Multi-booting from a CD?

[popabawa]

I've been searching for this for an hour and getting nowhere so I thought I'd ask you lot - the cleverest people I know

Here's what I'd like to do, I thought this would be really straightforward!

I have XP Pro on my C: drive. This is use to run my home small business jointly between me & my partner. Although we have a very good backup strategy, I don't want to mess with this install even slightly. I've had two experiences with programes changing the Master Boot Record for a multi-boot system and both times it's resulted (sooner or later) in a non-bootable system.

I also want a separate install of XP Pro for my gaming / messing with XP needs and a Linux install for messing around with. These will sit on my 2nd hard drive on the D: and E: drives.

So, can I create a boot CD that will allow me to choose between these three OS's when I boot up? Or download some software that will allow me to achieve the same thing?

Thanks in advamce for any advice!

Iain.

[popabawa]

I've been searching for this for an hour and getting nowhere so I thought I'd ask you lot - the cleverest people I know

Here's what I'd like to do, I thought this would be really straightforward!

I have XP Pro on my C: drive. This is use to run my home small business jointly between me & my partner. Although we have a very good backup strategy, I don't want to mess with this install even slightly. I've had two experiences with programes changing the Master Boot Record for a multi-boot system and both times it's resulted (sooner or later) in a non-bootable system.

I also want a separate install of XP Pro for my gaming / messing with XP needs and a Linux install for messing around with. These will sit on my 2nd hard drive on the D: and E: drives.

So, can I create a boot CD that will allow me to choose between these three OS's when I boot up? Or download some software that will allow me to achieve the same thing?

Thanks in advamce for any advice!

Iain.

[Darius Wey]

Originally Posted by popabawa

So, can I create a boot CD that will allow me to choose between these three OS's when I boot up? Or download some software that will allow me to achieve the same thing?

You shouldn't need to. If worked right, the boot.ini file can be a powerful file to help you achieve what you want to. Some OSes seem to muddle it up and thus render your system non-bootable unless you take a back-door approach to correct it, but if you edit the boot.ini file to your liking, it will work well.

Right-click My Computer (on your desktop) and select Properties. Next, select the Advanced tab, then the third Settings button (corresponding to "Startup and Recovery"). If you click Edit, you can manually edit the boot.ini file so you can choose which OSes are allocated to which partition. Your different OSes should each be on their separate partition. See how that goes for you, and if you have any problems, feel free to post back.

[popabawa]

Thanks Darius.

Here I'll admit I had no idea that boot.ini file existed! It *does* look straightforward.

So, as long as I don't install LILO or anything like I should be OK.

I've just ordered my new HD so I'll check it out over the next few days (after a full back-up of course!)

Iain.