Hello Bruce,
thanks for the suggestion. But in order to do this I would need to
remove the perfectly working Windows XP and Windows 7 systems to do
this which would be a pity.
No, not really. From your post I thought you you were working with a blank
HD. Try this:
P ntfs 300 GB Windows XP SP3 32 Bit
P ntfs 300 GB Windows 7 32 Bit
P ext2 100 MB /boot
E
L swap 2 GB Linux swap
L ext4 250 GB Ubuntu Linux 9.10 (Karmic) 32 Bit
L ntfs 1100 GB data (for data exchange and storage)
L ext4 48 GB spare space for testing of new OSes
I like to use the first partition as /boot, but there is no requirement to do
that. I think you can use a logical partition too, but I'm not 100% sure.
GRUB normally uses a BIOS call as a part of its internal process. The
extended call is defined for up to 2^48 sectors. That is far larger than any
disk available today. Any limitation, if it exists, is in the BIOS.