Trying the Ultimate Dual Boot

I really hope this works…

So I’ve decided to go ahead with the dual boot setup, but with a twist (more on that twist later).

For my Windows install, I’m going with Windows XP Pro x64 Edition. I purchased my copy shortly after release back in 2005, and I’ve never had it installed more than a few hours at a time. It was actually released on my Birthday in 2005, and my purchase of it was to really “set-off” my shiny new Athlon64 system I’d built myself as a birthday present. I really didn’t know much about x64 technology at the time, and I had no clue what I was in for. I never did (at that time) get all of the hardware on that system working in XP x64, and it was that incident that started me really running Linux full-time (no dual-boot) since I wanted a x86_64 OS on my machine.

I really do think that XP x64 is an underrated OS - sure, it had a rocky start (it was way before it’s time), however times have changed, and there are plenty of x64 drivers, and tons of x64 native Windows software available. All of my hardware has drivers specifically for Windows XP x64, so I shouldn’t run into any compatibility issues at all. An interesting side-note for those who do not know, is that Windows XP Pro x64 Edition isn’t really Windows XP at all - it’s actually NT 5.2, which means it’s based from the 2003 Server code base. It’s a very solid and stable system.

Now, for the dual boot twist

I’ve never tried this before, but it seems like it should work in theory given the portability of Linux. What I’ve done at this point:

I’ve only got my 320GB SATA HDD connected to the machine right now, and XP x64 is installing. Once it is complete, I am going to shut down, disconnect that drive, and connect my 120GB PATA drive, and then Install Debian 5.0 (Lenny) with KDE 3.5 as the DE. I’m going to then go ahead and connect all of my drives, and boot into Windows (I shouldn’t see GRUB, Windows should just load).

Once in Windows, I can go ahead and format my 250GB drive for Data storage, and I can go download and install VirtualBox. VirtualBox allows using a Physical Disk as it’s drive for a Guest OS rather than an Image file if you choose, so I can create a Debian “Guest” in VirtualBox which can be booted either in VirtualBox from within Windows, or I can reboot and “Press F12 to Select Boot Device” to boot into that Debian install as a native instance.

Wish me luck!

EDIT: It worked with a modified plan. The follow-up to this post is here.