| 29 May 2001
Spotlight #003 |
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| WARNING :
This article describes one possible technique for
multi-booting your PC. This technique involves
completely reinstalling the operating system on
your PC. If you have not installed an operating
system on your PC before, or are not confident that
you can do it successfully, we recommend that you
do not proceed, or that you seek assistance from
someone that you know who does have this kind of
experience. |
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Multi-booting your computer is the
term given to booting or running more than one Operating
System on one computer. It may be a simple dual-boot
scenario with Windows 95 and Windows NT. Or it
may be a more complicated setup such as Windows 98 /
Windows 2000 / Linux.
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There are many reasons why you might want
to multi-boot your computer. Some of the more common
reasons that have been brought to our attention include
:
- Games. Some older games won't run under Windows
NT. If you do your work under Windows NT, but
need Windows 95 to run your games then multi-booting
is a good way to go.
- Kids. If you have children who use your computer,
then you know that there are times that you wish they
had their own computer. Multi-booting provides
a cheaper solution than buying a separate PC.
- Testing. Many developers multi-boot their
computers to allow them to test their software under
different Operating Systems.
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Just
as there are many reasons for wanting to multi-boot your
computer system, there are also many ways that you can
achieve it. Some operating systems are "aware"
of other operating systems and can easily coexist on the
same computer, while allowing the user to choose which
operating system to boot. Windows NT and Windows
2000 are multi-boot "aware", while Windows 95,
Windows 98 and Windows ME are not. If you install
one of the latter operating systems on your computer then
it will take boot control of your PC regardless of any
other operating systems installed.
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This
article focuses on multi-booting your computer system
using multiple disk partitions and a boot manager.
The tools used are available for free over the Internet.
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| A word of
warning at this point. Incorrect use of partitioning
tools can make your computer unbootable and result
in the loss of some or all of your files.
If you are not confident or have any doubts about
the steps involved then we recommend that you do
not attempt to configure your computer for multi-booting.
It is always good practice
to make regular backups of your computer.
It is especially important to perform a backup
before you start a task such as setting up your
computer for multi-boot.
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Some partitioning tools, including
the one described in this article (Ranish
Partition Manager), are capable of resizing existing
partitions. The process involved in resizing existing
partitions is not discussed in this article. Instead,
this article deals with setting up multiple operating
systems from scratch on a new or existing hard drive.
Note that this involves the loss of all data currently
on the hard drive.
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| Good preparation can mean the difference
between a successful afternoon setting up your PC, and
a long frustrating night trying to recover your PC to
something that works. Before you start, there
are a few things to do :
1) Create a backup of everything you want to keep from
your existing hard drive.
2) Check your backup to make sure you can recover from
it.
3) Double check your backup.
4) Note down any settings, IRQ resources, driver versions
etc for any of your existing hardware and software.
You may need these later when installing.
5) Download Ranish Partition
Manager and XOSL
boot manager.
6) Note that XOSL requires VESA VBE 1.2 as a
minimum - it will not install if your video card does
not support VBE 1.2. If your video card does
not support VBE 1.2 then you will need to find an alternative
boot manager. Proceed with caution as this article
deals with XOSL as the boot manager.
7) Prepare a separate floppy disk for each of the tools
(Partition Manager and XOSL). At the time of writing
this article, XOSL 1.1.5 is distributed as a ZIP file.
You should unzip the file to a temporary folder on your
hard drive and copy the contents of the XOSL folder
to a floppy disk. Ranish Partition Manager is
also distributed as a ZIP file. You should unzip
the file to a temporary folder on your hard drive and
copy the contents to a floppy disk
8) Prepare a DOS or Windows 95 (or later) system boot
disk. Ranish Partition Manager and XOSL are both DOS-based
programs and need DOS so that you can install them.
9) Check your backup again.
10) You are ready to start.
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| Step
One : Create Partitions |
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The first step is to decide how many partitions
to create and how big each partition needs to be.
You will need at least one partition for each operating
system, plus a small (4MB) partition for XOSL.
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Typical sizes for installed operating systems
:
| Operating
System |
Minimum
Installed Size |
Microsoft
Recommended |
| Windows 95 |
50 MB |
50 - 55 MB |
| Windows 98 |
240 MB |
140 - 355 MB |
| Windows ME |
495 MB |
480 - 645 MB |
| Windows NT 4 |
210 MB |
125 - 225 MB |
| Windows 2000 Pro |
650 MB |
650 MB |
Note that the above
sizes are estimates based on our experience of installed
operating systems. If you actually create your
partitions this size then you will have no spare room
for swap files, applications, temporary files etc.
The above table is to give you an indication of how
much space each operating system requires. Check
the Microsoft
site for recommended minimums and requirements.
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| As an example, let's say that you have
a 10GB hard drive, which you want to set up to multi-boot
your computer system. You want to set up Windows
98 for the kids to use for playing games, a separate Windows
98 installation for yourself, and Windows 2000 for your
work.
You need 6GB for your work, and decide to make the
two Windows 98 partitions the same size (so 2GB each).
You will use Ranish Partition Manager to partition
your hard disk for the three operating systems that
the example calls for. First, you will need to
boot to DOS using your system boot disk. Then
insert your Ranish floppy disk and run PART.EXE.
Ranish Partition Manager will present you with a screen
something like this :
Use the cursor keys to move the cursor to line (partition)
#1 and press ENTER to start the partition wizard.
Select FAT-32 for your first Windows 98 partition and
enter 2,000,000 as the size (2 GB). Choose to
Save and do a Quick Format.
Repeat this step for your second Windows 98 partition
(on the next available partition line).
Repeat again on the next available partition line for
your Windows 2000 partition. Once again, make
the partition FAT-32, but this time choose around 6GB
for the size. Make sure that you leave at least
4 MB on the disk for our last partition.
The last partition will be used to hold the XOSL boot
manager. To create this partition, move the cursor
down to the next available partition and this time press
the INS key. From the list of available options,
choose Boot Manager.
OK, you have told Ranish what the partition table should
look like. Now hit the ESCape key and choose Save
MBR to perform the actual update to the MBR.
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| Now that you have partitioned your disk,
you can install the XOSL boot manager onto the dedicated
partition. Use your system boot disk to boot to
a DOS prompt. Insert the floppy disk containing
XOSL and type run INSTALL.EXE. Make sure
that the floppy containing XOSL is not write-protected,
as XOSL will write to the floppy.
Choose to install XOSL on a dedicated partition and
select the small partition you created for XOSL in Step
One. The installation process may take a while
- be patient.
After the install has finished, you will need to set
up you bootup options. Allow XOSL to Reboot your
system and then click the Setup button within
XOSL.
You will need to add your three operating system partitions
to the XOSL setup so that XOSL can offer them for booting.
Repeat the following steps for each of your three operating
systems.
In the Setup screen, choose Add and select the partition
to boot.
Give the partition a meaningful name such as Windows
98 (Kids).
Select Apply to add your boot item, then click the Hiding
button.
Hide all partitions except the one that you are booting.
For example if the partition you have added as a boot
item is Windows 98 (Kids) then you should hide Windows
98 (Dad) and Windows 2000 from the Windows 98 (Kids)
boot item. Hiding partitions is important as it
will ensure correct installation to C: drive for each
operating system, and keep the operating systems entirely
separate.
If you want an operating system to boot by default
when your computer is turned on, then highlight the
boot item and select Default boot item.
At this stage, you may want to change the timeout for
booting the default, to some smaller number such as
4 seconds.
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| OK, so you have created boot items for
your three partitions. There is one last thing to
do before you can start installing operating systems on
your computer. This is an important step, which
will ensure that your operating systems are entirely separate
from each other and install correctly onto C: drive.
You need to create one more boot item : Boot from
floppy. Add a new boot item, select the Boot
from floppy partition and set up Hiding to be
the same as the operating system you are about to install.
ie. If you are about to install Windows 98 on
the Windows 98 (Kids) partition then set up Boot
from floppy to hide Windows 98 (Dad) and Windows
2000.
You need to do this step before you install each operating
system.
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| Step
Three : Operating System Installation
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| You have done the setup required for multi-booting
your PC. Now it is time to install the actual operating
systems. For each operating system, you should complete
the following steps :
1) Boot to XOSL
2) Change the Boot from floppy boot item to
be configured for the operating system you are about
to install.
3) Insert the boot floppy for the operating system
you are about to install.
4) Boot from the floppy by telling XOSL to Boot
from floppy.
5) Install the operating system on C:. Note that
if you have hidden the partitions correctly then there
will only be one DOS drive (C:) available.
6) Make sure you complete the installation (including
all necessary reboots) before starting on the next install.
7) After installing each operating system, restore
XOSL if necessary (see Step Four below)
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| Operating systems such as Windows 98 will
take control of the MBR (Master Boot Record) on your hard
drive when installed so that when your computer is booted,
Windows 98 will start.
However, you want XOSL to boot at startup, so that
you can choose which operating system to boot.
XOSL provides an easy way to restore itself; simply
boot to DOS using your system boot disk and run INSTALL.EXE
on the XOSL disk. Choose the Restore option and
select your dedicated XOSL partition - easy as that.
You are all done and ready to start multi-booting your
computer. Whenever your PC boots, XOSL will ask
you which operating system to start (you may have set
up a default). Your Windows 98 (Kids) installation
is entirely separate from everything else on your computer
and the kids can no longer destroy vital information
that you need.
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There are some good tips available on the
Internet; in particular, you should check out the following
sites. The web sites for Ranish Partition Manager
and XOSL provide some particularly good information, and
you can also find more details on each of these tools.
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Ranish Partition Manager
XOSL
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Composer
