OT: which multi-boot program?

I have just upgraded my ASUS motherboard system with loads and loads
of disk space. I now have 4 320 GB SATA drives - they are so cheap!!!
So I Nat to experiment with different OS like Linux, etc, create a
"scratch and test" system, etc.

I tried to use Drive Image to copy an image of my Win XP into a free
partition, and that was a total mess! I think I needed to hide the
"old" Windows when I wanted to active the new Windows.

So can you guys recommend to me a multi-boot system that allows you to
hide inactive partitions selectively? Also, it would be NCI to be
able to boot from any of my four drives, not just my current Drive 0.

As you can imagine, you can't just load and unload these programs,
since they appear to muck with the boot record and partition tables.

Thanks in advance,

-AH

On Fri, 02 Nov 2007 22:15:33 -0700, Andrew Hamilton
<Ahamilton90900@yahoo.com> wrote:

>I have just upgraded my ASUS motherboard system with loads and loads
>of disk space. I now have 4 320 GB SATA drives - they are so cheap!!!
>So I Nat to experiment with different OS like Linux, etc, create a
>"scratch and test" system, etc.
>
>I tried to use Drive Image to copy an image of my Win XP into a free
>partition, and that was a total mess! I think I needed to hide the
>"old" Windows when I wanted to active the new Windows.
>
>So can you guys recommend to me a multi-boot system that allows you to
>hide inactive partitions selectively? Also, it would be NCI to be
>able to boot from any of my four drives, not just my current Drive 0.
>
> As you can imagine, you can't just load and unload these programs,
>since they appear to muck with the boot record and partition tables.
>
>Thanks in advance,

do you have the installed image of Windows on it's own drive? If so,
you can set up in BIOS what drive you want to boot from.




--
Clas Mehus
- "Den som har flest prylar när han dör vinner..."

I am using Grub to boot SuSE 10, Debian Etch and WinXP. It works fine. :-)

--
Jerry Wong

http://www.geocities.com/jerrywong.geo
????????? ??????,???????(??3:13)
But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to
new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness. (2 Peter 3:13)
"Andrew Hamilton" <Ahamilton90900@yahoo.com>
???????:dm0oi3d56v31n13apel6p379ebidcje2ib@4ax.com ...
>I have just upgraded my ASUS motherboard system with loads and loads
> of disk space. I now have 4 320 GB SATA drives - they are so cheap!!!
> So I Nat to experiment with different OS like Linux, etc, create a
> "scratch and test" system, etc.
>
> I tried to use Drive Image to copy an image of my Win XP into a free
> partition, and that was a total mess! I think I needed to hide the
> "old" Windows when I wanted to active the new Windows.
>
> So can you guys recommend to me a multi-boot system that allows you to
> hide inactive partitions selectively? Also, it would be NCI to be
> able to boot from any of my four drives, not just my current Drive 0.
>
> As you can imagine, you can't just load and unload these programs,
> since they appear to muck with the boot record and partition tables.
>
> Thanks in advance,
>
> -AH

I use GAG (http://gag.sourceforge.net/) booting 3 XP partitions on my main
machine and PQBoot (PartitionMagic utility) on others. PQBoot requires at
least one fat (dos) partition in order to provide menu at boot, GAG does
not.


"Andrew Hamilton" <Ahamilton90900@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:dm0oi3d56v31n13apel6p379ebidcje2ib@4ax.com...
>I have just upgraded my ASUS motherboard system with loads and loads
> of disk space. I now have 4 320 GB SATA drives - they are so cheap!!!
> So I Nat to experiment with different OS like Linux, etc, create a
> "scratch and test" system, etc.
>
> I tried to use Drive Image to copy an image of my Win XP into a free
> partition, and that was a total mess! I think I needed to hide the
> "old" Windows when I wanted to active the new Windows.
>
> So can you guys recommend to me a multi-boot system that allows you to
> hide inactive partitions selectively? Also, it would be NCI to be
> able to boot from any of my four drives, not just my current Drive 0.
>
> As you can imagine, you can't just load and unload these programs,
> since they appear to muck with the boot record and partition tables.
>
> Thanks in advance,
>
> -AH

You can place an OS on each drive.....unplug all the other drives when
installing the OS of your choice.
Each drive will then have its own MBR and be bootable.Quite a few of the
newer mobo allow you to push an F?? to bring up a boot choice screen during
boot.
At that point you chose which HD to boot from and your up and running with
the OS on that HD.
peter
"Andrew Hamilton" <Ahamilton90900@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:dm0oi3d56v31n13apel6p379ebidcje2ib@4ax.com...
>I have just upgraded my ASUS motherboard system with loads and loads
> of disk space. I now have 4 320 GB SATA drives - they are so cheap!!!
> So I Nat to experiment with different OS like Linux, etc, create a
> "scratch and test" system, etc.
>
> I tried to use Drive Image to copy an image of my Win XP into a free
> partition, and that was a total mess! I think I needed to hide the
> "old" Windows when I wanted to active the new Windows.
>
> So can you guys recommend to me a multi-boot system that allows you to
> hide inactive partitions selectively? Also, it would be NCI to be
> able to boot from any of my four drives, not just my current Drive 0.
>
> As you can imagine, you can't just load and unload these programs,
> since they appear to muck with the boot record and partition tables.
>
> Thanks in advance,
>
> -AH

On Sat, 03 Nov 2007 09:46:23 +0100, Clas Mehus <clas.mehus@idg.no>
wrote:

>On Fri, 02 Nov 2007 22:15:33 -0700, Andrew Hamilton
><Ahamilton90900@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>>I have just upgraded my ASUS motherboard system with loads and loads
>>of disk space. I now have 4 320 GB SATA drives - they are so cheap!!!
>>So I Nat to experiment with different OS like Linux, etc, create a
>>"scratch and test" system, etc.
>>
>>I tried to use Drive Image to copy an image of my Win XP into a free
>>partition, and that was a total mess! I think I needed to hide the
>>"old" Windows when I wanted to active the new Windows.
>>
>>So can you guys recommend to me a multi-boot system that allows you to
>>hide inactive partitions selectively? Also, it would be NCI to be
>>able to boot from any of my four drives, not just my current Drive 0.
>>
>> As you can imagine, you can't just load and unload these programs,
>>since they appear to muck with the boot record and partition tables.
>>
>>Thanks in advance,
>
>do you have the installed image of Windows on it's own drive? If so,
>you can set up in BIOS what drive you want to boot from.

I have an add-in SATA controller and I don't see a way to select the
boot drive. It seems to autodetect Windows and boot from that drive.

Besides, with all that disk space, I was hoping that I could have
several different primary partitions on one drive, and use the
multi-boot program to select the one to boot from (and hide the
others).

-AH

On Sat, 03 Nov 2007 18:06:54 -0700, Andrew Hamilton <Ahamilton90900@yahoo.com> wrote:
: I have an add-in SATA controller and I don't see a way to select the
: boot drive.

F8 during POST works fine with everything I've thrown at it including
a 3ware 8006-2LP. It's only going to get you to the drive though,
but good, free boot managers are easy to come by. GRUB for ex

Remember you can have a maximum of 4 partitions on a drive -- 4 primary, if
no extended partition used.


"Andrew Hamilton" <Ahamilton90900@yahoo.com> wrote in message
newsm6qi3t5u2qct4qk2dqigaq3mohlgt24j9@4ax.com...
> On Sat, 03 Nov 2007 09:46:23 +0100, Clas Mehus <clas.mehus@idg.no>
> wrote:
>
>>On Fri, 02 Nov 2007 22:15:33 -0700, Andrew Hamilton
>><Ahamilton90900@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>>>I have just upgraded my ASUS motherboard system with loads and loads
>>>of disk space. I now have 4 320 GB SATA drives - they are so cheap!!!
>>>So I Nat to experiment with different OS like Linux, etc, create a
>>>"scratch and test" system, etc.
>>>
>>>I tried to use Drive Image to copy an image of my Win XP into a free
>>>partition, and that was a total mess! I think I needed to hide the
>>>"old" Windows when I wanted to active the new Windows.
>>>
>>>So can you guys recommend to me a multi-boot system that allows you to
>>>hide inactive partitions selectively? Also, it would be NCI to be
>>>able to boot from any of my four drives, not just my current Drive 0.
>>>
>>> As you can imagine, you can't just load and unload these programs,
>>>since they appear to muck with the boot record and partition tables.
>>>
>>>Thanks in advance,
>>
>>do you have the installed image of Windows on it's own drive? If so,
>>you can set up in BIOS what drive you want to boot from.
>
> I have an add-in SATA controller and I don't see a way to select the
> boot drive. It seems to autodetect Windows and boot from that drive.
>
> Besides, with all that disk space, I was hoping that I could have
> several different primary partitions on one drive, and use the
> multi-boot program to select the one to boot from (and hide the
> others).
>
> -AH

On Sun, 4 Nov 2007 15:05:01 -0500, "gb" <notanaddress@notadomain.com>
wrote:

>Remember you can have a maximum of 4 partitions on a drive -- 4 primary, if
>no extended partition used.

Understood. But even if I have an extended partition on each drive,
with four drives that leaves me with 12, count them!, 12 primary
partitions. I can't imagine needing that many different boot
partitions. But as a practical matter, that means I can have as many
different boot environments as I need, including Linux (or more than
one Linux), plus different versions of Windows, etc.

And who knows, maybe even DOS 6.22 <bseg>.

-AH

On Sat, 3 Nov 2007 09:30:55 -0400, "gb" <notanaddress@notadomain.com>
wrote:

>I use GAG (http://gag.sourceforge.net/) booting 3 XP partitions on my main
>machine and PQBoot (PartitionMagic utility) on others. PQBoot requires at
>least one fat (dos) partition in order to provide menu at boot, GAG does
>not.

Thank you for the URL. I noticed that GAG is the most popular
download in its category on sourceforge. Do you have one physical
drive in that system, and with an extended partition?

One question. Why are you using PQBOOT on your other machines? I have
the impression that Symantec has not updated PQBoot in quite a while,
certainly not for Vista. In fact, it was darn near impossible to find
Partition Magic at all on the Symantec web site.

-AH
>
>
>"Andrew Hamilton" <Ahamilton90900@yahoo.com> wrote in message
>news:dm0oi3d56v31n13apel6p379ebidcje2ib@4ax.com.. .
>>I have just upgraded my ASUS motherboard system with loads and loads
>> of disk space. I now have 4 320 GB SATA drives - they are so cheap!!!
>> So I Nat to experiment with different OS like Linux, etc, create a
>> "scratch and test" system, etc.
>>
>> I tried to use Drive Image to copy an image of my Win XP into a free
>> partition, and that was a total mess! I think I needed to hide the
>> "old" Windows when I wanted to active the new Windows.
>>
>> So can you guys recommend to me a multi-boot system that allows you to
>> hide inactive partitions selectively? Also, it would be NCI to be
>> able to boot from any of my four drives, not just my current Drive 0.
>>
>> As you can imagine, you can't just load and unload these programs,
>> since they appear to muck with the boot record and partition tables.
>>
>> Thanks in advance,
>>
>> -AH
>