be a problem any time soon. And once I managed to have Linux running, I was able to note down the necessary boot info needed for the Neogrub configuration. So, now I can boot any of the 3 OS by using any of the 2 bootloaders. I assume one of the two is unnecessary but at least it is eventually working for me. Shall I considered the problem [solved] or do I need to try to get rid one of the two before doing so?

---------- Post added 04-30-11 at 12:07 PM ----------

Thanks

Thanks

No, you will always need two bootloaders - primarily because of the way Microsoft designs (???) its loaders.

True, so I did. :)
Case closed then....