Beyond the 8GB boundary (i.e. booting beyond it)

[JohnE]

As we all know, OS's expand to fill the disk space allotted to them. This is a particular problem if, like me, you sometimes need to boot your machine into 3 or 4 different OS's. I've always been under the impression that a PC's BIOS can only boot an OS if it starts within the first 8GB of the drive it's on. I remember this from the days of DOS but even Partition Magic warns me not to create partitions starting beyond 8GB (if I intend to install an OS onto them). But is this an old wives tale these days?

All my OS's are Windows. Currently, I have Windows NT, 98, XP and Win2K installed on my system - all squashed itno the first 8GB of my 40GB drive. But is this really necessary? Does anyone have a definitive guide to which OS's (if any) are bootable from beyond the 8GB boundary?