Using NT Loader to Boot Multiple OSes

J. David Bryan's Direct Boot Into WinNT/Win95/DOS describes how to let NT's boot loader boot both DOS and Windows 95 directly (instead of having to opt for Windows 95, and then choose DOS from the Win95 menu). The method involves creating copies of the other OS' boot sector files, then making references to them in boot.ini.

The above page assumes you've already got DOS and Windows 95 installed alongside NT, though (and thus assumes that you've got your C drive formatted FAT).

A similar method is described in Multiple OS Booting Using Windows NT Loader, except there are many OSes involved.

There is a freeware program, Gilles Vollant's BOOTPART, which handles the boot sector files for you (and the references in boot.ini). Vollant's page also gives examples of booting various OSes using NT's boot loader.

Note that in all the above pages, however, your first partition is assumed/recommended to be formatted FAT. This isn't necessarily bad, although many NT users are avant fans of NTFS and don't have FAT partitions! Furthermore, since NTFS isn't a disk hog, many users may have only one partition per hard disk.

When C is NTFS

JD Bryan has another method, however, that's worth the read because it should work with any OS that doesn't recognize NTFS: Dual-booting Windows NT and DOS/Win95 When C: Is NTFS. It works because with NT's windisk program (Disk Administrator), you can mark more than one partition active, and therefore install DOS or Windows 95 directly to the first FAT partition on the disk. (Of course, there are more steps involved, but not that many!)

I'm not sure how this method would work with Linux, since it sees the NTFS partition as an OS/2 volume, whereas DOS simply ignores the NTFS partition.

...and you only have one partition!
3rd Party Utilities

If you have only one partition, you'd usually have a problem because you can't manipulate the partition on which NT's system files are installed (without using the Setup disks... ie, re-formatting). However, there are partitioning utilties on the market that can work wonders, and if you really want to avoid re-formatting your entire drive just to get some free space for more partitions, you might want to look into such an option.