I have XP. Installed 2000 on second partition. Everything went OK. Can dual boot into either system. Problem: seems that 2000 only boots into safe mode due to indications from screen resolution, etc. Doesn't display any kind of message, tho. Help? Thanks SO much! :knock:

Some of the W2K installation files might have ended up on the XP-partition.
Normally one would install W2K first, and XP later, to avoid just such problems.

Personally, I don't trust any of this Windows multiple-boot stuff; I perform completely separate Windows installs, and use an external boot manager (e.g., PowerQuest BootMagic, GNU GRUB, ...) to select between them.

No matter which Windows system I boot, its system partition will be my "C:" drive - which is handy, since I don't have to remember which Windows version I am running in order to identify the system partition, because it will be the "C:" drive - always!

For example, my main computer has four Windows installations on its first hard disk:

• Windows 98;
• Windows 2000;
• Windows 2000 for VPN access to the office;
• Windows 2000 Test.

The second and third harddisks contain mainly Linux partitions, with a FAT32 partition thrown in to share data among the various Operating Systems.
Until I got into Linux, PowerQuest BootMagic was my boot manager, but nowadays, I've switched to GNU GRUB.

Thanks so much for the two replies I received. I learned a lot already. I do use Partition Magic boot system. I was wondering if I ran msconfig if there are some start up programs not functioning correctly. Seems like some drivers are not up and running. But that makes sense if some files are being overwritten somehow. I will try the suggestion to install 2K first and then xp - but what order should I do them in if I want to install a version of Linux? :giddy:

That doesn't matter; in fact, the order in which you install them doesn't matter anyway, provided that you keep them entirely separate (which, incidentally, the standard Windows install procedures won't even let you do ).

Just keep in mind that, whenever you install any Windows version, your Master Boot Record will get overwritten, and you will lose any multi-boot facility that you may have set up; you will subsequently have to reinstall your boot manager if you want to reenable any of the other Operating Systems that you have on your computer.

Bull...
If you start with the lowest Windows (W9x-W2K-ME-XP-W2K3), the next higher will automatically create the windoze bootmenu or add its own line to boot.ini on the c-drive.
Linux is different, but can live happily next to windows. Linux prefers a whole HD for itself.

Again, thank you. Interesting development. Booted into 2K to take another look at it, and after entering p/w, when desktop should become visible, message says "no paging file or not enough vm" Can't access anything on 2K because desktop never appears - hangs on the aqua desktop background. I've changed the paging file to the max in XP, because partitions are displayed in the VM section of System Properties/Advanced/Performance section under XP. But this may be 1 - a waste of time, or 2 - actually not do-able. Another microsoft fake-out. Und zooooo - is there a way to boot from the 2K cd to try to "fix" this problem? Or should I just install 2K first and reinstall XP second? I think I'm going to try that on a spare computer to see if it works......

Quite correct, indeed.
But that's a kind of arrangement that I don't like - I just don't want one Windows installation to mess with anything on a system partition that belongs to another one. I'm keeping my Windows installation entirely separate; their system partitions are always the "C:" drive when I boot them, and I can choose to make the other partitions visible (using either drive letters or mount points), or not.
Note that standard Windows installation procedures won't allow you to do this, though, so a little tweaking is required to get it working - but for me, it works great!

luvr,

I'm tring to install the following Operating systems, but i like you want to have the ease of having "C:" as the %system-root% for all the MS operating systems.

I have two Hard disks.

Disk1
Partion1 - Primary,NTFS - Windows 2000 Server
Partion2 - Primary,NTFS - Windows 2003 Server
Partion3 - Primary,NTFS - Windows 2000 Pro
Partion4 - FAT32 - Bootmagic

Disk2
Partion1 - Primary - Redhat Linux

I will use Windows 2000 pro to install Boot magic. I have had the multiboot working the only problem i have is, which ever MS OS that is installed third tries to make its C: drive the first primary partion it see's - in the above case "Windows 2000 Server" and therfore when you boot the third MS OS the boot partion (C is partion1 on disk1 and the system partion (e is partion3 on disk1.

When I boot the first or second MS OS it works correct (the boot/system partion is the C: drive)

So my question is how did you manage to get all your Microsoft operation systsems to have there boot/system partion labled as C:?

Thanks in advance
I hope you can help

James

Well, as I said earlier on, I wanted four Windows versions on my first disk:

• Windows 98;
• Windows 2000;
• Windows 2000 for VPN access to the office;
• Windows 2000 Test.

Since I wanted the system partition to be called C: in all cases, clearly, standard Windows installation procedures didn't cut it for me. I needed a few extra tools, and these are the ones that I opted for:

• A bootable Linux system (e.g., the first Slackware 10.0 CD), to allow me to create Linux partitions, which wouldn't be mapped to drive letters in Windows.
  I initially created the first three partitions as Linux filesystems, and installed the Windows systems in the reversed order (the fourth one first, then the third one, then the second one, and, finally, Windows 98 last). Whenever I was ready for the next install, I used the Windows 2000 Disk Manager to convert the appropriate Linux file system to a Windows partition.
• PowerQuest PartitionMagic, to allow me to hide existing Windows partitions, so they wouldn't be picked up by the Windows installation program.
  Whenever I needed to run PartitionMagic, I booted off a Windows 98 diskette, and started PartitionMagic from there.
  Note that any tools that can hide partitions, would do - perhaps even the bootable Linux system that I described earlier on; however, in those days, I wasn't sufficiently familiar with Linux yet to use it to this end.
• PowerQuest BootMagic, which I wanted to use as my boot manager.
  Naturally, considering my setup, I installed it under Windows 98.
  (By the way, nowadays I no longer use BootMagic, since I replaced it with GRUB).

I first planned my desired partition layout, and this is what I came up with (note that I'm using underscores, instead of periods or commas, as the digit grouping symbol):

• Partition 1: Cylinders 1 through 1044 (8_189 MB).
• Partition 2: Cylinders 1045 through 11814 (84_482 MB).
• Partition 3: Cylinders 11815 through 12858 (8_189 MB).
• Partition 4: Cylinders 12859 through 14946 (16_378 MB).

That entirely filled up my disk (as it should - any space left over would become unusable, since no more than four primary partitions can be created on a disk).

Here's the list of steps that I followed:

• I booted into Linux (using the first Slackware 10.0 CD), and used fdisk to create the first three partitions. Just to be sure, I then used mke2fs to format them as ext2 filesystems. (Since you apparently have a Linux system on your computer as well, I assume I won't have to explain these steps in any greater detail.)
  
• Next, I booted from my Windows 98 diskette, and used PartitionMagic to create the fourth partition as an unformatted filesystem.
  
• Then, I could start the Windows 2000 installation procedure, to install my "Windows 2000 Test" system onto the fourth partition of my disk.
  
• After this Windows 2000 system was installed, I went into its Disk Manager to format the third partition as NTFS. I subsequently rebooted the Windows 2000 system, to verify that it would keep its system partition mapped as "C:" (which, fortunately, it did).
  
• Then, I booted the Windows 98 diskette again, and used PartitionMagic to mark the fourth partition (on which Windows 2000 was already installed) as "hidden."
  
• After that, I could start the Windows 2000 installation procedure again, to install my "Windows 2000 for VPN access to the office" system onto the third partition.
  
• Once this Windows 2000 system was installed, I pulled the same trick as before:
  • Use Disk Manager to format the second partition as NTFS.
  • Boot the Windows 98 diskette.
  • Use PartitionMagic to mark the third and fourth partitions as "hidden."
  • Rerun the Windows 2000 installation procedure to install my main "Windows 2000" system onto the second partition.
• After that, I went into Disk Manager to format the first partition as FAT32. Marking the existing partitions as "hidden" wasn't necessary this time (since Windows 98 wouldn't map these NTFS partitions anyway), so I started the Windows 98 installation procedure.
  One thing I noticed was, that I had to reformat the FAT32 partition (if I didn't do so, then after installation, Windows 98 would complain about a corrupted Recycle Bin - apparently, Windows 98 didn't like the structure of the Recycle Bin as created by the Windows 2000 Disk Manager).
  
• That left me with one final step: installing BootMagic in order to regain access to the three Windows 2000 systems that I had installed earlier on.

That's it - it may be a little involved, but it works great; I have used this procedure on three further PCs since, and it worked equally well.

Hope this helps!

Closing notes:

• On one PC, I installed Windows Millenium Edition in place of Windows 98, and that worked fine, too.
• I haven't tried to install Windows XP under this scheme just yet (but I will soon).
• I'm not sure if Windows 2003 would be happy if you install it in this way (but I'll leave that up to you to discover).