though it'll take forever to bring everything back.

I messed something up on my last build and apparently both of my HDs have Windows info on them, because I get a boot menu with two options- XP Pro and XP Pro.

Now that I have Windows 7 installed, I can't boot into it..only have two options for XP. I'm tempted to nuke everything and triboot with Linux, XP and 7. What's the best/easiest way to do this? I haven't played with Linux in a long time..

Boot from the Windows 7 DVD, go into recovery console and type fixboot c: (assuming c: is the first partition on the first drive, make sure you select the right one or else this won't have any effect), that should make the boot menu work for Windows 7.

If it breaks your ability to boot back into XP, use the EasyBCD tool (google for it) to add XP back into the list.

Here's how I triboot though, but I have to REDO IT every time I boot from a Windows DVD since it screws up grub, and when you install Windows it screws up existing Windows bootloaders.

I boot from a Windows Vista/7 DVD and use fixboot on every drive with a Windows OS on it.

Then I boot into Vista/7 and use EasyBCD to edit each of the bootloaders I just installed to only boot the OS on that drive, and to not display a boot menu (well I set it to like 1 second so I can interrupt it if needed).

You can also copy bcdedit.exe from the boot dvd or from EasyBCD to Drive:\Boot (that's what I do). It's a command line tool and I think it even runs on XP. But it is more difficult to use.

bcdedit mounts the BCD file as a registry hive, so you COULD try manipulating it directly, but I wouldn't recommend it. (It looks like Windows 7 mounts the hive automatically on the desktop now.)

Anyway once I have the bootloaders configured, then it's time to install grub (or lilo, but I haven't tried lilo).

I boot Ubuntu Live CD and install grub into the MBR (Windows bootloaders live in the partition BRs, not the MBR) and then add entries for each Windows OS, telling it to chainload to each of the bootloaders I installed earlier.

Thanks- downloaded EasyBCD..will try Windows 7 again.

If I were to start over again, should I install Linux first, then XP and Windows 7?

Do 7 second so you get its bootloader installed on the first partition (then use the DVD to install the bootloader on the other windows ones). Do Linux last, so you can set up grub at the same time.

I just booted into Linux off the Live CD- it doesn't recognize my wireless card...so I'll have to do some driver hunting if I pursue it.

This guy had no problems with the same card that I have..maybe because I ran from the CD and didn't install the OS, it wouldn't work?