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I have already Dual booted my laptop with windows 10 and Ubuntu 15.10, now I want to add windows XP, and triple boot it. How should I do it ?

Shyam Zawar
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Well, there are a few different ways you can go about doing this, but the idea is to create a new partition on your primary hard drive, then install Windows XP to that partition. There are many partitioning tools, but GParted for Linux is free and works very well. There are many online resources that explain the ins and outs of GParted, so I won't provide a complete user manual here.

The partition you create for Windows XP should either be fat32 or NTFS. Once you have a working new partition, boot from the install disc / USB, or whatever contains your Windows XP Installation Image. When it asks you where you want to install Windows XP, select the new partition, and wait for the install to complete.

In theory, it should be as simple as that. Your BIOS should show as many bootable partitions as are active and available when you enter the boot device options menu.

Alternatively, you can reinstall your Ubuntu to a bootable USB drive, then have your two Windows installs on your primary. I have never heard of anyone installing Windows on a removable USB, but I'm sure there's a way. That being said, Linux is particularly portable-drive-friendly, so if you choose to use an external / portable drive, this would probably be the best configuration. In addition, this gives you a portable OS you can take anywhere and boot on almost any machine.

I hope this helps.

Adam Hayes
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  • Yeah, right, but each time I reboot my machine, I don't have an option to select to boot from my bootable usb drive – Shyam Zawar Feb 27 '16 at 05:54
  • You should be able to set the boot order manually depending on your BIOS/UEFI. On my laptop, you just press f9 at the boot menu to get to the boot options screen. From there, you select your USB drive.

    Is it an older laptop?

     – Adam Hayes Feb 27 '16 at 07:19
  • No, it's Dell Inspiron 15 5000 series Laptop with i7 5th gen, and 8gb RAM, in my boot menu, I am getting only following options Even when I have inserted my bootable USB/CD : **1. Ubuntu

    1. Windows

    2. UEFI......something*

    When I select this uefi option, My laptop boots in windows 10 only

     – Shyam Zawar Feb 28 '16 at 05:58
  • At the screen where it says 'DELL,' after you first hit the power button to turn on the laptop, you should be able to spam 'F8' or 'F12' (it will tell you) to access the boot options menu. You need to do this very quickly, which is why I reccommend spamming it repeatedly as the boot screen appears. From there, you should be able to change the boot order and/or select the USB drive to boot from. – Adam Hayes Feb 28 '16 at 11:40