Multiple OS Booting Using Windows NT Loader Introduction Sean Edmison
The Ultimate System
We are all in the search of the 'ultimate system'--the ultimate hardware, the ultimate software--and the ultimate OS to run it on.
Unfortunately, although there are many Operating Systems out there, none quite fit that billing, or have the innate capabilities, to do everything we want. So we compromise: DOS and Windows 3.x for compatibility with older, grumpier software, and for when Windows 95 runs into those version 1.0 bugs; Windows 95/98 itself to work with the rest of the population, and for better performance than DOS and Windows 3.x; Linux, or other versions of Unix, for networking and keeping up with the Unix/Internet crowd; and NT, if you can cope with it, for security and robustness. The list goes on...
Everyone would like to be able to be knowledgeable in wider fields, to be able to say, 'Well, that's very impressive, but of course I run EIGHT Operating Systems on my PC.', whenever computers come up in conversation. Everyone would like to be regarded with awe by those who think a mouse is a small, gray furry mammal, and to be able to toss around phrases like 'system slowed' and 'zombie children floating in the pipe again', and to actually know what it means when no one else does.
The best part of it all, of course, is waiting until someone gets a 'fatal error'...and when asked about it to blanch and say, 'OK, don't panic, move away from the computer, really, really slowly.'
Operating Systems are starting to become as hot a topic of contention as politics and religion, but there is still no single 'perfect operating system.' However, there is no reason not to use the right OS for the right job. Therefore, it makes sense to have as many operating systems as it takes for you to be able to function completely. We hope that this reference will get you one step closer to allowing you do that.
We will show you how to boot directly into each of these operating systems using the Windows NT boot loader (note that this procedure will not work with NT versions prior to 3.51). If you want to dual boot with OS/2, you must use 3.51 because HPFS has been dropped from NT4. Specifically, one can boot directly into DOS without going through Windows 95/98 from the NT multiboot menu. In fact, other operating systems (apart from OS/2) can be added to this procedure given an understanding of the way the particular boot sequence works for the operating system.
My System
I have Windows NT 4.0 Workstation, Windows 95, DOS 6.22 (with Windows 3.11, though this does not matter), and Slackware Linux 1.2.13. I installed DOS first, then Windows 95, then NT, and then Linux, though I'll attempt to explain how to "insert" another operating system so that you can do this in an arbitrary order. What is central here is the NT boot loader; this won't work without Windows NT 3.51 (or above) and its boot loader.
My primary (bootable) partition is the first partition of the first hard drive (this is drive C:) which is FAT. I have each system on a separate partition, though this is not necessary--it is just easier for me to remember what's what and easier to backup and restore files in case of emergencies.
Drive C: therefore contains all of the startup files for all operating systems. A listing of all files (including hidden files) should contain at least the following NT system startup files:
BOOTSECT.DOS
BOOT.INI
NTDETECT.COM
NTLDR
If you have Windows 95 installed, then you should also have the following files if DOS was booted more recently than Win95:
IO.SYS
MSDOS.SYS
MSDOS.W40
WINBOOT.SYS
or the following files if Win95 was booted more recently than DOS:
IO.DOS
IO.SYS
MSDOS.DOS
MSDOS.SYS
If you have not installed Windows 95 yet, then you should just have the following DOS files:
IO.SYS
MSDOS.SYS
Finally, I have a Linux boot sector file that points to the volume on which I have installed Linux (with LILO):
