New DAW triple boot?

So if you use grub to boot, you'll be able to boot from one Windows or Linux install or another... that's not really a problem. A separate boot manager will do the job as well. Use whichever is easiest for you.

I do, however, have a couple of questions before going further:
1. What do you mean by "all hidden from each other."? Windows doesn't natively support ext2 or ext3, for example, and generally will only show you those (Linux) partitions in the Device Manager Hard Drive view. Linux only "sees" hard drives that are mounted... different distros default to mounting FAT16, FAT32 and NTFS in different ways, or not at all, but in any case, you can configure all of the to NOT mount the Windows partitions, and they won't show up without manually mounting them. "Visibility" has nothing to do with booting, to my knowledge... grub doesn't control this... mounting the devices does.
2. Which Linux distro are you using, or planning to use?
3. Why are you going to use 2 Windows installs alongside a Linux install? Just curious, but if it's to surf the web, you could just use Linux for that... Is it for games?

Anyway, hope this helps some.
I would suggest that this question is probably better suited for a more OS technical forum, or some of the Linux forums around. Gentoo has a pretty good wiki, and lots of documentation, as does Ubuntu... those guys might can give you a more specific answer.

ORIGINAL: ChrisMyhre

Alright I have a new computer on the way, unfortunately I can't afford a dedicated DAW so this will need to run XP as well as at least 1 Linux OS. I would like to have 2 XP installs as well as the Linux one, all hidden from each other. Would it be possible to use GRUB to hide the XP installations from eachother or should I purchase some boot manager such as OSL2000? The plan so far is 3 small partitions on hard drive 1 for each os, then use the rest of the drive for samples (DKFHSuperior mostly) and other files and use the second hard drive for project files only. Any comments or advice would be appreciated.

In addition to some of the other ideas presented, here is how I'd go about it.

1) Install a removable drive bay for all of your drives. I've got a couple of machines that are setup that way (one with 2 removable drive bays, another with 3). But for this explanation, let's just say you have 2 - the top one will be your OS drive and the bottom will be your auxillary drive (i.e. audio, samples, whatever). And we'll also say you just want Linux and Windows XP (2 different OS installations).

2) Get 3 hard drives. That may sound expensive, but hard drives are pretty cheap for what you get. And get a few extra trays that go into those removeable hard drive bays.

Drive 1: OS 1 (i.e. Linux)
Drive 2: OS 2 (i.e. Windows XP)
Drive 3: Non-OS - for other stuff like audio.
Drive 4: CD/DVD drive (always installed, setup as Secondary Master if using IDE)

3) Insert Drive 1 into the top bays. Install Linux on it and get it setup just like you want it. Shut down the machine, then physically remove it.

4) Insert Drive 2 into the top bay. Install Windows XP on it and get it setup just like you want it. Shut down the machine then physically remove it.

Talk about true isolation! If you really don't want each of the OS's to see each other, this is probably the easiest way to ensure that on one machine. It does cost a little more and it does require a shut-down, 5-second swap and restart to make the change. But its been bullet-proof for me.

So, if somehow a super-nasty virus creeped into your Windows XP, there is absolutely no way it could somehow format/corrupt/etc any of the data on your Linux setup - becuase it would not be physically connected at the same time.

The removable drive bays I bought were $24 at Microcenter, with a quiet fan and work great for my needs.

Maybe not your cup of tea, but still, hope that helps someone,
Randy