Triple Boot: Win2k-WinXP-RH7.2

[J-Tek]

Hi,

Im getting a new dell inspiron 2500. I wanted to put win2k/winxp/rh7.2 on it. Has anyone had success in this?

Im gonna have a 20 gig HD. I was thinking of partitioning it w/

Part 1: 4GB win2k system partition
Part 2: 4GB RH7.2 EXT3 parition
Part 3: 300MB Swap
Part 4: 3GB Winxp partition

part 5: Logical:
Part 6: Part 3GB Application space for win2k & Winxp
Part 7: Remainder about 5.5GB: Fat32 Data space for all OS's

now my question is w/ the 1024 sector. I hear that OS's have to be below the 1023 sector in order to be bootable. how do you know where this is? Will it matter if Im using LILO as the bootloader?

Id appreciate any suggestions,

thanx

[bdl]

Originally posted by J-Tek:
<STRONG>Im gonna have a 20 gig HD. I was thinking of partitioning it w/

Part 1: 4GB win2k system partition
Part 2: 4GB RH7.2 EXT3 parition
Part 3: 300MB Swap
Part 4: 3GB Winxp partition

part 5: Logical:
Part 6: Part 3GB Application space for win2k & Winxp
Part 7: Remainder about 5.5GB: Fat32 Data space for all OS's

now my question is w/ the 1024 sector. I hear that OS's have to be below the 1023 sector in order to be bootable. how do you know where this is? Will it matter if Im using LILO as the bootloader?

</STRONG>


You've gone over your partition limit there. You can only have 4 Primary partitions, or 3 Primary and 1 Extended with logical partitions inside. Also, I'd put the two Win OS's up towards the 'front' of the HDD and the Linux install after to get around the 1024 limitation (not a problem with LILO, by the way).

20GB HDD

Primary 1: 5GB W2K - 5GB
Primary 2: Win XP -5GB
Primary 3: Linux '/' (root) - 5GB
Primary 4: Extended

Logical 5: Linux swap - 128MB
Logical 6: Linux '/var' - 500MB
Logical 7: FAT32 - remainder


Personally I think Win XP and W2K on the same machine is overkill, use one or the other. You will probably get into some trouble getting the W2K bootloader and Win XP's bootloader to get along, but LILO should have no problem with either of them. You shouldn't need anymore than 128MB swap, depending on your physical RAM.

BTW, does Redhat 7.2 support EXT3 on install?? Do you need EXT3?

[J-Tek]

Yea, I prefer win2k, but I just want to try out XP.

As for EXT3, RH7.2 does support ext3 on install. I like ext3 because it uses journaling and has less trouble fixing the disk after a hard boot.

thanx for the advice.