What you can do is single boot then run your choosen OS on your "host" as "guest". ( OS not as a boot option, but as an app. )
You could have xp, win2000, Linux, freebsd, solaris, etc etc. Get a big hard drive, healthy amount of ram and run a virtualisation program.
Look at free options VMWare player or VirtualBox or QEMU.
No doubt others, but those are free to have a bash at, pay for something more later.
http://www.vmware.com/
http://www.vmware.com/download/player/
http://www.vmware.com/appliances/
http://www.virtualbox.org/
http://fabrice.bellard.free.fr/qemu/