Can't figure out how to multiboot

Yes sir, I believe I have done a good job. I know I wrote that I was passing out, but, whether it was from the excitement of this whole undertaking, or from being all gakked out on monster energy drinks and everclear, I just couldn't sleep without finishing this install.

I ended up reformatting the entire system and starting over early this morning, repeating the steps I took, and writing them down for future reference. What I have achieved is a flawless install of three XP systems, and one Linux system. I am now able to access all of them at will. The next step, which I am undertaking now, is installing drivers and software.

I do however have some minor bugs to work out, but these are with the systems themselves, and have nothing to do with the multiboot process, as far as I can tell at the moment. For instance, I still need to figure out how to get my mouse to work in Linux.

On another note, the steps that I wrote down seem to have morphed into somewhat of a how-to article. Initially I was writing them down so I would remember how to do this in the future, But I got to thinking, I couldn't really find a good step by step how-to that explains how to do this. In fact I encountered more questions than I did answers. Anyway, If I were to change it a bit, I think it might be a handy article to have here on this website. And, with your permission, Mudcrab(since it is because of your wonderful and selfless help that I have learned this stuff), I think I would like to post it here for public use.

 

I know what you mean. I try to avoid starting things like that late at night, but sometimes...

That would be great. Every system and setup is different, but a lot can be learned from reading procedures that worked for others. Generally, it seems that when installing multi-boot setups, avoiding problems during installation is 90% (or more) of the fight. Trying to fix problems after the installations can be much more difficult.

 

Alright, I will touch it up and make it presentable for the public then.

But first, there is a minor annoyance I have encountered. I don't know how prevailent it will be yet, but I have encountered it twice now. It seems that my second OS has a tendency to hang on boot sometimes, and I need to shut down the laptop and reboot in order to get it to go through. Do you know anything about this kind of behavior? Is it common with multibooting, or could it be something with the OS itself? This particular annoyance has appeared twice, both times before the bootscreen shows up, and it just hangs with a blinking prompt.

 

If the setup is correct (correct partition Active, correct partitions hidden), once the "pass-off" is made from the boot manager to the OS, the OS takes over. Any problems after that point are OS related.

Is there something different about your second OS (XP, I assume)?

 

Nope, all three xp installs are identical, except for names, and themes. It has still only done this twice, so I don't think it will be a problem, though I have been focusing on this mouse problem in Linux for the past few hours. Can't seem to figure this one out, but then I am almost clueless when it comes to linux, so this is all a new game here.

I read about changing the xorg.conf file, and have been dabbling with it, but so far I have only succeeded in screwing up the OS...

I will be back in the Media system soon to install software and tweak it up a bit, so I should get a good idea of how much of a problem this hang is during that time. But, hey, so far so good. All OS's have taken the drivers and I was able to fix all the minor bugs. Of course I was familiar with the software causing those problems too though.

I got a long way to go before this laptop is completely set up though. Going to call it quits soon, haven't slept a wink since noon yesterday.