Dual booting is a common solution for needing multiple operating systems for what ever reason. sure you could build or buy another computer.  but then you have setup a KVM or buy another monitor, keyboard, and mouse.  make room for another desk...... you get the idea. with dual or multi booting you can have multiple operating systems on one pc and all use your existing equipment.

Now you may argue that you don't want to reformat your hard drive or buy a new one.  well that's o.k.  you will have to spend a little cash but nothing compared to the cost of hardware. what am I talking about?  Partition managers.  the one I have experience with is power quest's partition magic. power quest is now owned my Symantec but I believe it is the same. with partition magic you can resize, move, create, and delete partitions on your hard drive.

a partition is the defined area on a single hard drive.  think of as going shopping, you could go to one store that has everything (one partition on a drive) or you can go to the mall (separate partitions that can serve different purposes). 

Now that you've decided that dual or multi-booting is right for you lets go over what you will need.

1. Partition Manager (Partition Magic)

2. Boot Loader (Boot Magic)

That's it!!

Please take note that I am recommending boot magic instead of NTLDR that comes with newer versions of windows. If you are planning on only have two dos or windows operating systems then NTLDR will be fine. If you are planning on installing more than two or if one is Linux then you will need to use grub, lilo that come with Linux or use a 3rd party loader such as boot magic. I have not used grub or lilo myself yet so I can not give direction on them but I have found that there is better support and more info for them. Another reason that I do not recommend NTLDR is that documentation on manually configurations is limited. 

I literally spent days trying to make NTLDR work for my needs but after much despair I finally tried boot magic and was done in 15 min after that (o-s install time not included of course).  boot magic is easy to use and no hidden functions or unpublished requirements.

after days of trial and error here is my process for setting up dual booting using PQ's Partition Magic and Boot Magic.

Step 1: install Widows XP

Step 2: install partition manager and boot loader

Step 3: create partition's) for your operating system (s) to be installed (win98 and older needs to have a "primary partition")

Step 4: open Boot Magic configuration

  1. click "add"

  2. check the advanced check box

  3. select the partition that you want to add your new operating system

  4. choose you boot page properties

  5. click "ok"

  6. click "save and exit"

  7. reboot and boot from the installation disk or CD for you NEW operating system

  8. install to the partition that you identified in Boot magic

  9. reboot and select your new o-s from the loader to check the install

Step 5: HAVE FUN!!!

 

 

  
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