Ideas for multibooting using a 2nd HD in the ultrabay?

[XCoalMiner]

I just got a 2nd HDD Adapter for the ultrabay, and am going to put a 60 or 80G HD in it, … mainly to play with. I’m interested to learn what others have done to multiboot in this configuration.

I plan to keep the “IBM_PRELOAD” (XP pro SP1) as is on the main HD, and therefore will also keep the hidden partition with IBM Rescue & Recovery w/ Rapid Restore, (I moved from the old IBM Rapid Restore), that’s important because of the following.

On the 2nd HD, I want to install Linux, and a clean XP (not the IBM image). In the past I’ve seen and used several multi-boot arrangements, but the one I liked best was called System Commander, (I see it’s still around, as version 8). The one reservation I have is that System Commander, and other similar products, ‘play around with’ the boot sector files on hard drives (it is how they make multibooting work). IBM warns you that Rescue and Recovery or Rapid Restore, are not compatible with these products (I think they mention it, and others, by name in the readme files).

A question: Does anyone have experience doing this? I see a message when getting into the BIOS that says ‘Press F8 for alternative boot devices’. I was envisioning using that when I want to run an OS on the 2HD, (i.e., boot to BIOS, select F8, boot sector of 2nd HD becomes active, see multiboot screen options…). Past experience using System Commander was that is ‘takes over’ all HDs on a system with more that one HD, and shuffles the device letters, for example.

The one tricky thing I want to achieve in all this is create a small Fat partition into which I can put files that are accessible by both Linux apps. and windows apps (I read that Linux doesn’t work with NTFS). In particular, the Mozilla web browsers and email clients come in Windows and Linux versions, and I want to be able to point an email client on both OSes (Thunderbird, for example) to the same files, and therefore read and write email from either OS. Has anyone tried something like this? I know this is do-able, for example, I read that people take files from windows office apps, and edit them with the linux office apps.

[s0larian]

I have XP and gentoo Linux installed on my harddisk, and I am using also Rescue and Recovery. You are absolutely right, R&R changes the bootloader (and the boot startaddress). Once I came into trouble as I tried to install grub, because XP wasn't bootable anymore (just into the rescue environment).

As a result of this experience I am using the XP bootmanager and installed grub instead of in the MBR to /boot, an small (30-50MB) extra partition. A guide for dualbooting XP and Linux with the XP bootmanager you can find here: http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php? ... otsect+lnx
This is the only way I figured out to have XP, R&R and Linux together on one disk, but I think there is no difference if you are using the 2nd HD adapter.

To use my bookmarks and email with XP and as well with Linux, I created a 1GB fat32 partition with opera 7.5 installed. So it doesn't matter if I am in Linux or in XP, I always have access to my emails, bookmarks and so forth. I think it should also work with firefox and thunderbird, but perhaps not as easy as with opera.

[XCoalMiner]

...
To use my bookmarks and email with XP and as well with Linux, I created a 1GB fat32 partition with opera 7.5 installed. So it doesn't matter if I am in Linux or in XP, I always have access to my emails, bookmarks and so forth. I think it should also work with firefox and thunderbird, but perhaps not as easy as with opera.

That is exactly what I want to do, ... email and bookmarks common to both OSs. But, is there a need to install any application in the fat partition to make this work? I was thinking of just having data files there that are sharable across OS platforms. i.e., linux email client installed on linux partition, pointing to fat partition for files, and windows email installed on windows partition also pointing to the fat partition for files.

I assume when you say you have Opera installed in the fat partition, that installation of opera is only run on one OS platform, not both, correct? ... or are you using wine, or something that runs windows apps. natively under linux?

[s0larian]

No, I don't have any application installed on my fat32 partition. In XP Opera installs into program-files, but the user settings, email and data are stored in "document and settings/username/applications/opera". I just copied this folder to the fat32 partition except the opera6.ini file in which I changed the pathes to the new location. In Linux I installed Opera as well and changed also the pathes in opera6.ini to /mnt/fat32/opera. That's all. Works really well.

If you are interested: here you can find more information:
http://nontroppo.org/wiki/Opera7Tips

Look for "Sharing ALL Opera settings and mail between OS partitions"