multipboot Windows XP, Windows 98, and Mandrake with bootpart

Greetings. I am new here and have been lurking. I have read some posts on multibooting but I am still a little confused. Right now I have a computer with nothing installed yet that looks like this:

Right now I have a computer with a 80 gig hard drive and a 120 gig hard drive. I have used Fdisk to format my computer like this: *note I have not installed anything yet, this is just my design*
80G drive:
C: 4G primary Fat32 partition for Dos and files that easily fragment.
D: 12G Primary NTFS for Windows XP home.
E: 8G Primary Fat32 for Windows 98.
F: 19G extended Fat32 for video editing. ripping music, creating DVD from home video or with DVD burner.
G: 25G extended Fat 32 for Back up files, Ghost images, drivers, old reports, power points..et cetera.
**This leaves 12G untouched that mandrake version 10 will format on its own system.

120G Drive:
20G Primary NTFS for games.
10G Primary NTFS for images.
90G Primary NTFS for storage--mostly media files.

I understand the compatability issues regarding NTFS, Fat32, and Mandrake and Windows 98. This computer is set up specifically this way for personal reasons.

When I run command on my XP home, it says I have version 5.1.26.

My question is how do I use bootpart to ahieve what I want? Do I need to install my windows in a certain order? Do I need to (and if so how) get Dos from XP to be installed on my C:? At what point do I install bootpart? Any ideas would be most welcome.



My set up reasoning is based on needing windows 98 for an old family history program. I also like the idea of having an older system around. I use WIndows XP. I want to learn Mandrake before I try Debian or Red Hat.

Thank you all.

Thank you for the tip. At what point should I download bootpart and which windows should I put it in? How will this interact with Linux's Lilo or Grub.

I have heard rumors that Mandrake's Lilo will read all three boots and I don't need boot part. IS that true?

Should I try to install Dos independently on C: partition?

I am not sure at what point I install bootpart, where I install it, and how it will interact with the boot loaders in the other OS.

Re: multipboot Windows XP, Windows 98, and Mandrake with bootpart

Just remember that FAT32 is not recommended when manipulating large files.

once you have installed all three operating systems, you can use the windows xp boot loader to load linux as well.

go into linux, issue this command:

dd if=/dev/hda3 of=bootsect.lin bs=512 count=1

(where you wrote grub or lilo boot sector into hda3, i.e. OS is there and you installed to bootsector of OS)

then copy resultant bootsect.lin file to c:\

edit c:\boot.ini to have an additional line:

c:\bootsect.lin="Linux"

Save, reboot, and choose Linux from the boot menu.

Grub is much better, yes.

SO,

I will change my music editing profile to NTSF

I will boot windows 98 first on E drive, Windows XP on D drive, and then Linux. I will make a boot disc each step of the way, and when I am done with LInux, I will install GRUB and follow the directions to put it in XP boot loader. Does that sound like a good plan? I will not go with DOS, but I will keep the 4G C: as a transfer partition and a place to put easily fragmented files.

Yes, don't install on the MBR if you want to use the above instructions.

Also, install Windows 98 on an active marked primary partition (i.e. C: drive) . XP and Linux can go anywhere.