Overview and General Ranting

Getting around the 4 Primary Partition Limit on a single disk

PCs have a limit of only allowing 4 usable primary partitions per hard disk. However, new freeware and shareware boot manager software are now using tricks to get around this which can be very useful for software developers (requiring multiple operating systems for testing on a single PC: DOS 6.2, Win95, Win98, WinNT 3.5, WinNT 4.0, Windows 2000, SuSE Linux, Redhat Linux 6.0, Redhat Linux 6.2, etc). These boot managers can also getting around the limits within which a bootable partition normally had to reside in. Plus they can also have extra features such as passwords per each partition, etc (e.g., using the GPL'd Extended Operating System Loader (XOSL)). This can be useful if you are working at home and wish to restrict kids from messing with your work Operating system while they are free to play with other parts of the PC for games.

The following tutorials use the Freeware/Shareware Ranish Partition Manager (RPM) as this software is a work of genius, is friendly to use, and gives maximum flexibility. It is not only a partition manager but also quite a nice and flexible "boot manager".

The other software used is the GPL'd freely available GUI based Extended Operating System Loader (XOSL) boot manager which also incorporates the Ranish Partition Manager (RPM) and can boot 24 "boot items".

Relevant links:

• Ranish Partition Manager (RPM)
  • Main Homepage: http://www.users.intercom.com/~ranish/part/

  • Ranish FAQ: http://www.users.intercom.com/~ranish/part/faq.htm#nt_inst

• "The REAL Multi-boot"
  • Tutorials on using shareware/freeware Ranish Partition boot manager and partition manager to get around the 4 Primary Partition limit with PC
  • At http://members.tripod.it/Trombettworks/multi-boot.htm

• Extended Operating System Loader (XOSL) Boot Manager - GPL'd by Geurt Vos
  • Gui and user friendly boot loader: Up to 24 boot items
  • At http://www.xosl.org/

Various Install options for > 4 OS Multiboot PCs

Ranish Partition Manager

• Read the tricks/kludges for making Ranish partition Manager able to boot more than 4 operating systems as part of the tutorial on "The REAL Multi-boot"
  • At http://members.tripod.it/Trombettworks/multi-boot.htm

Ranish Partition Manager (RPM) and the GUI based Extended Operating System Loader (XOSL)

The following is quite contrived as only two operating systems are present (Win95 and Redhat 6.2). (The PC I normally do Multi-OS work with is on temporary loan)

• Download the Extended Operating System Loader (XOSL)

• Download the Ranish Partition Manager (RPM)

• Read and understand the Ranish Partition Manager (RPM) and Extended Operating System Loader (XOSL) documentation.

• Create a DOS or Win95/98 boot floppy and install Ranish Partition Manager onto the floppy disk

• Extract the the Extended Operating System Loader (XOSL) install files onto a blank floppy disk.

• Boot the PC from the floppy disk and use Ranish Partition Manager to set up the first partition as a 4 to 8 Meg partition for the Extended Operating System Loader (XOSL) to sit in. (If you followed the CCP14 tutorials on installing multiboot BSD UNIX or Linux, this 4 to 8 Meg partition will already exist for the previously used Ranish Boot Manager)

• Use Ranish Partition Manager to create the rest of the partitions you want to have. (this can be done later and swapped around). For this demonstration, Windows 95 and Redhat 6.2 Linux were install.

• Insert the Extended Operating System Loader (XOSL) floppy disk and following the following setup of screen images.

• Screen dump: Running the Extended Operating System Loader (XOSL) install program

• Screen dump: Prompt to install Extended Operating System Loader (XOSL)

• Screen dump: Install Extended Operating System Loader (XOSL) on a Dedicated Partition

• Screen dump: XOSL will then probe you hardware and hopefully identify the small partition which should hopefully be selected as default to install into

• Screen dump: Scroll the cursor down to Start Installation and press enter

• Screen dump: XOSL will then install its files onto the Dedicated partition

• Screen dump: Hopefully XOSL will have succeeded. Take out the floppy disk and reboot.

• Screen dump: On reboot, this XOSL GUI Boot Loader screen should appear (hurrah!) - Enter the XOSL Setup

• Screen dump: After enter the XOSL Setup, you should now be given the following screen ready to add your OS partitions,

• Screen dump: In this case, we have Windows 95 and Redhat installed. Add in the Win95 Partition and make it the default boot. This means that Win95 will boot by default unless you press escape during the XOSL screen

• Screen dump: The Windows 95 partition is added with the Partition Label as the default OS description

• Screen dump: Now add the Linux Partition

• Screen dump: Edit a Label for the Linux Partition

• Screen dump: If you wish, setup the XOSL preferences to your liking

• Screen dump: XOSL also gives you password protection options for each partition

• Screen dump: Now Boot in XOSL and all the bootable partitions will be visible

• Screen dump: In this case we are booting into Windows 95

• Screen dump: If you restart the computer, XOSL will give you some time to change the default Operating System you wish to boot into. To do this, Press the ESCAPE button

• Screen dump: Pressing the ESCAPE button will then lead you into the option of selecting which OS you wish to load.