multiple booting

[desidud]

hi,

i tried to had Win98,2000,xp,2003 as my multiple boot. started with win98 but when it came to "installing hardware compnents' part with some 8 mins remaining it showed this 'your multi-funtional device (Standard Dual PC IDE controller) has some child device using 32-bit drivers and other using compatibility mode drivers. This configuration is not supported, so your computer has been halted to prevent corruption"

i m having 160GB SATA HD,AMD athlon dual core

then i had win2000, XP & server 2003 running successfully as my multiple boot option installed on different drive. with drive C as my active partition having win2000 in it.

i tried to install vista with DVD ROM as 1st boot device but it kept showing error some file/driver missing windows\system32\drivers\fltmgr.sys

i tried to install vista after booting with XP. installation started but after copying files PC restarted n then nothing happened...blank screen, not even the multiple boot options anymore.

i reformatted my HD, installed XP & then successfully installed Vista but then i installed win2000 & woof! Vista was gone from boot option though the files were there in the drive but now i had XP & 2000 as boot option.

is it possible to have all 4 as multiple boot option? if yes then whats the proper order of installation? if no then which all Windows OS can co-exist with Vista as part of multiple boot.

have few more queries regarding multiple booting with linux but later


looking forward to answers,
regards.

 

[Zoron]

Never install an older version of Windows after you've got a newer one installed... you start with the oldest first, then work your way up to the newest.

I do have to ask, though... why would you want this? Drivers are no longer provided for Windows 98 or 2000 on new hardware... so you're shooting yourself in the foot. Win98 won't even utilize your dual-core and you'll probably have a hard time installing it... if you can get it to install at all.

Windows 2000... again, probably more a waste of time than anything else.

You'd be better off sticking with XP, Server 2003 and Vista. Not sure why you want Server 2003, but to each his own, I suppose. Install XP first, then Server 2003 and finally Vista.