Reinstalling

[garynewport]

Okay, I am assuming from the 58 views but 1 reply to my earlier post that few have any idea what the hell has gone on.

Anyhow, I have resided myself to a complete reinstall of everything (not that drastic since none of the systems were that complete anyway).

Question is though, I need to have Windows XP as one platform, want to check out Windows 7 for work and general usage and would like to explore Linux a little.

Should I:

1. Use the BIOS to low level format the offending drive
2. Install Linux first, partitioning the drive as necessary
3. Install Windows XP next
4. Finally install Windows 7

These last two steps are a given; it is where Linux fits in that concerns me.

[bigtomrodney]

You'll be best off if you install Linux last. Windows won't detect Linux, but Linux will detect Windows. I'd install XP first (NT Bootloader), then Windows 7 (Vista style bootloader) and finally Linux which will likely use Grub and work with all.

[garynewport]

My only concern is that this is exactly what I did before.

Oh well, I'll try again.

[oz]

Question is though, I need to have Windows XP as one platform, want to check out Windows 7 for work and general usage and would like to explore Linux a little.

Welcome to the forums!

The best way to merely check out Linux is probably by running it from a liveCD format. Doing it that way, you wouldn't need to worry about any partitions for Linux until you've decided what distro you'll be going with. You could certainly check out more distros in a shorter period of time by doing this.

Should you be interested in trying some liveCDs, you can find a comprehensive listing of them here:

The LiveCD List

Otherwise, what BigTom recommended should work, so best of luck with it either way.

[KingX]

My only concern is that this is exactly what I did before.

Oh well, I'll try again.

What problems did you run into the first time you tried installing XP/Win7/Linux?

[garynewport]

Please see my post at debian-linux-help/148290-missing-os.html

I have now reinstalled XP and will soon do Windows 7. I had to delete all partitions to get this working so something quite wild happened here.

Annoyingly one drive (formerly a system drive and retaining a flag to this effect) has taken on the label of c drive, so my root drive is now e. Only annoying and only because I like order.