XP Pro/Win 3.1/DOS triple boot - possible? How?

[Guest]

I'm a newbie here, so please be gentle!
My current setup is on XP Pro, but since my hard drive is dying and Staples
had a sale, I've gotten an upgrade and plan to set up multiple boot drives on
it. We also found recently that the DOS in XP is so protected that you can't
do much with it. My husband has about 20 years of legacy software to pull
together from 4 desktops in various configurations so to get all of them to
work, we need the XP Pro we've got now, Win 3.1 from a dead computer, and
we've just bought the latest DOS available. Since note of the multi-boot
setups I've seen references Win 3.1, I'm wondering if there's anything
special I need to do for that. I had plans to set up a C: drive in FAT for
DOS, D: in FAT for 3.1, and the rest in NTFS for XP and whatever in multiple
partitions. Several questions on this - Can I use FAT32 or does it have to
be FAT for the first two OSs? I've seen a reference somewhere that for FAT
I'm limited to a 4GB partition size; I can't see that I'd need more than that
but is this correct? Finally, what order should I load them in? I'm
planning to boot the new drive with a DOS 6.1 boot disk, then upgrade to the
newer DOS first. Second would be the Win 3.1 install, and finally the XP
Pro. Is this right? The only thing I can't figure out is when I format the
final partition to NTFS? Any help, anybody?

 

[Jerry]

Do a Google search on multi-booting (I just did) and you'll find
instructions on what and how to do it.

 

[Carey Frisch [MVP]]

How to Multiple Boot Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows NT,
Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Me, and MS-DOS
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/q217210/

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows Shell/User

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

:

| I'm a newbie here, so please be gentle!
| My current setup is on XP Pro, but since my hard drive is dying and Staples
| had a sale, I've gotten an upgrade and plan to set up multiple boot drives on
| it. We also found recently that the DOS in XP is so protected that you can't
| do much with it. My husband has about 20 years of legacy software to pull
| together from 4 desktops in various configurations so to get all of them to
| work, we need the XP Pro we've got now, Win 3.1 from a dead computer, and
| we've just bought the latest DOS available. Since note of the multi-boot
| setups I've seen references Win 3.1, I'm wondering if there's anything
| special I need to do for that. I had plans to set up a C: drive in FAT for
| DOS, D: in FAT for 3.1, and the rest in NTFS for XP and whatever in multiple
| partitions. Several questions on this - Can I use FAT32 or does it have to
| be FAT for the first two OSs? I've seen a reference somewhere that for FAT
| I'm limited to a 4GB partition size; I can't see that I'd need more than that
| but is this correct? Finally, what order should I load them in? I'm
| planning to boot the new drive with a DOS 6.1 boot disk, then upgrade to the
| newer DOS first. Second would be the Win 3.1 install, and finally the XP
| Pro. Is this right? The only thing I can't figure out is when I format the
| final partition to NTFS? Any help, anybody?
| --
| Thanks much to all. I need all the help I can get.....
| Rose

 

[Guest]

Jerry, I did Google with "triple boot" and "multiple boot", but I'll try
"multi-booting" and maybe throw in 3.1 to narrow it down. Thanks

Carey, I found your reference when I posted and quickly looked through it
but wasn't sure if Win 3.1 would add any monkey wrenches. Will read more
completely now that I'm awake again. Thanks

 

[aleinss]

Jerry, I did Google with "triple boot" and "multiple boot", but I'll try
"multi-booting" and maybe throw in 3.1 to narrow it down. Thanks

Carey, I found your reference when I posted and quickly looked through it
but wasn't sure if Win 3.1 would add any monkey wrenches. Will read more
completely now that I'm awake again. Thanks

Windows 3.1 just runs on top of DOS. So if you can boot to a DOS
prompt, just type WIN and that will get you into Windows 3.1.

Think DOS/Windows 3.1.

Adam

 

[Guest]

Adam -
Thanks a lot for answering the one question the others didn't. I had
finally decided to dual boot PC-DOS 2000 and Win XP-Pro and forget about the
3.1 programs we may have had, since that system drive died in the
second-oldest computer and we don't know yet if we can access it again or
not. It's been so long since I've run 3.1 that I've forgotten all this.
But, since hubby has legacy applications dating back to trash-80 fortran,
I'll probably need to bring up a lot more stuff later, including OS/2 and
Warp, not to mention his tape backups.....
Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof!