Hi,

I want to set up a multi-boot system on my PC. I think I'm going to try EasyBCD, but how actually easy is this? I want Vista, 2000 and either XP or Ubuntu on this 640gb hdd. I'll have like 20gb (except for vista) for each OS on a seperate partition, and then just have the rest of the space as like one huge program and music thingiemebob.

Only thing is though, my version of Vista (the one that is legal ) is a HP OEM copy, which uses a seperate partition for recovery mode. I have 3 recovery CDs, but is this anything to worry about?

Thanks a lot.

Are you taking about a HP recovery CD or a Home Premium CD?

Its 3 HP recovery discs that reinstall Vista.

Although it seemed to be happy enough when I was dualbooting Ubuntu. :/

I know the ones.

Just delete the recovery partition and vista tools partitions when you've finished.

After expeirence with multi-booting, my best advice would be to install either Vista or Ubuntu and virtualise the rest...

I never found dual booting to be worth the effort.

Agree I always find it causes problems.

Well, this sucks.

I have to install Vista OEM first, as the HP thingie formats the HDD before it wil even attempt to install Vista. So after that I tried installing Windows 2000. Went well, booted into it first time.

So then I downloaded EasyBCD. It found both Vista and Win2k (which were on seperate partitions), so I just followed hat it said and it seemed to work. Restarted after it and was greeted by OS not found. I went ballistic. Luckily I just put the HP discs in again and it fixed the bootloader, but got rid of the 2k partition too.

I know this is cheating, but will my OEM cd key work with a normal copy of Vista? Its just I want to keep my legal key. If I didn't have it then I would be using "legal" alternatives, but needs must. Also, can I rip the HP apps from the CDs? Like I use Power2Go a lot for burning ISOs, and would like stuff like Lighscribe servces and that.

Cheers.

Your OEM key should work with another OEM copy of Vista, it won't work on retail.

You can't strip the HP apps off the install disk as they're only there to restore your HP PC to it's factory state.

Oh I see.

I guess I could just take the HP folder off the HDD, and just plonk it back on when I've reinstalled. But will the copy still be legal, because I thought you had to have a licence file (.xrm-ms) and a OEM file on the PC to use that key. :/

Thanks for the help everyone.

All you need for it to be legal is for it to be the same PC it was sold with