Combine 3 operating systems on one drive

I have exactly this setup - no problem. Partition 1 is WinXP, partition 2 Win7 32 and 3 Win7 64 or sometimes Win7 32 or even WinXP. All systems have access to the same data and Win7 32 and WinXP often to the same programs. So I do not have them twice on the disks but you have to install them in every system. Many programs work without install and here no problem at all to use them by different OS.

In respect of software that needs installation you have to make a new install in Win7 32 and a new install in Win7 64. Their is no migration from WinXP to any Win7 or between Win7 32 and Win7 64.

When you have the 3 partitions you have to create with the Win7 CD the boot menu. If you need help let me know. In addition I recommend the freeware EasyBCD to edit it afterwards.

In respect of Win7 install you have 2 options - two partitions (one for boot and one for the system what is standard) or only 1. I have only 1 what makes things easier. But then you cannot use Bitlocker anymore.

Hi John,
Thank you very much for your feed back - you make the point "...new install...". This is what I wanted to avoid, because there a different program versions running under the different OSs...
Background:
Under XP my astronomy programs all work fine i.e. I can connect to my mount, do the focusing or solve my shots with a specific program. If I want to align my ccd shots with ccdstack, then a 64bit OS facilitates the job enomously...
Some of the programs are not adapted to Win7 32/64bit but there is a constant flow of new versions which I can easily test using my harddrives with the Win7 OSs installed (final goal leave XP behind) - the big issue is the swaping of the hard drives during the night in the field, therefore my idea of combining all my OSs on one hard drive (with all the soft installed) using the Acronis soft (True Image Home2011) - in their advertisment (plus pack) they talk about recovery anything to anywhere...I think I have to realize it is just an advertisement...

This was a missunderstanding. I thought you want to make a new setup. But of course you can take the partition backups from your different HDs and store it to 3 different partitions on 1 HD with Acronis. If you want you can make 3 different data partitions there too. No problem. Let me know if I can help.

Your support is very much appreciated!
What I did:
On my XP drive I established 3 additional partitions (using DD 2011) - c: (XP is on this one), d: (now empty, my former data drive), e: (empty, for Win7 32bit), f: (empty, for Win7 64 bit) and g: (data drive). I installed Win7 freshly into the d: drive - no problem, bootloader available, XP and Win7-32 work in parallel.
The next step was a system backup of Win7-32; the XP drive was installed in the notebook; the Win7-32 drive was attached via USB to SATA adapter to the notebook; thebackup was stored on data drive d: of Win7-32 harddrive - perfect!
Then recovery of this backup to the d: partition of the XP drive (over the freshly installed Win7-32) - worked fine, BUT...
a) After booting XP, installations of programs are not longer "valid" i.e. installations take place (i.e. EasyBCD) but if I try to run the prog, I receive an error message...this is true for ALL other installations AFTER I recovered Win7-32 to the d: drive
b) If I boot XP, then c: drive = XP drive and d: drive = Win7-32 drive. If I boot Win7, then c:drive = Win7-32 and d:drive =XP drive (if I remember this correctly)
c) Installations after booting from Win7-32 are "valid" and the progs are running fine...

Something is screwed - or better: supposingly I screwed something in doing the backup of the Win7-32 initially located on a c: drive into the XP-located d: drive?!

Any thougths?

So to sum it up and to find it out if I understand you correctly. The boot to the different OS XP and Win7 works. The installed software on Win7 works. But the software on WinXP does not work - is this correct? All software or only certain programs? What error message do you get? In respect of the drive letters - you write before D was your former data drive for XP now Win7 is on D when you start XP. Why not change the drive letter of Win7 to anything like Z or remove the drive letter at all? Should not your data for XP be on drive D again? You can assign the drive letters to any partition freely as long as it is not C. And it is a good idea not to show OS that are not active - so you avoid virus spread to other OS.

Thanks for your response and your support, John!
Finally I could solve the issue after installing the latest version of True Image Home 2011 (which might have been the reason for the XP issues I observed, see my answers to your questions below)...

What did I do?
I took a hard drive, made 4 partitions (using disk director 11) and installed XP freshly (drive c:).
Then I used WinBCD 2.02 and added one additional boot entry (for Win7-32) to MBR referring to drive d:
Then I did a backup of my Win7-32 hard drive
This backup was then recovered to the foreseen d: partition of the XP drive, then reboot
After selecting Win7-32 in the boot menu, startup sequence was interrupted with an error message that Win7-32 can not be booted due to a problem in the MBR; furthermoe it was stated to insert the original DVD to repair this issue.
I rebooted from my CD/DVD drive with the original Win7-32 disk inserted and entered the repair routine...
After the next reboot, there was an additional entry in my boot menu (as a result of the repair mechanism of the original DVD) ; selecting this entry made my system boot Win7-32; all former installed programs are available and running, no issues so far...
Using WinBCD, I removed the unnecessary entry in the boot menu (which I generated before)

I repeated this work flow for the Win7-64 drive (add a boot entry - backup - now recovery to partition e: - repair using original disk - remove unnecessary entry) and everything was fine!

Concerning your questions:
Yes, boot of XP and Win7 was fine
Yes, progs under Win7 worked ,no issues
Yes, the soft under XP was screwed, giving error messages
Not all progs, but some...
Messages like "...could not start due to missing prog. libraries"

Coming back to my program issue under XP - going the above mentioned path forward, no issues occured with the programs, all is perfectly running.

Good idea to make the unnecessary OS drives invisible

Once again, thank you very much for your support!

Christian, there was no need to install WinXP freshly. Just put the 3 OS on 3 different partitions and then set WinXP as active. Afterwards generate with the Win 7 CD the boot loaders and the menue. Add Win 7 64 partition with EasyBCD and done. So if you want to keep your old WinXP just put it on partition 1 and try it like this.