Advise needed for tri-boot

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   Hello. I want to install windowsxp and windows7 and ubuntu onto my old pc..
There are (3) 1 terrabyte hard drives inside. They are hot swappable. The old config was nvidia striping in raid. but because i had sooo much trouble trying to get ubuntu installed on raid, I decided to ditch the raid setup. I am thinking I will install the OS's onto each drive. One drive for xp, one drive for win7 and one drive for ubuntu. Should be pretty straight forward. I would want to install xp first, then install win7 then ubuntu so grub can setup so i can see the os's after booting up... I'm not clear about a couple things. I can do this with all three drives installed or should i remove 2 drives and install xp. then take that drive out and put in the one to install win7 on,, then take that drive out and install linux. then put them all back in and update grub to set teh boot loader? Or just leave them all inside th pc and install the os's. One thing more. about the linux install, should i delete the partition to prepare the drive and leave it unallocated and let linux try to use the unallocated space? because i cant remember how to format it for linux and was hoping ubuntu would just ooffer to take care of that portion.. Also I have Acronis software so I could use the OS selector from that is needed but its been since windows 98 since i used that and pretty much forgot how. Anyway I could really use some advise please. Thanks!

(windows xp pro,,, win7 32 bit and ubuntu 32 bit)

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Karn Members Profile Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Newbie Joined: 23 Jul 2010 Online Status: Offline Posts: 53	Quote Reply Topic: Advise needed for tri-boot Posted: 01 Apr 2013 at 11:11am
	Hello. I want to install windowsxp and windows7 and ubuntu onto my old pc.. There are (3) 1 terrabyte hard drives inside. They are hot swappable. The old config was nvidia striping in raid. but because i had sooo much trouble trying to get ubuntu installed on raid, I decided to ditch the raid setup. I am thinking I will install the OS's onto each drive. One drive for xp, one drive for win7 and one drive for ubuntu. Should be pretty straight forward. I would want to install xp first, then install win7 then ubuntu so grub can setup so i can see the os's after booting up... I'm not clear about a couple things. I can do this with all three drives installed or should i remove 2 drives and install xp. then take that drive out and put in the one to install win7 on,, then take that drive out and install linux. then put them all back in and update grub to set teh boot loader? Or just leave them all inside th pc and install the os's. One thing more. about the linux install, should i delete the partition to prepare the drive and leave it unallocated and let linux try to use the unallocated space? because i cant remember how to format it for linux and was hoping ubuntu would just ooffer to take care of that portion.. Also I have Acronis software so I could use the OS selector from that is needed but its been since windows 98 since i used that and pretty much forgot how. Anyway I could really use some advise please. Thanks! (windows xp pro,,, win7 32 bit and ubuntu 32 bit)

Tidgxor Members Profile Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List DS ELITE The Kokopelli kid Joined: 17 Sep 2010 Online Status: Offline Posts: 13000	Quote Reply Posted: 01 Apr 2013 at 1:45pm
	Definitely install XP first. Then Windows 7, then Ubuntu. You can leave all three HDDs in the machine at the same time. The presence of two separate HDDs will not adversely affect the installation of an OS on one HDD. For the Linux install, I would delete the partition for a "clean" drive. Ubuntu will take care of partition management during the install, and since you are only having one OS per drive, it will be best to have it all available to the kernel. I can't give you much advice on Acronis. If you wanted to make things really simple, you technically don't even need Grub to see XP or Win 7. You can just have your mobo ask which device you want to boot from and keep all of your OSs entirely separate. This will also reduce any "C:" drive confusion that XP and Win 7 might create with each other.
	My Two Digital Storm Rigs: Mr. Bojangles (HAF-X, 2010) & Mrs. Bojingles (Bolt I, 2013).

Karn Members Profile Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Newbie Joined: 23 Jul 2010 Online Status: Offline Posts: 53	Quote Reply Posted: 01 Apr 2013 at 3:45pm
	Hello Tidgxor! Thank you for replying! Having the mobo do it would be the way to go. I am going to research how to do that. It's an Asus A8N-SLI Premium. I want to avoid this like you said ..."This will also reduce any "C:" drive confusion" .. Thanks for the advise!

Tidgxor Members Profile Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List DS ELITE The Kokopelli kid Joined: 17 Sep 2010 Online Status: Offline Posts: 13000	Quote Reply Posted: 01 Apr 2013 at 3:58pm
	Normally you can do this by hitting either F8, or F12 during the boot process. This brings up a menu that lets you select your boot device. Also, you can enable the "Always Ask For Boot Device" option in your BIOS. It might not be worded exactly like this, but most BIOSes have this option, I'm sure you can find it either in the manual for your specific motherboard, or online. Best of luck!
	My Two Digital Storm Rigs: Mr. Bojangles (HAF-X, 2010) & Mrs. Bojingles (Bolt I, 2013).

Advise needed for tri-boot

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