Dual Booting

[Vince]

Hello;

Not sure this is the correct forum but it was the best I could figure out in
the list.

I just want to know if I use a single hard drive formatted into 4 partitions
and decide to do a dual dual boot with some combination of windows from 98se
up to XP what happens if one of the systems go down.

Do I have to reinstall both or just one of the os,es or does it depend on
which one goes down?

This is and extra question I don't know if anyone else knows here but worth
a try. What if I decide to dual boot some version of Windows and some other
test system to go along with it that is not Windows same question as above.

Thanks

 

[Rich Barry]

No, if one of the OS's screws up it should not effect the others
especially if you have them
on separate partitions. As long as the bootloader is intact then the
other three should be
Ok to boot up. I had Win98SE, Win2Kpro, WinXP and Linux on the same
drive.
It should be installed in that order. The oldest first and Linux
usually last.

 

[Vince]

Thanks for the reply;

Just one thing though let's say I do a setup like you had. I was actually
thinking of that setup so I would have all the same systems at home as I
work on for others.

Now you say install oldest to newest then Linux last.

This is the info I really need to know. Let's say that Windows 98se install
gets corrupted or someting goes wrong with it. I do understand the other
systems will still work properly if I leave as is, but what if I wish to
reinstall Windows 98se. Will that screw up the boot loader so the other
systems will not boot anymore?

If the answer to the previous question is yes, is there a way to recreate
the boot loader or back it up so installing one of the older systems will
not force me to have to reinstall all of the systems?

Thanks

 

[Rich Barry]

Yes, you can make an image of Win98SE and place it on a fifth partition.
Then if anything happens to Win98 you can restore it . Acronis Drive Image
and Norton Ghost will do it but they cost money. Linux has a PartImage that
will do it for you free.