Partitioning USB 1TB Drive and Doing Multi boot Os's

Hello folks!

I am new to DD and TI Home 09. I am excited AND a little perplexed. The more I read on the goals I am trying to accompish, the more difficult it seems. I will do my profile later...I am a developer and long time computer geek.

I am trying to do these tasks:

Upgrade my XP Home to XP Pro. (after this comes the real hard stuff)

Use DD to partition my USB 1 TB external drive in preparation to:

• Bring on two OS's.
• Use for TI Image and back up

.

I have about 68 GB left on my main internal drive and I have about 850 GB on the USB drive. The USB drive is always connected. I am willing to make the USB a clean drive, if I can ulimatly put an image on it, or at least a full back up.

I want to have a multi boot of XP Pro, Ubuntu, Windows 7 RC. Ubuntu saved my butt a month ago, I am willing to give it a go and at least learn this distro. Windows 7 RC is just a test and I am in tersted in it for onlt those purposes. I will be getting rid of it eventually. Maybe I will upgrade to when available.

I have learned that the Ubuntu will be harder to manipulate into boot in OS Selector. I have the Live CD and am willing to give it its own space/partition. I want DD OS Selector to be the one in control of the boot managemnt if possible. I don't want my current system to be affected in anyway. I only want an image of my XP Pro and maybe if I stay with Ubuntu.

I am willing to get another internal drive if necessary, but I prefer not to. Windows 7 has a technique I can use. It's called a VHD. I know nothing about how to do that. I am reading a site that offers a sort of tutorial on it.

Right now, I am using a back up program that came cheap with another that I bought. It is ok, a little slow and really does better at syncing.

I can use TI to make a bootable CD. Making the USB bootable seems a little
ify, but I do like the idea. Putting Ubuntu on it's own partition made on the free space on my main drive is ok, I prefer the USB Drive or rather to buy another drive. I am worried about mistepping and blowing up my MBR or worse.

What steps would you take if you were performing these goals? I'll take any good advise.

I will be continuing to learn and read up until then. I have been amanyual reader since about 1983.

Thank you,

BarJabba

PS I hope I did not waste my money on buying TI and DD.

 

Hello BarJabba,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Products!

I would like to give you basic recommendations:
1. First of all you have to repatrition you Hard Drive with Acronis Disk Director Suite 10.0 taking into account that you'll need a separate partition for each Operating System you are going to use.
2. After that I would recommend to create your current system partition backup with Acronis True Image Home 2009.
3. Then you can install other Operating Systems, each to a separate partition. First you have to install Windows 7, after that Ubuntu. Please follow the instructions from our Public Knowledge Base article:
1633: Creating a Dual Boot System with Linux
4. After all Operating Systems are installed you can activate Acronis OS Selector.

Thank you.
Daniel Pustovoy

 

I have already created the image and activated OSS (it activated at install). I am out of the order if which you have advised me. I apologize, but, is there any problem in continuing on with the other tasks?

I can deactivate OSS and I could go through and make another full image after repartitioning the USB HDD. I don't think I am in too much trouble here am I?

Could you give me some suggestions for how much and how many partitions I should give Ubuntu? I think it should do whatever it needed to "a" partition. However, I also read that I should give it three different partitions ("/", "/Home" ect). I want to be sure that OSS is the boot manager/menu that goes to this OS and I do not mess up anything. I don't know anything about installing Ubuntu, as in, GRUB and LILO. I am also putting it on the USB drive. I will be putting Win 7 RC on my main drive "C:". I will seek a VM ware solution, so, I am not sure if doing Win 7 first is neccesary in this case. I will be putting this VM on the C drive of course.

Thank you so much!!