Perhaps my failure to triple boot, has to do with my use of Bootcamp, and/or my ignorance of the boot process.
I have valid and authentic cd's of both windows systems, and I have used the XP disc before with no issues when it was just a dual boot. I decided to go with a clean install of W7, and removed the XP OS.
Now I decided to try having a triple boot mac.
1) I have successfully loaded W7 Home edition using bootcamp. The system had no issues.
2) I made a 20 GB unallocated partition in W7 for XP Pro/SP3. Shut it down and restarted with the XP disc (using the "Option" key and selecting the disc).
3) XP seemed to fully install and I had the XP disc format the unallocated partition as NTSF. But at the very end of the installation when it read "Press any key to restart", I got the message "Windows could not start because of a computer disk hardware configuration problem". So XP would never re-start.
4) Checking the partioned files while in W7, the unallocated volume was successfully formated by XP as NTSF and it looks like a heck of a lot, if not all of the XP files are there.
5) I did this several times of wiping out the partition and going through the process with no successful restart of XP. The windows files and format appeared in the new partition, but no boot. No success restart of XP after installation, to be more precise.
I even used BCDedit while in W7, and added the XP to the boot ladder. I was able to get a dual boot screen in windows, and anytime I chose Windows XP I got the message "Windows could not start because of a computer disk hardware configuration problem".
So is it because of Bootcamp? I just thought that as long as I was in Windows I could create a seperate dual boot.
I know that virtualization is an option, but my preference is not to go that route and keep the OS's on a seperate platform.
In the end I can live without XP, but I thought it would be nice to have all three systems, so I gave it a try and became more and more obsessed with trying to get it to work.........LOL. I know that none of you have been in that obsessed mode before.
Thanks for reading this long post and your thoughts and comments are appreciated.
Happy Holidays
I have valid and authentic cd's of both windows systems, and I have used the XP disc before with no issues when it was just a dual boot. I decided to go with a clean install of W7, and removed the XP OS.
Now I decided to try having a triple boot mac.
1) I have successfully loaded W7 Home edition using bootcamp. The system had no issues.
2) I made a 20 GB unallocated partition in W7 for XP Pro/SP3. Shut it down and restarted with the XP disc (using the "Option" key and selecting the disc).
3) XP seemed to fully install and I had the XP disc format the unallocated partition as NTSF. But at the very end of the installation when it read "Press any key to restart", I got the message "Windows could not start because of a computer disk hardware configuration problem". So XP would never re-start.
4) Checking the partioned files while in W7, the unallocated volume was successfully formated by XP as NTSF and it looks like a heck of a lot, if not all of the XP files are there.
5) I did this several times of wiping out the partition and going through the process with no successful restart of XP. The windows files and format appeared in the new partition, but no boot. No success restart of XP after installation, to be more precise.
I even used BCDedit while in W7, and added the XP to the boot ladder. I was able to get a dual boot screen in windows, and anytime I chose Windows XP I got the message "Windows could not start because of a computer disk hardware configuration problem".
So is it because of Bootcamp? I just thought that as long as I was in Windows I could create a seperate dual boot.
I know that virtualization is an option, but my preference is not to go that route and keep the OS's on a seperate platform.
In the end I can live without XP, but I thought it would be nice to have all three systems, so I gave it a try and became more and more obsessed with trying to get it to work.........LOL. I know that none of you have been in that obsessed mode before.
Thanks for reading this long post and your thoughts and comments are appreciated.
Happy Holidays