Some multi-boot help, please.

[AndrewPaulNet]

Hey all.

Beforehand let me say that I googled this, went to abits' forums and read what I could and nothing has worked, so here I am. Hopefully I'll explain myself well enough.

Basically I'm going to be 'refreshing' my system in a few days. I have Vista Home but am getting Ultimate (from the winpanel stuff, yay!). I decided that I'd like to multiboot several OSes. Vista Ultimate 64, XP Pro 64 and Hardy Heron 64. With that in mind, I prepared some tests to see what the easiest path would be using my current system.

Apparently I'm in for hell - that or I'll have to use VirtualBox or Virtual PC because nothing is working. AHCI SEEMS to be at the root of my problem....but I'll give you details on that.

My first test was to partition up my internal 750 appropriately. I installed Acronis Disk Director 10 Suite and then proceeded to install OS Selector. Upon reboot, the OS selector refused to boot. Not only would it not actually boot, but it wouldn't go further than to say "No configuration file found". After a few reboots and a little worry, it clicked in my head that AHCI is kind of new, and even regular sata drives can be worrisome for xp installs so I went into my bios and returned it to legacy/ide mode vs. raid and ahci. It worked, the OS selector program came up and I could see Vista in the boot list and boot it.
The end of this story is that I can't get acronis to even start when the boards controller is set to AHCI - and since all my drives are sata 300, I really want to keep it enabled.

My next test was Hardy Heron. I decided to do the inside windows (a la wubi type) install. It's successful within Vista and after the reboot proceeds to set up the OS, but after it reboots that last time, again - nothing is found. I can't remember the Grub message but it was something like can't find file system or some junk, with a list of OS boot options, none of which work.

The next thing I have thought about trying is Paragons Disk Manager - but if Acronis didn't work, a much more sophisticated and feature packed disk manager- at least in looks and feel, I really doubt Paragon.

My question is, have any of you managed an easy multiboot system with your controllers set for AHCI? I'm not likely to go through with my multiboot if it will cost me AHCI. But Virtual machines are not the real thing - not only is it slower, but it's running 'fake' hardware and I'd really wanted to run my stuff on my real hardware.

Thanks in advance.

My system specs:

Q6600 G0 SLACR 2.4ghz @ 3.0ghz
Abit IP35 Pro v.16 bios
4gb G.Skill 1066 Ram
Seagate 750gb Sata 300 internal, Seagate 750gb FreeAgent Sata 300 esata, Maxtor 300gb Sata 300 internal, Seagate 200 and 120gb Sata 150 internal, Seagate 400gb IDE USB
8800GT Alpha Dog 512mb Nvidia Graphics

 

[Billb2]

Why are you using a third party boot loader? That's not necessary.
Install XP pro.
Install Vista Ultimate. It will see the XP install and give you the option to boot it in the Vista boot loader.
Install Ubuntu (Hardy Heron). Modify xp's boot.ini or Vista's BDC to include Hardy Heron.
Done.

 

[AndrewPaulNet]

Whenever I installed linux in the past, my syetem would automatically boot to linux after that. Heron's bootloader complains that my Vista bootloader file is 'corrupt' which is not so.

This is why I'd like to use a 3rd party program. Lots of hassles otherwise, not to mention that something could go wrong and render my vista install unbootable permanently...if not unbootable than just plain messed up. I've also experienced installing linux on a completely different partition and having it do something to my original windows system.
I remember also that once I multi booted in a similar fashion, where I just installed the other OS on another partition and my other operating systems used other drive letters than C. I want all the systems to show and use their partitions as C partitions.

For instance, with your system - in theory, my XP Pro would have C, but then Vista would install on D, since it detects a 'main' OS installed before it. I could be wrong, it's been a while since I've multiboot.

Using a 3rd party loader is the only easy way I can think of to get around issues like this.

But I will test what you say in a virtual environment and see if it works out the way I want it to.

Thanks for the suggestion.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: Billb2
Modify xp's boot.ini or Vista's BDC to include Hardy Heron.

You can do that??? I didn't think that MS's bootloader would load linunx.

 

[AndrewPaulNet]

I ended up simply letting heron do it's thing with grub. In theory, as long as I install it last, grub should detect the Vista and XP loaders and take care of the bootloading. If for some reason my mbrs etc. mess up, ah well - i guess i'll have to deal with that if it ever happens.

Thanks