Thanks sol


sol_403 wrote:
>
>
>
> +===============================================================+
> | How to create a multi boot Vista-XP-Linux system using XOSL |
> +===============================================================+
>
> July 2009
> by: soundoflight [at] hotmail |dot| com
>
> This brief guide will explain how to set up your computer to safely run
> multiple operating systems, including windows Vista, in a multi-boot
> setup. There are many ways to acheive multi-booting, but my personal
> favorite is to use a third party bootloader that hides the various
> windows installations from each other. From a stability perspective, I
> much perfer this to relying upon windows or even Linux to manage the
> boot process.
>
> An exellent resource for learning about the multi-boot process from a
> Vista perspective can be found here:
> http://www.multibooters.co.uk/index.html
>
> XOSL is almost 10 years old, but since the low level fundamentals of
> booting have not changed much during this time, it's still an excellent
> choice as a boot manager. It still looks great, has great features like
> partition hiding and password protection, and its reliability is proven.
> Plus, it allows you demonstrate your mad computer skills. Nuf said.
>
>
> +========================+
> | Tools you will need |
> +========================+
>
> 1) A blank hard drive / a hard drive you are willing to lose all the
> data on. In theory this guide could be adapted to work with your
> existing windows partition, but I wouldn't recommend it unless you
> really know what you are doing.
>
> 2) UBCD - the ultimate boot CD, an extremely useful FREE tool. I can't
> imagine life without it. If you get nothing else from this page, at
> least pick up this badboy. (http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/). This CD
> contains ALL of the pr ograms you will need, including Ranish Partition
> Manager and XOSL.
>
> 3) Vista DVD, XP CD, Ubuntu Linux CD + VAILD WINDOWS KEYS
>
> 4) Some sort of understanding of what is going on here. Unless you are
> comfortable with partitioning disks and clean installing Windows, don't
> even think about trying this. Read the documentation for XOSL
> (http://www2.arnes.si/~fkomar/xosl.org/), Ranish Partition Manager, and
> as many other mutli-boot guides as you can.
>
> 5) Access to a second computer will make your life a lot easier during
> this, to access manuals, information, drivers, etc.
>
>
> +================================+
> | Steps to set up your system |
> +================================+
>
> 1) Backup / Plan / Prepare. Before you start it's probably a good idea
> to update your motherboards BIOS, or at least check into what features
> the latest BIOS will offer you. My laptop came with OEM Vista, so I
> extracted the key from windows before I formatted using the ABR tool
> (http://directedge.us/content/abr-activation-backup-and-restore).
> Optionally, you can use the key on the bottom of the laptop and call
> microsoft to get them to activate it (but I'd rather not give the
> bastards the pleasure).
>
> 2) Change the boot order in your BIOS to boot from the CD first.
>
> 3) Boot with UBCD and wipe the hard drive clean using the tool of your
> choice. I'd recommend just zeroing the entire drive (one pass).
>
> 4) Boot with UBCD and run the Ranish Partition Manager.
> - Use the wizard to create ALL of the partitions you plan to make on
> this drive.
> - After you create each partition, remember to align the paritions with
> the cylinder boundaries. Make sure that all partitions start at minimum
> head and sector values (0 & 1), and end at maximum head and sector
> values (254 & 63). Also don't save or format anything until you make all
> the partitions. This is the one step of this process you don't want to
> mess up on.
> - Ranish doesn't have NTFS, so just pick FAT 32 for the windows
> partitions and leave them unformatted (we will use the windows
> installers to format these). In fact, leave all the partitions
> unformatted EXCEPT for Pri-1 (XOSL), which you should format to FAT-16
> using the "f" key.
> - Here is my example of how I set up my system:
>
> # Type File System Size
>
> 1 Pri-1 FAT16 (XOSL) 32MB
> 2 Pri-2 NTFS (Vista) 40GB
> 3 Pri-3 NTFS (XP) 30GB
> 4 Pri-4 Extended&n bsp; 86GB
> 5 -Log-1 NTFS (Shared Data) 64GB
> 6 -Log-2 Linux ext3 (/) 10GB
> 7 -Log-3 Linux ext3 (/home) 10GB
> 8 -Log-4 Linux Swap 2GB
>
> - note: due to the aligning of the boundaries I also had small unused
> spaces before and after 1 and 8.
>
> 5) Reboot with the Vista DVD and install Vista. Use Vista to format the
> partition you made for it. Reboot about 1000 times to install Vista (1),
> the hardware drivers (2), and Vista windows updates (3).
>
> 6) ****CRITICAL STEP**** You must now note the Vista Disk Signature
> before proceeding. Boot using the UBCD and run the PTS DiskEditor tool.
> Right near the start of the drive (which is the MBR section), you need
> to note the 4 byte hex disk signature code located at 0x01b8-0x01bb. For
> example, on my computer these were "ED 66 35 8D". For those that don't
> understand hex, just go to the row called "01B0" and the 9th, 10th,
> 11th, & 12th numbers (of 16) in the row are what you want. It might be a
> good idea to save a copy of the entire MBR at this point.
>
> 7) Boot from the UBCD and install XOSL to the 32MB partition you created
> and formatted for it. You do not need smart boot manager. Explanation of
> the options can be found in the XOSL documenation.
>
> 8) This step is optional, but it's nice to know things are working.
> Create a boot option for your Vista install in XOSL, then reboot with
> the UBCD and use the PTS DiskEditor to rewrite the 4 byte disk signature
> that XOSL unfortunately blanks out during it's install. Take out the CD,
> and you should now be able to boot Vista from XOSL.
>
> 9) Now we are ready for our next install. First run the UB CD and run
> Ranish to hide the Vista partition. Then reboot with XP installation CD
> and begin the install. The XP partition will show up as C: drive. Format
> it to NTFS and complete the install process. Again do the drivers,
> updates, etc. XP over-writes the XOSL so it is temporarily gone.
>
> 10) Boot from the UBCD, run XOSL and choose to "restore" XOSL. Setup
> your Vista and XP boot options, making sure you hide them from each
> other (this is very important!).
>
> 11) Boot from the UBCD, again run the PTS DiskEditor, and restore the
> Vista Disk Signature. You should now have a fully functional dual boot
> Vista-XP system! Format the shared NTFS partition from windows and it
> should appear to both windows installs.
>
> 12) Now you can add Ubuntu Linux into the mix. At this point, take this
> guide with a grain of salt because I know nothing about Linux. First I
> made some back ups, saving on a flash drive:
>
> - A copy of my current MBR.
> - A cop y of my Ranish parition table (this one was a bit tricky since I
> had no floppy drive... I just took pictures with my digital camera...
> meh it works).
>
> 13) Put in the Ubuntu CD and choose install. It might be a good idea to
> try hiding the windows partitions, but I think Ubuntu will find them
> anyways.
> - Choose to specify your partitions manually.
> - Don't miss the small "Advanced" box at the last step to choose where
> the GRUB bootloader will go. If left to its own devices GRUB will kill
> XOSL. Stick it into the same partition as your root (/)
>
> 14) Add the root (/) partition to XOSL and you should now have a fully
> functionally triple boot system. There is probably some tinkering around
> with GRUB and Ubuntu necessary here to hide windows fully, but I don't
> know enough yet to do this.
>
> 15) Rejoice that I wasted so much time on this so that you don't have to :)
>
> >'-')> <('-'<) ^('-')^ v('-')v <('-'<) ^( )^ (> '-')> ^(^-^)>
>
> +=================================================================+
> | Feel free to share this guide - all I ask is that you leave it |
> | intact and don't steal credit for it. |
> +=================================================================+
>
> Listen to the man who seeks the truth. Ignore the man who has already
> found it.
>
>