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Goal: add Windows XP (32-bit) bootable partition to an existing dual boot system. Ghost or clonezilla (preferable) the image of a XP desktop to the third parition.

  1. Is this possible? (assume XP drivers for the target PC are available)
  2. Is there a term \ word for ghosting a system into a multi-boot partion?
  3. Is there a good example (link \ video \ procdure) on the web?

If you have experience performing this task, please state this and the details (context) of the initial state and outcomes. Any lessons learned and pitfalls to avoid are appreciated: thank you

UPDATES

The insightful comments are appreciated: thank you. The reason to avoid XP in a VM is that it running a computationally intensive algorithm and speed is important. Target system does not use UEFI. The task the XP drive performs takes hours on a 3Ghz desktop

gatorback
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    Just run XP in a VM. It has so many security holes nowadays, (hasn't been patched since April 2013) it's not even funny. – You'reAGitForNotUsingGit Mar 06 '17 at 13:03
  • You amended your question. The answer is here. Just leave out the VM part. All the other part is in reference to booting directly to the XP partition. Did you test it? – L. D. James Mar 06 '17 at 18:36
  • I am at the stage of gathering information to decide the best course of action. I am considering multi-boot (risky, but convenient), hard drive swap (inconvenient) and now VM (slow, but convenient). The task the XP drive performs takes hours on a 3Ghz desktop – gatorback Mar 06 '17 at 18:49
  • Do you have space for two hard drives in your computer? – L. D. James Mar 06 '17 at 19:00
  • You have to use a primary NTFS partition with the boot flag. Otherwise it installs boot files into the primary partition that has boot flag. But if that is Vista or later, it uses different boot files. To get each MS to have its own boot loader make a second primary NTFS partition and set its boot flag on, then install the 2nd product in it. Multibooters, Pictures here worth 1000+ words - Vista but all Windows with BIOS/MBR http://www.multibooters.com/guides/visual-guide-to-the-boot-sequence.html http://www.multibooters.co.uk/multiboot.html – oldfred Mar 06 '17 at 19:51

1 Answers1

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It's workable. The Ghost is an image backup/restore system. You can backup a partition and restore it to a different disk or partition. Restoring the OS to a partition is similar to installing the OS on a different partition.

The integration to Grub is the same as before. When you have multiple drives and partitions with different Operating Systems on the drives, run grub-update to add the other OS's to the grub menu.

$ sudo update-grub

Windows XP has some limitations. You may have to perform some special considerations to accommodate those limitations. You may have to boot legacy to ensure the migration. It may have other problems such as being limited to only primary partitions.

Only Windows XP 64-bit editions are supported on GPT partitions. I believe XP also has a problem with LVM partitions.

Windows XP was designed during the era of substantially lower performance hardware. With this in mind, you might consider running XP as a VM and get basically the same performance it had when it was released.

L. D. James
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  • excellent comments. Please consider adding hyperlinks to recommend any URLS that clarify in-depth the issues \ special considerations. Is it the intent of the last sentence that a VM will have the practically (within 10%) the same performance as running without the VM? – gatorback Mar 06 '17 at 18:46
  • Running Windows XP in a VM will run Windows XP using recent hardware will run Windows XP just as with higher performance than the hardware it was designed for 15 years ago. But as you mentioned running outside of a VM would have added performance. There isn't any anything special that needs to be done. Just backup the partition of the XP installation to a partition on your current drive. Then as in the answer run the single command sudo update-grub. Then boot. It's seamless and would just work. – L. D. James Mar 06 '17 at 18:57
  • @gatorback By the way Clonezilla is probably a better way to go for your copying/backingup of the partitions since you are working in the Ubuntu community. I didn't suggest it originally because it appeared from your question you were more familiar with Ghost. The link in this comment will take you to the download page of the Clonezilla Live USB. It has an interactive mode for selecting the source and destination drive or partition. – L. D. James Mar 06 '17 at 19:10
  • @L.D.James dd will work just as well in the right hands (or with the appropriate guidance) No need to download Clonezilla. Any live ubuntu media has the required tools to do this. – Elder Geek Mar 07 '17 at 16:33
  • @ElderGeek You're right. I use dd all the time and find it the about the best. I didn't include it in my answer because of the extreme novice level that the question suggests. I'll mark this answer to revisit and provide details of using dd in a fairly safe way. I have seen a few messages from users trying to recover from a dd session. Gnome-disk is another method. I'll most likely update the answer with the GUI of Gnome-disk steps first. – L. D. James Mar 08 '17 at 18:45
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    @L.D.James Good thinking. Disks is another alternative. I look at dd like a scalpel, highly effective in the hands of a surgeon but highly dangerous in the wrong hands. ;-) – Elder Geek Mar 08 '17 at 19:36