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I'm new to the multi-boot world, as i used to rely on virtualizing for running linux. Recently i moved to Dual booting Windows 7 and Ubuntu, with a storage partition for all my files where both operating systems could access them.

Is it possible, to have 1 partition for 7, another for XP, another for Ubuntu, and a separate partition where the OS's can access my files? so 4 partitions on my hdd.

and if there's a better way to go about this (or if its not possible), please let me know!

thanks

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it's definitely Possible.. NTFS can be accessed from 7 and XP. So you need a tool to read the data partition from Ubuntu

use neosmart easybcd .. That's a very good software for creating multiple list of bootloaders

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No (big) problem...

I'm not sure that 4 partitions is enough though, it is likely that your Ubuntu install uses two partitions, one for Ubuntu itself and one swap partition (similar(ish) to the Windows swap file pagefile.sys but on its own partition). So you probably already have 4 partitions; Windows 7, Ubuntu, Ubuntu swap and data.

This could cause you a bit of a problem because Windows likes to install itself into a Primary partition, and you are only allowed four of those on your hard disk, and if you want to use more than four partitions, one of those four has to be an "extended" partition, basically a container for all the others.

So you need partitions something like:

  1. partition 1 - Windows 7
  2. partition 2 - Windows XP
  3. partition 3 - Ubuntu (system)
  4. partition 4 - Extended

  5. partition 5 - Swap (Ubuntu) (part of partition 4)

  6. partition 6 - data (part of partition 4)

I would partition the two Windows partitions and the data partition as NTFS, Ubuntu will read and write from NTFS partitions quite happily.

How you go about resizing / moving what you have, and how to install XP without making a mess of your current booting scheme depends on how you are currently set up.

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