Triple Boot System - XP/Vista/Linux

[tenuulch]

OK, so I'm on the verge of finally ordering my laptop from Xotic. I decided last minute on the NP9262 instead of NP5793 because of the processor upgrade to 3.0ghz 6mb cache and the fact that I can have two hard drives. I want to have a triple boot system:

HD1 (200GB)
XP (for older games/programs)
Vista (for newer games, video/image edit)
Linux Ubuntu (Internet, MP3, word processing, etc.)

HD2 (200GB)
MP3s (yes, I have that many songs!)

Both can be formatted to NTFS, right? (I assume Ubuntu is now stable w/ NTFS?)

Does anyone else use a triple boot system or can offer advice on it? Instead of running into compatibility issues w/ [older/newer] software I may need in the future, I figure it best to have all bases covered.

I know Xotic doesn't support dual let alone triple boot. But I assume they will sell me both XP & Vista OS to personally install myself.

Thanks.

[Cortez]

That should work. I have no problem accessing NTFS partitions under Linux just that it is read-only which if all you want to do is play MP3s from the 2nd drive shouldn't be an issue.

I'll share my experience with the tri-boot since I just received my new Sager NP2092 last week. I ordered the system with 4GB of ram and a 320GB drive with no OS installed. Also have the Intel Robson for Vista.

I created a 20GB partition for XP. First installed XP Pro SP2 after disabling AHCI in the BIOS. But I have yet to get it to work with the AHCI enabled. I tried following the instructions from this post: http://www.xoticpcforums.com/viewtopic.php?t=2790 but keep getting BSOD. But it hasn't been a big priority for me to fix either. Any ideas?

I next installed Vista Ultimate x64 on a 100GB partition which works pretty well. Startup and shutdown pretty fast. Excellent!

I have been using Novell Suse Linux Enterprise Desktop ($50) on my other desktop and laptop systems with good success. I installed the x64 version on the remaining portion of drive space. The tri-boot worked but at times the GRUB boot loader would hang and not display the boot menu. I spent some time troubleshooting but was running out of time and needed to get the system stable for now. So I decided to remove Linux altogether and try again later. Removing SLED and extending the Vista partition was a snap. Booted using the Vista CD and used Diskpart to delete the Linux partitions and extend the Vista partition. All is well.

You better hurry up and buy XP before they remove it from the shelves this summer. :)

[tenuulch]

Actually, I just read the new Ubuntu release supports NTFS read/write by default, which is great.

Hopefully, I have more success getting the three stooges to work together.