Dual Booting Your Computer With Any OS!

How to Dual Boot Your Computer Ultimate Guide Exept Mac b/c they suck * I did not make these I simply compiled it to one page*
Table of Contents
I. From Vista to Linux
II. From XP to Vista
III. From XP to Linux
IV. Triple Booting Vista, XP, Linux

OK before we begin you MUST BACK UP ALL YOUR STUFF! Im not saying that you are going to lose it but its better to be safe than sorry.

My personal favorite distro Linux Mint Cassandra 3.0

Linux Mint Main Edition Cassandra 3.0 .ISO

The main site for other versions
Linux Mint

I. Vista & Linux

II. XP & Vista
Coming Soon.....

III. XP & Linux
Coming Soon.....

IV. Triple Booting All Three *Only for the 1337*

Step one: Install Windows Vista

So you've got already got XP on your machine and you want to sample a taste of what Windows Vista has to offer? Just follow Gina's guide to dual-booting Windows XP and Vista. When you get to the partitioning your drive, go ahead and add your Ubuntu partitions as described in the next step. However, since I (and perhaps some of you) had already installed Vista, I added my Ubuntu partitions after I'd installed Vista. It really doesn't matter which comes first.

If you haven't already set up a dual-boot system with Windows Vista beta and you don't want to, no problem. Not much really changes in this tutorial, so if you only want to dual boot Windows XP and Ubuntu, this should work just as well.
Step two: Partition your hard drive for Ubuntu

I recommend using your Ubuntu Live CD (you'll need to download the ISO and burn it to a disk), which comes packaged with the same Gnome Partition Editor contained on the previously-mentioned GParted Live CD, to add your Ubuntu partitions. Once you've booted the Ubuntu Live CD, go to System -> Administration -> Gnome Partition Editor. You need to add two new partitions for Ubuntu. The first should be a minimum of 3GB and formatted using the EXT3 filesystem. The second partition is your Linux swap, which should be about 1GB.
install%20ubuntu.png

Once you've got your partitions set up, installing Ubuntu could not be easier. Double-click on the Install icon on the Ubuntu desktop and get going. The graphical installer is pretty self explanatory, but I'll walk you through it step-by-step in the gallery below.
Step three: Install Ubuntu

Click here to start the installation step-by-step.
Step four: Install Automatix

After you install your updates, a few things still might not be totally up to snuff for what you expected. For example, by default you can't play MP3s in Ubuntu (Ubuntu is totally FREE, meaning that only free and open codecs are installed by default). If you want to keep it that way, you don't have to follow this next step. However, if you're new to Linux, you probably want all the advantages you can get, so installing Automatix should tie up all of your loose ends. Luckily installing Automatix on Ubuntu 6.0.6 from Terminal is easy. To get to terminal, go to Applications -> Terminal and follow the instructions on the Automatix page.

When you've finished running Automatix and installed your apps of choice, you'll want to restart Ubuntu. Once you restart, you should notice an assload of new programs, and pretty much everything should work just as you'd expect.
Play around with your new operating system.

OK now how to uninstall Linux + GRUB: *BACKUP EVERYTHING this is not guaranteed to work!*

1. Download this tool, and burn it to a disk. Bart's CD-Rom Boot Disk (Really you can use any bootdisk just as long as it has fdisk on it)
2. Delete Linux partition.
3. Restart computer and go into your system BIOS by pressing F10 or something similar each computer is different, then set your computer to boot from your CD Drive. So it should be in this order:
---1. CD Drive
---2. Hard Drives
---3. Everything else
4. Save the Changes and reboot. Then get to the command window when you boot the disk and enter this fdisk /mbr

IF THIS DOES NOT WORK I am very sorry, but your gonna have to re-install your OS.

[Shadow]

Is there any kind of guide for Macintosh?

Off Topic: Happy Birthday to me!

[Robb4248]

The Macintosh Operating Systems (all to be specific) cannot be booted from a partition, it requires it's own physical drive (to my knowledge).

I do take classes on Linux, and here is what I have learned is best for Fedora Core 2.

Min 10GB Free (Mounted on "/")
Swap File should be at least 2x your RAM, mounted on "Swap".
At Least 50MB should remained unpartitioned.

Originally Posted by Phantom707

Is there any kind of guide for Macintosh?

Off Topic: Happy Birthday to me!

Happy birthday and yes I can tell you vaguely how to do it

Step 1: Check to see if your computer is compatible with CSS3 (I think thats what its called) if not you cant do it and dont try to do it because it can only mess up your computer at that point.

Step 2: Obtain the OS Xx86 disk and all of its counter parts they are spread all across the internets. (Or just wait for me to finally upload it)

Step 3: Get a blank HD preferably one you really dont care about because this can still mess up your hard drive to point of no return unless you have the OEM disk and the OEM disk only.

Step 4: Install OS X on the blank drive. But do not delete the drive with partitioning tools. Simply reformat the drive with gParted to NFTS (If the drive wasnt already blank)

Step 5: If it worked it worked if not well try it once more if still no once more if not the third time then it will never work.

[Gow]

I think lacrosse means SSE3 not CSS3...of course I could be wrong but if I remember right when I messed with the OSX x86 beta it needed SSE3 but there was a work around. There are probably quite a bunch of advancements to using OSX on a PC since I used it 2 years ago.

Some info can be had here on it:
http://www.osx86project.org/

On the subject of Nix Distros:

Have you tried PCLinuxOS? Mint looks interesting might have to give it a try on the older computer.

Originally Posted by Gow

I think lacrosse means SSE3 not CSS3...of course I could be wrong but if I remember right when I messed with the OSX x86 beta it needed SSE3 but there was a work around. There are probably quite a bunch of advancements to using OSX on a PC since I used it 2 years ago.

Some info can be had here on it:
http://www.osx86project.org/

On the subject of Nix Distros:

Have you tried PCLinuxOS? Mint looks interesting might have to give it a try on the older computer.

Yes thats is SSE3!

[Shadow]

I am sorry, but I really can not figure out if my AMD Athlon XP is processor is compatible with SSE3, but seeing as how it is an Intel thing, chances are low. Any help here would be appreciated and be rewarded with an addition to your reputation.

[Robb4248]

depends what version of your processor you have

Originally Posted by Phantom707

I am sorry, but I really can not figure out if my AMD Athlon XP is processor is compatible with SSE3, but seeing as how it is an Intel thing, chances are low. Any help here would be appreciated and be rewarded with an addition to your reputation.

Unfortunately I cant do that since your system set up is different than mine, however what I can do is make a tutorial and that should help you. If you still cant figure it out just post your spec from CPU-Z by simply copying and pasting them here and I can look up your parts on google to see if they are compatible.

Originally Posted by Robb4248

depends what version of your processor you have

Its a little more than that Robb it depends on just about everything in your system not just processor type.

[Shadow]

That is what I got when I ran cpu-z.

OK well your good on SSE3 however that still means very little other than you have a chance. When installing it may appear to freeze, or may freeze entirely. If it ever freezes wait 30 min and see if any progress was made. If its frozen try again two more times if it doesn't work the third time it will not work. DO NOT PARTITION YOU DRIVE!! you need an entirely blank Hard Drive.

[Shadow]

Entirely blank? Okay, I will keep that in mind for when I actually attempt this, I do not have the free time right now. Thank you very much for your help.

Originally Posted by Phantom707

Entirely blank? Okay, I will keep that in mind for when I actually attempt this, I do not have the free time right now. Thank you very much for your help.

No problem. and you have a while anyways I still have to upload this monster.

[Shadow]

I was just wondering, but why is it that the hard drive has to be blank, and why is it that you can not install Macintosh operating system on a partition? I am just curious.

you don't need two if you are going to use OS X only otherwise it will erase your partitions and write itself the the whole drive. and I also have some bad news I lost the OS X disk when I had to reformat my computer.

[Shadow]

How do I uninstall linux and, more importantly, the GRUB boot manager and restore the windows vista boot manager?

Edit-Never mind.

[AquaToad]

Originally Posted by Phantom707

Is there any kind of guide for Macintosh?

Off Topic: Happy Birthday to me!

no. mac sucks

jk lol

happy birthday!

[Charge]

we are learning about this at college about disk partiotioning and ubuntu(linux)
its really fascinating
has anyone heard of a small OS skyOS?
apparently its really good

[Th3kurukato]

Originally Posted by youlnvrgess09

we are learning about this at college about disk partiotioning and ubuntu(linux)
its really fascinating
has anyone heard of a small OS skyOS?
apparently its really good

I've heard people talk about it, they say its amazing.

skyOS Wiki.

[Shadow]

What about it have you heard? I mean, what about it have people said that makes it special? Just from what I read, it does not look like it can do much more than Linux.