[How To] XP + OSX Dual Booting: The Natural Way

[dreamword]

I'm relatively new to the scene, but I got my Hackintosh up and running in just a couple hours last night with a very smooth, simple dual-boot setup. I happen to be a licensed user of both XP Pro and OSX; I expect you are too, and I don't intend in this guide to induce any infringement.

 

Installing on a new box made of OSX-compatible hardware really simplifies matters. My hardware:

 

Asus P5LD2-VM DH

Pentium D 805 2.66GHz oc'd to 3.4 GHz (conservatively for now)

2GB Corsair DDR2-PC5400 RAM

250G WD SATA Hard Drive

Any old DVD-ROM drive

 

(The whole thing, with PS and case, is right around $600 at Newegg right now.)

 

The necessary software:

 

1. An OSX install DVD (mine is Myzar's 10.4.6)

2. A Windows XP install DVD (mine is Pro Corp)

3. Ultimate Boot CD (free; www.ultimatebootcd.com)

 

This isn't a step-by-step guide, but here's the general idea. Using the Ultimate Boot CD, partition the drive into two FAT32 partitions; the first will be OSX (make it active), the second XP. Using the OSX DVD's Disk Utility, format the first partition Mac OS Journaled, and install OSX on it. Make sure OSX boots. Boot from the XP install CD and install XP on the second partition, preferably without reformatting it NTFS, so you'll be able to get at it from the OSX side. If things get wedged and unbootable during one of the reboots during the XP install (and they probably will), use the Ultimate Boot CD to switch which partition is active and, if necessary, use the Darwin bootloader to boot back over on the XP partition. When XP is installed, use the Ultimate Boot CD to make the OSX partition active.

 

Now, when you boot, you'll get 8 seconds to hit a key to enter the Darwin bootloader's boot menu, which gives you the choice of which partition to boot from. If you select the second partition, you'll head into the XP bootloader, and hitting enter again will get you XP. (This is slightly redundant and probably unnecessary; getting rid of the XP boot menu is on my list of projects.)

 

Big Wins:

1. It goes really fast.

2. No additional software necessary; no twiddling with ini files; no huge nasty command lines to enter.

3. Because the XP partition is FAT32, you can see it, read it, and write it in OSX.

 

With this hardware, I have full video support with Quartz Extreme and network support out of the box, and a quick painless kext hack (described elsewhere on these forums) gets me 2-channel audio output. (For audio input, I'm using a $10 USB sound I/O dongle I got at CompGeeks until we all figure out how to get AppleAzaliaAudio to take input from the ALC882.) As others have noted, the P5LD2-VM has only one IDE channel that's compatible with OSX; the other PATA channel runs on a separate, unsupported ITE IDE controller, so you'll have to either run your PATA hard drive and your optical drive on the same channel or get a SATA drive (or get a $15ish PATA -> SATA adapter).

 

Enjoy!

[Lt. Xenodite]

Good, simple guide, but I would much rather have NTFS than FAT32 while running XP (I go hardcore that way >=P ). NTFS is faster and better organized, and FAT32 has a maximum limit of one byte less than 4GB (4,294,967,295 bytes) per file, so no more DVDrips for you! On the other hand, being able to read/write/access the Windows partition from Mac would be an advantage, but there is another way you could produce the same result. Mac partition + Windows NTFS partition + FAT32 Data (or temp, if you wanted to put it on the Windows partition later from XP) partition.

 

But if you want a quick and dirty solution, this is it. Good guide

LTX

[FrDakota]

Good, simple guide, but I would much rather have NTFS than FAT32 while running XP (I go hardcore that way >=P ). NTFS is faster and better organized, and FAT32 has a maximum limit of one byte less than 4GB (4,294,967,295 bytes) per file, so no more DVDrips for you!

 

Xenodite, VOB files on a DVD Video are limited to 1GB, so there is no problem for ripping on a FAT 32 system. Except if you make a disk image (not usual for a DVD Video ripping).

 

 

Besides that, I choose the system to use at boot if I need to start OS X or my XP on a Raptor, by hitting F11 on my MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum, it's all I need for the moment.

[murcielago585]

this worked perfectly, thanks for the post. I had tons of problems with acronis, it crashed a lot, messed up my mbr, and would add my ipod as a new drive everytime i restarted. i've been using this for a while now and no problems have arised, very stable

[jaxparo]

Tried this process several times with no results. Here's my problem. I'm on a Compaq EVO n610c laptop w/1.8GHz P4 768MB RAM and new 80 GB HD. When I boot the Ultimate CD you failed to mention which utility to partition with. The new HD is a Seagate Momentus, so I chose the Seagate HD Tools, and used both. Each time I partitioned the HD to 50GB for OS X and 30 GB for XP.

 

When I booted the OS X Install CD (I have several, a 10.4.3 & a 10.4.6) and each time when I run Disk Utility to "Erase" the 50 GB partition to "HFS Extended (Journalled)" it replies that "erase failed, partition scheme not recognized". I tried again with Free fdisk and had the same result. Very frustrating.

 

I finally partitioned with Disk Utility as FAT32 and made sure the 50 GB was primary & active, and then changed it to HFS+ and installed. After the installation, the OS X wouldn't boot, and now the 30 GB partition in FAT32 was designated Primary? I didn't change it, but it changed.

 

I tried to Restore a pre-installed image, but the OS X DVD Disk Utility wouldn't allow me to drag the Target to the box or enter the HD, and the Restore button was always dimmed.

 

When I did the numerous installs, I had let each DVD be "checked" and they were ok.

 

Ideas or help?

[dreamword]

I think I partitioned with SPFdisk on the UBCD. I ran into a problem when I partitioned with the Disk Utility on the install DVD -- it created two partitions, but they overlapped by one cylinder, so everybody got very confused. At any rate, you should be able to blow it all away and repartition with SPFDisk, but before you do, try just changing which partition is bootable -- it'll rewrite your MBR for you.

 

This may be of assistance:

http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=22844

 

Tried this process several times with no results. Here's my problem. I'm on a Compaq EVO n610c laptop w/1.8GHz P4 768MB RAM and new 80 GB HD. When I boot the Ultimate CD you failed to mention which utility to partition with. The new HD is a Seagate Momentus, so I chose the Seagate HD Tools, and used both. Each time I partitioned the HD to 50GB for OS X and 30 GB for XP.

 

When I booted the OS X Install CD (I have several, a 10.4.3 & a 10.4.6) and each time when I run Disk Utility to "Erase" the 50 GB partition to "HFS Extended (Journalled)" it replies that "erase failed, partition scheme not recognized". I tried again with Free fdisk and had the same result. Very frustrating.

 

I finally partitioned with Disk Utility as FAT32 and made sure the 50 GB was primary & active, and then changed it to HFS+ and installed. After the installation, the OS X wouldn't boot, and now the 30 GB partition in FAT32 was designated Primary? I didn't change it, but it changed.

 

I tried to Restore a pre-installed image, but the OS X DVD Disk Utility wouldn't allow me to drag the Target to the box or enter the HD, and the Restore button was always dimmed.

 

When I did the numerous installs, I had let each DVD be "checked" and they were ok.

 

Ideas or help?

[murcielago585]

if you guys have problems getting the partitions to work, which i did using spfdisk, download the linux live cd called gparted and make your partitions with that. once everything is installed but doesn;t boot into osx, then you can use spfdisk to make the osx partition active.

 

I have a question of my own. I was wondering, if i want to re-install osx will is screw up my windows installation or will everything be back to what it is now?

[dreamword]

I have a question of my own. I was wondering, if i want to re-install osx will is screw up my windows installation or will everything be back to what it is now?

 

Reinstalling OS X probably won't affect your Windows installation, which I assume is on another partition. Reinstalling Windows will probably switch over which partition is marked bootable, so you'd have to switch it back with SPFdisk or similar.

[murcielago585]

thanks dreamworld, worked without a problem

[Pinkman]

It took a few days literally to get it working. Get one OS worknig and not be able to boot into the other one. Then I found this tread and was not getting anywhere when it came time to load windows in fat32 finally i formatted to NTFS and install went smooth. After install used DUBC SPFdisk made OSX active. Now darwin come up and it asks if I want to boot in to windows or times out after 10sec, had to edit com.apple.boot.plist, but once I press a key the i have my choice of OSes to choose from.

 

 

Intel 945gcz mother board

intel pro/100 ve eithernet works

sigmatel 9220 works

sony dvd burner (old thing had laying around)

120 wd hard drive.

finalcut studio works like a charm

skype works

sondblaster live no work osx windows though I use two set of speakers

 

will try all my other software and up date this tread.

[Gieffe]

hello,

sorry if I am in wrong topic! I will erase in case!

IMy problems comes well before. I tried to install the MacOSX 10.4.8 from a X86 disk on a different HD (not a partition. I tought (wrongly) that I could try that way on a second time. Everything went smooth (seemed) during the installation. The DVD started with the "usual" windows (I am a Mac user) and so on. Until the VERY last when my wife called me.... When I came back there was the underscore symbol blinking on the black screen. I had to restart as I could do nothing... not even type anything (may be due to a Trust wireless keyboard?). From that time there was NO chance!!!! I am not anymore able to boot from a MacOSX DVD installer! I downladed a new one from a Torrent (may be different as newer)but everytime I boot from DVD I get the blinking underscore cursor!!! So I cannot try to install the OS using the same HD of XP partitioned... :-(

Please.... any suggestion? Do you think I might get trough reformatting EVERYTHING? :-)

Thanks

Gabriele

P.S. I hope the bosses will forgive me (may be erasing the post, NOT banning ;-) me ) if I post this question in different topics as I cannot figure wich is the right one.