?? Vista + Partitions Read Here ??

[mdlinuxwolf]

I had a similar problem installing Fedora 8 on a 3000 N100 laptop. The solution was to use Easy BCD 1.6. You must make a small partition for GRUB in the middle of the hard drive between the Vista and Linux partition. This will result in Vista booting but not Linux. This is OK. Use Neogrub to boot GRUB by copying the grub.conf file into the menu.lst file which is in the NST directory at the root of the Vista partition. After that, Vista's boot loader will give you the option of booting Linux as well as other operating systems. While this solution is less then ideal, it works.

[ewiget]

Maybe someone will find this info helpful:

here is a dual booting article I did the night vista was released in stores on computers (just bought an HP laptop with vista - It crashed right away....with pictures of step-by-step shrinking the hard drive in vista) - http://www.edwiget.name/content/view/136/26/1/3/

and here is another article on triple booting (actually will work for any number of operating systems):
http://www.edwiget.name/content/view/141/26/

And, I eventually did away with vista entirely after upgrading to 2GB and still slow, so I downgraded to XP for college:
http://www.edwiget.name/content/view/212/26/

And, this semester I have to take a Vista MCSE course....so guess what I have to do...since the only licensed version of vista I own is a HP restore disk and it wont work in any vm's

[joebobfrank]

Hmm I've had my fair share of fun installing multiple vista/linux OS's at a time.

Right now I have Vista premium(32 bit), Vista Ultimate (64 bit) and linux on my computer. It's kind of funny how I have 2 boot managers on my computer now, Grub starts first and if I choose not to load linux the vista boot manager will come up and I can select between my two vista versions.

The only major problems I have had is when I try partitioning my hard drive which I use paragon partition manager for. Each time I touch my partitions my boot loader won't let me boot my computer. What I've been doing to fix it is just re-installing the grub boot loader which seems to fix it. So if your boot manager can't find any operating systems just re-install it

Oh and be careful when choosing to install two versions of vista at once... My vista premium came with my computer so it was legit but when installed vista ultimate as well they both decided to become non-genuine. So now I have mmmhhh you know funny tweaked versions of vista on my computer

Edited: MOD.
LOL

[mdlinuxwolf]

Use BCD edit in Vista. From the Linux side you need to find the file which is called grub.cnfg. This is a text file. Then go back into BCD edit and paste this text into the Menu List file.

When you install Linux, shrink Vista using itself to free up some room. Make 2 partitions, one which is small, about 512 megabytes, and the other which is the rest of the free space. Make a folder and put it into the small partition. It doesn't matter what it is called so long as you can remember it. Also, name the partition. Do NOT format either partition.

When you install Linux, use the advanced boot loader options. Do NOT write to the root of the drive or the MBR. Vista's boot repair tool is not effective. Kill the boot sector = Vista is fried, reinstall. Choose this folder in the small partition as your mount point.

Linux will install and then restart. Vista will appear with no trace of Linux. This is exactly what we want. Using a live CD such as Simply Mepis 7.0 or some other utility, copy the /boot directory to a thumb drive or put it into the Documents folder in Vista under your username. Yes, the Mepis live CDs and DVDs can read and write NTFS file systems with no modifications. Putting the text directly into menu list is risky and could upset Vista's "security" software.

Also, clean up the text when you paste it. Make sure that all the lines are straight etc. This avoids problems.

[Athaki]

Too bad I found this out after the fact. Whoops! Oh well, I backed up all my crap and it's not like it'd be hard to reinstall IF I wanted it back.

[albfneto]

at the level of my knownledge, NTFS of Vista are the last version of NTFS and are compatible with XP.
Obviously if you use Vista Ultimate 64, this is not compatible with 32 windows XP

[mdlinuxwolf]

You should be able to copy the documents and settings data back and forth between 64 bit and 32 bit, for example upgrading from Windows XP Professional to Vista Ultimate 64 bit. Of course, in the Linux world, backup the /home directory. There may well be other methods, but that is the one that I'm most familiar with. I also post on Linuxquestions.org under the same user name. I've gone in depth on how to dual boot Vista and Linux there. Best of all, you can do it for free with the right open source software, which saves you $$$.

[albfneto]

generally, the installation first of THE VISTA, and after THE SABAYON, choosing install Grub on MBR...
gives you the grub panel, in this, it will have Vista and Sabayon to choosing the boots....
if you install grub on the sabayon partition, only Vista will boot, and for booting sabayon, you need the sabayon disk.
i suggest that you use the 3.5.1,instead of the 3.4... is much more updated.
3.4F is too old for proper updating.... i may have many out of date libraries and files.

[Aryos]

An easier, but "dirty" solution is the following:
1. Boot from the Sabayon Live DVD and use the Installer, to create all necessary partitions in your hard drive, eg:
- 1st partition a primary partition for Linux (ext4 or reiser or whatever). Choose to format this, from the installer. Mount this as "/".
- 2nd partition, a partition for Vista (primary). Choose "vfat" as the file-system and choose to format it. Also choose to mount it as whatever.
- 3rd partition, a primary or extended, for Linux swap.
Start the Sabayon installation but interrupt the installation (cancel it), in the step before the installer start to copy the files. That way, all you do is have the partitions created.
2. Boot from the Vista DVD and select the 2nd partition (the vfat one), to install Vista. Upon installing, reformat it to NTFS.
Vista will be installed normally.
3. Boot again from the Sabayon DVD and use the 1st partition to install, normally. Perform a normal installation. The Linux loader will also detect the Vista partition (Vista will be already installed and working), so you will have the dual boot option.