Talk:Multi-booting

message: what about renaming this article "multiboot"? why not?
:Dual booting is the most common scenario, and it's usually referred to that way. Twinxor t 06:48, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  what about renaming this article "multiboot"? 

message: What is the point of the image that is captioned "Stylized depiction of a boot manager's menu..."?
It might as well be called an artistic impression of a menu. It's completely useless and irrelevant.
I agree. How about a screenshot of GRUB or LILO with multiple options.
--165.91.51.177 16:46, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Can you help me set up VMWare to make such a screenshot? --Damian Yerrick (talk | stalk) 22:35, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Check that, the free second stage loaders all have screenshots already, but wouldn't putting a specific loader in the lead show a bias toward that loader? --Damian Yerrick (talk | stalk) 02:47, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Stylized depiction of a boot manager's menu 

message: I would like to see more information about dual split boot (where every operating system has its own hard disk). --Nukeless 22:21, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dual split boot 

message: I have Windows 2000. Can I install Mac on my PC? (Anonymous, unregistered.)  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 61.83.208.247 (talk) 13:02, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Not if you want to honor the EULA for Mac OS/X.  There are ways (often called 'hackintosh') but I don't think Wikipedia is the place to describe how-to do illegal hacks.  Try Google...  — Preceding unsigned comment added by DrKC MD (talk • contribs) 05:21, 13 November 2017 (UTC)
thread_title: W2000 and Mac

message: By adding a line in the BCD, another operating system may be booted from Windows Boot Manager. So the paragraph in the article needs changing. 82.17.131.125 (talk) 01:50, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Windows does natively support multiboot systems. 

message: "The partitions should be done with a Windows partitioning tool
(diskpart, Disk Management), rather than a Linux tool
(parted, QTparted), for the simple reason that Windows is more
particular (i.e., "picky") about how the partition table is written and
will occasionally complain or even show errors if it is installed to a
Linux-created (or sometimes modified) partition table. Linux
tools are powerful, (e.g., shrinking an NTFS drive) but Windows has
particularities which must be considered. (See master boot record
and extended boot record)." [Moved from article]
:Please read Disk_Management#Compatibility_problems. Lumenos (talk) 03:23, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Have there actually been problems when one standard CHS geometry was used? I think this is the best idea for multibooting, unless using a drive that is over 2 TiB (because this may require using a dynamic disk instead of an MBR). This is also the recommendation of multibooters.com. I rewrote the paragraph based on this theory. Lumenos (talk) 03:23, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  from "Windows and Linux" (1st) 

message: "Compatibility problems may arise with different operating systems: one
operating system may not be able to recognize the other operating
system's file system and thus may try to format it to its native
file system, erasing existing data. This happens more often when the
file systems are in separate partitions on
one disk than when they are on separate disks. Sometimes an administrator must manually
configure one operating system to ignore the other disk or partition in
order to allow multiple file systems." [moved from article]
:Windows XP/2000 will generally ignore partitions that are labeled in the partition table, as a type that Windows does not recognize, for example, a Linux partition (type 83). If the partition is labeled as FAT or NTFS (type 07), in the partition table, Windows XP/2000 will give it a letter and show it in My Computer. If you select the drive, Windows will prompt to format it. When else does an operating system "try" to format a partition? Lumenos (talk) 04:48, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: from "Technical issues"

message: "Windows should be installed to the first primary drive. Though Windows can be installed to another drive, certain particularities (drive letter assignments, expected system partition number) can make such installations problematic, while Linux installations on primary or logical drives have no such problems whatsoever." [moved from the article]
:Last I used Linux, menu.lst (different for Fedora) and fstab have to be updated, if the drive's number changes, in the partition table (the numbering as you would see from using fdisk -l). In Windows 2000/XP menu.lst is equivalent to boot.ini, and the fstab settings are equivalent to the registry keys under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices \DosDevices . The only differences I see here are that:
:*If the Linux system partition is in the extended partition, the number doesn't change if primary partitions are added or deleted. Lumenos (talk) 06:53, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: *Fstab is easier to edit using a text editor from another operating system (such as a live cd). Windows registry can be edited with Offline NT Password & Registry Editor but it won't edit the registry if the drive was not cleanly dismounted, as may happen if you had tried to boot Windows when the system drive letter has changed. But there is an easier fix for this anyway, assuming you installed Windows on partition letter "C". You simply change the disk signature in the MBR and this forces Windows to re-letter all the drives. It will make the active partition "C:". You can change the disk signature with Linux hexedit from System Rescue CD. [I'm not sure what this will do to Vista. see ] This may be easier than editing fstab. Additionally, with Windows XP/2000 you can delete all the "DosDevices" drive letter keys from the registry, before backing up (or cloning) the system, so that after a restore, it will always automatically make the active partition C:, no matter what partition you restore to. With Linux I suppose you need to manually update menu.lst and fstab after cloning to a new partition number. Lumenos (talk) 06:53, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

text: The reason for installing Windows as the first primary seems to be more because it is suggested to install Windows first and Linux last, in order to install GRUB to the MBR. If you created a new partition to install Linux, in front of Windows, this would require editing boot.ini and changing the MBR disk signature, for Windows to boot properly. Lumenos (talk) 07:05, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  from "Windows and Linux" (2nd) 

message: Apparently something to do with cutting a pasting sections (when using Wikipedia Beta) has resulted in a bunch of unwanted line breaks in the sections "Partitioning" and "XP/2003 deletes Vista's System Restore points" at the time of this revision. Lumenos (talk) 17:22, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I believe I removed all unwanted line breaks. Lumenos (talk) 17:32, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unwanted line breaks 

message: I am sure the contributor has every good intention, but this article is not up to Wiki standards, IMO.  In only the first few paragraphs there are grammatical mistakes.   There are references to particular software with advanced instructions on how to use them which is not appropriate.  The discussion under each heading is not informative to the topic; rather it is obviously written from someone who knows at least a bit about multi booting and has chosen to write about minute parts to be considered (that are not defined) and not the full subject.  There are no citations (that is not major, but Microsoft has information), and acronyms such as CHS and FAT are used without spelling out the meaning (e.g. cylinder-head-sector and file allocation table).  Linux and Windows are used as general catch-all names.  I have no idea what a Vista paritioner [sic] is.
I would suggest a rewrite of the article.  Perhaps a better collection of thought will lead to a more informative article.  The author may want to include a reference, citation, or mention of:  the number of partitions allowed on a hard disk drive (HDD), limitations of various operating systems (OS) with regard to placement on the partitions (maximum size restrictions) and file systems, and pros and cons of using a multiple boot computer, among other things.
Ruthe1 (talk) 13:32, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Make any changes you feel necessary. You can also label articles or sections using the tags from wp:del#Editing. Lumenos (talk) 22:02, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Needs Work 

message: ===http://www.multibooters.co.uk/partitions.html=== 
I'm using the following page as a source, you know, because that's what we are (not) supposed to do here, but I'm skeptical of some of the claims on this page and am trying to evaluate its reliability here instead of consulting people with no interest in the subject at wp:RSN: http://www.multibooters.co.uk/partitions.html :
"Vista is placing partitions on the hard drive using different starting and ending positions from the recognised conventions. This means that when most other partition altering applications are used they are likely to re-align the partition during operations to the default norms, which can change both the starting and ending sectors of that partition." ~~ http://www.multibooters.co.uk/partitions.html Lumenos (talk) 16:55, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Ranish Partition Manager doesn't have this problem. I would suggest changing the phrase "most other partition altering applications", to "certain tools when used for resizing or imaging the Vista partition". Better yet, list what software does this and when. Lumenos (talk) 00:36, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

text: The author may have explained what is commonly thought to be a "bug" in GParted, because most people don't know what the "round to cylinders" option does. I reported this here and here. Lumenos (talk) 05:07, 14 March 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Indeed a GParted developer has confirmed that before version: 0.4.4 (Released on 2009-04-02) GParted would move the start location to a cylinder boundary when the end of the partition was re-sized, if the "round to cylinders" option was checked. Vista was released to manufacturing on November 8, 2006 and to retail on January 30, 2007, so that was over two years before GParted became Vista "compatible" (for those who didn't know about Vista's new alignments because their partition editors do not reveal this as Ranish Partition Manager does). Lumenos (talk) 08:29, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  www.multibooters.co.uk as a source 

message: I'm using the following page as a source, you know, because that's what we are (not) supposed to do here, but I'm skeptical of some of the claims on this page and am trying to evaluate its reliability here instead of consulting people with no interest in the subject at wp:RSN: http://www.multibooters.co.uk/partitions.html :
"Vista is placing partitions on the hard drive using different starting and ending positions from the recognised conventions. This means that when most other partition altering applications are used they are likely to re-align the partition during operations to the default norms, which can change both the starting and ending sectors of that partition." ~~ http://www.multibooters.co.uk/partitions.html Lumenos (talk) 16:55, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Ranish Partition Manager doesn't have this problem. I would suggest changing the phrase "most other partition altering applications", to "certain tools when used for resizing or imaging the Vista partition". Better yet, list what software does this and when. Lumenos (talk) 00:36, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

text: The author may have explained what is commonly thought to be a "bug" in GParted, because most people don't know what the "round to cylinders" option does. I reported this here and here. Lumenos (talk) 05:07, 14 March 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Indeed a GParted developer has confirmed that before version: 0.4.4 (Released on 2009-04-02) GParted would move the start location to a cylinder boundary when the end of the partition was re-sized, if the "round to cylinders" option was checked. Vista was released to manufacturing on November 8, 2006 and to retail on January 30, 2007, so that was over two years before GParted became Vista "compatible" (for those who didn't know about Vista's new alignments because their partition editors do not reveal this as Ranish Partition Manager does). Lumenos (talk) 08:29, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: http://www.multibooters.co.uk/partitions.html

message: The article describes dual boot as a special case of multiboot, but dual boot was actually something quite different.Prior to IBM's introduction of the Boot Manager for OS/2, it had special code for allowing DOS and OS/2 to coexist on the same disk. I don't recall all of the details, but it included renaming files when switching between the two systems. Needless to say, nobody used it once Boot Manager was available. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz (talk) 23:04, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Dual booting, as it is understood outside of the peculiar jargon used in OS/2 is the special case of "multibooting" where you have exactly two operating systems to choose from; just like it says in the article. (besides, your description exactly matches the description of dual booting described in the article).80.162.60.16 (talk) 23:54, 9 December 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: No, my description of dual boot does not match that in the article, which describes it as a special case of multi-boot. The article describes selecting, e.g., a drive, partition, logical drive, not renaming files or otherwise modifying the contents of files on the boot drive. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 19:39, 12 December 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dual boot is not multiboot 

message: I would like to propose that this article be merged with the booting article with a possible redirect from multibooting (and dual booting) to the booting article.
The reason I think this is a good idea is that the booting concept is described in the booting article and multibooting is just a special case of the booting concept (booting is booting an operating systems, multibooting is booting an operating system from a selection of such).
80.162.60.16 (talk) 23:58, 9 December 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Concur. I also suggest that the text distinguish between dual boot schemes tied into particular operating systems, e.g., the Dual Boot feature of OS/2, and generic multi-boot setups where there happen to be exactly two operating system, e.g., grub, lilo, OS/2 Boot Manager. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 17:57, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merge with booting 

message: The following 2 sentences use the past tense. Why?
1)Multi-booting allowed a new operating system to configure all applications needed, and migrate data before removing the old operating system, if desired.
2)Multi-booting was also used by software developers where multiple operating systems were required for development or testing purposes. Having these systems on one machine was a way to reduce hardware costs.
Too Old (talk) 04:28, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why the past tense? 

message: The article currently discusses only booting from an MBR disk. I believe that if GPT hasn't already overtaken MBR it soon will, and that the article should discuss booting a GPT disk from the ESP. -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 17:46, 28 February 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  GPT-UEFI