Multiple OS installations [tough one]

Here's a tough one:

I'd like to install multiple OSs on my new T61p. For starters, I'd like to have three XP installations:
1) the preinstalled Lenovo's XP with all the bloatware will stay untouched, will be fully updated (SP3), etc - a safe harbour
2) an XP SP2 installation for work, no bloatware, just necessary stuff
3) a "thrash" XP installation, where I'll test software, download game demo's, all kinds of crap from the web (won't mind if it breaks or is infested with viruses every other week - will purge and reinstall)
...apart from that, I'll want at least one Ubuntu install and perhaps one other partition for experimenting with various OpenSolarises, SLEDs, etc.

I want all these installations to be on separate partitions, all bootable (with a booting menu to choose what to start, of course).

So here the trouble starts: It seems to me that XP needs to be on a Primary partition to boot, right? Well, the preloaded XP already occupies one Primary, the Lenov0 recovery partition is Primary too, and I'll need an extended one for all the Linuxes, swaps and data... So I'm left with one primary, which is not good. Any suggestions how to handle 3 XP installs?

Bonus Question: Also I would like to have those installations isolated some way so that possible viruses or spyware from XP-3 have no access to XP-2 or XP-1. I guess that will require encrypting the first two partitions, correct? Anyways, there's no doubt they need to stay as separate partitions.

 

I see two options for you.

1. Use a virtual machine for the other two XP installations.
2. Buy two more hard drives, and install XP on both of them. You are guaranteed isolation, since each OS will reside on a different drive.

I'm certain you know that you'll need two more keys, since you can't use the same key for all three installations (even if they are virtual machines).

 

Install one more, Ubuntu and then install grub as booting manager, then enter the locations where the OS's are (e.g. XP with SP3 (hd1,0), XP with SP2 (hd1,1) and XP (hd1,2)).

hd(x,y): hard disk x, partition y

Then when you boot, you will press esc and you will get a menu with all the OS's, then choose.

I currently have Ubuntu in HDD0 and XP SP3 in HDD1, two different HDD's which is a little bit different, I just have to remap the HDD to meet the requirement of always booting from HDD0.

 

just shrink your hd in disk management, by at least 30gb (if you do not intend to use nlite). Create 3 new 10gb ntfs partitions, then install xp twice, to any 2 partitions. Then install ubuntu on to the last partition with whatever filesystem you want. Grub should automatically detect your xp partitions.

the ubuntu partition will automatically be isolated as xp cannot read ext3, reiser etc.., and ubuntu cannot read ntfs partitions. Then boot into each xp, right click the 2 xp hard drives (in turn) that you are not using and change the security settings to read only.

 

For 3), I prefer the use of VMWare or Virtual PC. That way you don't need to have another partition for only a test area.

 

It's possible, but you are going to have to use Grub to handle your booting. To make life easy, you should try virtualizing your test setups with either VMWare or Virtual PC.

 

Thank you all for the answers. Unfortunatelly, virtualization is not a possible solution because (as far as I know) it compromises performance.
I'll try playing with GRUB. If it doesn't play out, I'll stick with two XPs (Lenovo's preoloaded will go as "thrash" .) Right now I have only two licences anyway.

Wirelessman, jisaac, the problem is not to set up the booting menu itself, but to have 3 working XPs. It just won't allow to install to anything else than Primary. And currently I have only one free Primary (first being used by preloaded XP, second by Lenov0's recovery) and need to install two more XPs.

 

If you really want three actual operating systems, spend the money and buy more hard drives (and additional sleds, if your laptop requires it). It's very simple to shut down and swap a drive.

 

Hahaha, that's not extremely helpful. No, I don't need that third WinXP THAT much as to spend money on equipment only because a modern operating system wasn't designed for multiple installs.

I'll stick with two XPs and concentrate more on moving to Linux.

In the mean time, I got my partitions screwed and am recovering the hard drive to factory state. Haha.

 

Seriously, for much of your testing, virtual machine is the way to go. You are right that it's not good for for high-performance stuff like games, but for testing out Linux/unix OSes, it's just fine. Your new system is fast, and can handle running at least 1 VM without breaking a sweat.