a noobish question

[neocortex]

hello
im almost done building my new pc (Q9450,4x1gig dominator 1066,2TB,8800GTS,maximus formula SE) and im planning to install 4 operating systems on it (for the love of god dont get me started on WHY!)
XP,windows 2003 server,vista, and linux redhat (will be my first time using linux).
now, whats the proper order to install those babies? like which one is first and which one last? and is there any "special trick" i need to do with the boot.ini? if there is, whats the command/lines i need to add?
your help is very much appreciated

 

[rgeist554]

Linux goes last, always. As far as the others... I'm not sure. I think you do the older stuff first. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that: "XP -> 2003 Server -> Vista -> Linux" would be the best way to do it.

Read some guides on installing linux if you've never done it before.

 

[cranbers]

yeah I would agree with that. Make sure you create a seperate partition for each though.

Example, on the first isntall of xp. I am not sure how you got 2TB, two 1tb drives? or are you doing some sort of raid?

Create 1 partition with say 50gb or something for xp. install xp, start server 2003 install, create a new partition another 50gb or something. Start vista installer, create a new partition and make it whatever size you wish.

By the time you have all os's installed you will have a list to choose from after the computer posts.

Now as far as linux goes, this is going ot change the boot manager to grub or something similiar. This is also going ot need its own partition, several in fact for the linux file system that is uses.

In the end if you have any hard drive space that is left over you can go into windows, any of them and go to control panel - administrative tools and computer management - disk management.

here you will see the additional hard drive space showing in black as unallocated. Format this as you wish and use it as a storage drive or something similiar. Always helpful if you want to wipe one of the other partitions and you wont' lose your valuable files.

Maybe this was too much info, maybe not. Hope it helps.

 

[cranbers]

One more thing, if your a brand spanking new person to linux, I would suggest ubuntu instead of red hat. It is much more user friendly for newbies, and it really holds your hand. Plus its the most popular distro now, so why not.