Vista - Hypothetical triple boot XP, Vista ,OS 10.5.1

good country to live in....

Yes, you'll need to note which HD is which number so you'll know which OS is installed on it, nd when booting you'll manually select which one. Again, though, this is only one (and not necessarily the most convenient) way to do this.

Honestly, for sake of ease, I'd go with the boot manager - search for tutorials on triple booting Vista XP and Linux and follow those. Just remember that OS-X may have some surprises in store for you, so be careful what and how you do it.

I found this forum.... Mac OS X - NeoSmart Technologies Wiki with couple of statements which are very encouraging

1. Install OS X to a primary partition on your PC. Assuming you have the legitimate Dev Preview kit with the official OS X x86 DVD, just stick it in the drive and follow the on-screen prompts.
2. Once OS X has finished installing, the Darwin bootloader should load up OS X for the first time. It should give you an "Other" option to boot into Windows Vista.
3. Select "Other" and start Windows Vista.
4. Fire-up EasyBCD, and go to the "Bootloader Management" screen.
5. Follow the instructions here to re-install the Vista bootloader.
6. Read the next section for info on how to add OS X to the Vista bootloader.
   

If these are true, my hypothetical will be smooth sailing, or I can even use Darwin bootloader

Anyone please

hypothetically speaking what I would do is disconnect the drives other than the new one.

install your OS onto the new drive as an independant system. when all is ok with the new install reconnect the other drives and set the vista drive as the default drive.

once in vista you can use BCDedit to setup the bootloader from there following part 2 of the guide you quote.

at least doing it this way you can always disconnect the new drive and get back to where you started from. and should be able to use the bios switch method if all else fails.

must add that this is not something I have any direct experience of but this way is as safe a way as I can think of

How do I do that part?... In Vistas disk management vistas drive is shown as disk1....

Thanks

If you physically disconnect the data cable and power to the two existing drives the new install will only see one drive, the new one, so whatever happens with the new install the existing systems are safe.

You should be able to set your BIOS to boot from any of the drives available once you have re-connected all three if you set your vista drive to boot first the result is the same as just having the vista drive in the computer. if you set it to boot from the mac drive then the same applies. it's what happens when the drive boots that is affected by the multiboot setup.

the link included above is the wikipedia entry for bios and goes from very basic to (via links) as advanced as you could ever want.
If the above is too basic I apologise

your Motherboard manual should give you all you need to achive a manual multiboot system look under boot order or something similar. if you haven't got a manual goto the M/B manufacturers site and download one.


All the above is of course hypothetical

I know, and I have seen what you are writing about but I could not see it in my MB manual...
If I was to provide you with the link of my motherboard model and manual, woudl you be able to look at it and advice where I need to go to achieve above?

if you post or PM me the link I'll Have a look.

first thing to do in bios is turn off the BOOT LOGO ( if enabled) so you can see the boot process

Man
I owe a lot to you....
Here is a link MSI -- MICRO-STAR INT'L CO., LTD.

I know how to turn off boot logo........... I think