Best & easy dual bootloader 2000-XP-Seven-10

[Cixert]

I am forced to install Windows Seven and 10 on my computer to be able to send documents to the Spanish administration.
I currently have a hard drive with 4 primary partitions:
1-Only bootloader
2-Windows 2000
3-Windows XP
4-data

The best way I can think of to install Seven-10 is with another parallel hard drive, which I'll remove when I boot 2000-XP. The same as when Seven-10 boots I will remove the 2000-XP hard drive.
1-Only bootloader
2-Windows Seven
3-Windows 10
4-data

I don't like the original bootloader of NT6 & 10.
On NT5 it's very easy to edit boot.ini with notepad and fix problems with fixMBR and other commands. While in NT6 all are very difficult problems to solve.
For example, on NT5 I copy and paste boot.ini to any hard drive along with the boot files, select the active partition, and that's it.

So is there a way to replace Windows NT6 booting with such a technically friendly version as boot.ini to allow dual booting of both hard drives?

I read about Lilo and GRUB, but at first glance it seems complicated. They talk about the need for Linux to make modifications.
Is there a bootloader that can be copied and pasted to the active partition as boot.ini?
these loaders replace the cumbersome booting of Windows NT6? It is mainly what I want to eliminate.

Can I install an alternative loader before installing Windows Seven?
I remember that in the old days there were bootloaders that were installed from a floppy disk.

Edited July 19, 2023 by Cixert

[jaclaz]

At least for 7 you can have the bootloader on floppy disk, if you want, still it would be BOOTMGR+BCD.

Windows NT6+ can only be booted by BOOTMGR (or bootmgr.efi in case of EFI BIOS), which corresponds to NTLDR, the issue, as you highlighted, is managing the configuration file which is the BCD, which corresponds to the good ol', plain, boot.ini..

The BCD file is a binary (actually it is a Registry hive) and MS only provides (inconvenient/complex) command line tools to manage it.

You actually need BOOTMGR and BCD, so you might want to look at (third party) tools that allow an easier editing/changing of the BCD.

I can suggest you:

Bootice http://reboot.pro/index.php?showtopic=21956

Bellavista http://www.zezula.net/en/fstools/bellavista.html

Visual BCD Editor https://www.boyans.net/

Lilo won't help you at all.

Grub (now GRUB2) is (IMHO) overly complex, in case you want to make a "bridge" between your current NTLDR+BOOT.INI and the BOOTMGR+BCD of your new installs I suggest you to use grub4dos instead which is much simpler to install (or not install as it can be chainloaded from NTLDR+boot.ini).

jaclaz

[AstroSkipper]

On 7/19/2023 at 3:37 AM, Cixert said:

Can I install an alternative loader before installing Windows Seven?
I remember that in the old days there were bootloaders that were installed from a floppy disk.

I use Boot-US for many years to boot different OSs from different partitions. I don't know if it is what you are looking for. This boot manager can be installed on a floppy disk what I did on my old computers. It has so much features I can't describe here. Maybe, you first have a look here: https://www.boot-us.de/eng/
And here is the full documenatation: https://www.boot-us.de/eng/manual_eng.pdf
You can manage booting of other OSs such as Linux besides Windows partitions, too. Partitions can be simply or truly hidden. It is possible to set exactly which other logical partitions may be seen when booting from a primary partition.

Edited July 22, 2023 by AstroSkipper
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[AstroSkipper]

4 hours ago, AstroSkipper said:

I use Boot-US for many years to boot different OSs from different partitions. I don't know if it is what you are looking for. This boot manager can be installed on a floppy disk what I did on my old computers. It has so much features I can't describe here. Maybe, you first have a look here: https://www.boot-us.de/eng/
And here is the full documenatation: https://www.boot-us.de/eng/manual_eng.pdf
You can manage booting of other OSs such as Linux besides Windows partitions, too. Partitions can be simply or truly hidden. It is possible to set exactly which other logical partitions may be seen when booting from a primary partition.

@Cixert! I should mention that starting with version 4 (latest version is 4.1.3), the boot manager Boot-US also supports booting via UEFI. I personally use the version 3.9.6 which is working perfectly on my computers booting partitions via BIOS. No need to upgrade. The whole package Boot-US (GUI and command-line version) may be used in the non-licensed version on private PCs for free. However, some features are missing such as true hiding of partitions. These features require a licence after 30 days of use, unfortunately. IMHO, Boot-US, developed in Germany, is a great boot manager, which I have been using on my computers since 2005. And I really tried  a lot in the past.

Cheers, AstroSkipper

Edited July 22, 2023 by AstroSkipper
Update of content