Booting OS X and Win 7 on separate HDDs

[remedy]

I'm running OS X 10.8.4 on my Hackintosh on a SSD. I installed Windows 7 on a 1TB HDD, and when I installed each of them the other OS's hard drive was unplugged. After I completed installation of Windows 7 I powered down and replugged in my drives and turned my computer back on. Chameleon/Chimera detected I had OS X and Windows 7 to boot to. I chose Windows 7 and was prompted with a screen that said my bootmgr was missing. I boot into OS X and start googling but I'm coming up with stuff that was not my problem. I figure OS X may be doing something to it, so I unplug my SSD and try to reboot. Same thing. Reset my BIOS to stock settings, still nothing. Try to repair it from the boot CD, and I still get nothing. I can't even format the disk because it's greyed out or that Windows couldn't be installed to the disk.. Perplexed I took the hard drive to another computer and ran Disk Management and discovered it had a 100 GB EFI partition on it that was protected. After using the command line to clean out the HDD entirely, I took it back and rehooked it up and install went off without a hitch. Kind of nervous to plug in my SSD now for fear of screwing over my Windows installation again.

 

So what happened? How do I get it so Chimera or OS X doesn't install a EFI partition?

[Jones4u2]

Did you try using GParted? if not, download the iso file: http://sourceforge.net/projects/gparted/files/gparted-live-stable/0.16.1-1/gparted-live-0.16.1-1-i486.iso/download ---> burn to blank CD ---> boot your computer with the new CD loaded and make sure you computer's BIOS is set to boot from: CDROM. Once loaded select the Disk you want to boot the machine with --- right click on the partition and --- select Manage Flags ---- then select "Boot"

 

Is there a reason you're using two hard-drives as oppose to one with two partitions?

[Sotirios Papakonstantinou]

Probably has to do with the hard disk boot priority. When all disks are connected, Windows cannot boot if the 1TB disk is set as second in order. It has to be set as first. In that case you have to set 1TB first to boot into Windows and the SSD first to boot into MacOS. Otherwise, you can create a boot entry in Windows bootloader to load MacOS. It has to point to the file C:\chain0 which you can copy from Mac partition to the root of 1TB.

[bbacle]

Hello...I am running an AMD Phenom II X4 940 Processor 3.00 GHZ with Windows 7 64-bit installed on one HDD and WinXP SP3 installed on another HDD with dual-booting capability.

I would like to install the AMD Hackintosh, but am afraid I will not be able to get back into my system once it is done because of the things I have read here and elsewhere about people having troubles booting back into their systems once the Hackintosh is installed.

 

I have the files downloaded that hansontre gave in his tutorial at http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/288474-simple-steps-to-amd-hackintosh-stable-everything-working/.

 

I need to know what I need to do to make my computer be able to boot into either the Hackintosh or Windows 7 or Windows XP.

Right now my BSD loader is dual-booting into either Windows OS.

 

Thank you for this site and I hope that I can get some help on this issue.

[Sotirios Papakonstantinou]

The safest approach is to connect a separate hard disk for the Mac. Make sure you disconnect your Windows disk and have only the Mac disk connected during installation. When both disk are oresent, set boot priority in BIOS so the Windows disk is first. This will boot automatically into BCD where you select Windows 7 or XP. All you need to do it edit the Windows bootloader (use EasyBCD) and add an entry for MacOS. Unfortunatelly the default Mac settings in EasyBCD don't work, but once you create the boor entry you can modify it in command pormpt with BCDEDIT to point to file \chain0. This file is included in many Mac bootloaders such as Chameleon and is usually found in the root of the Mac disk. Another usefull utility is MacDrive for Windows. It makes Mac partitions appear in Windows Explorer as they were NTFS partitions and you can read and write seamlessly.

[bbacle]

The safest approach is to connect a separate hard disk for the Mac. Make sure you disconnect your Windows disk and have only the Mac disk connected during installation. When both disk are oresent, set boot priority in BIOS so the Windows disk is first. This will boot automatically into BCD where you select Windows 7 or XP. All you need to do it edit the Windows bootloader (use EasyBCD) and add an entry for MacOS. Unfortunatelly the default Mac settings in EasyBCD don't work, but once you create the boor entry you can modify it in command pormpt with BCDEDIT to point to file \chain0. This file is included in many Mac bootloaders such as Chameleon and is usually found in the root of the Mac disk. Another usefull utility is MacDrive for Windows. It makes Mac partitions appear in Windows Explorer as they were NTFS partitions and you can read and write seamlessly.

Thank you for the info. I do have a separate hard disk that I am going to use for the Hackintosh. I had already wondered if I shouldn't disconnect the other Windows hard drives (I have one for Win7 and one for WinXP) plus I have other hard drives for data. Should I disconnect all of them and leave only the one for Hackintosh connected?

 

OK...you say to add an entry for MacOS in EasyBCD (which is what I use). Can you tell me exactly step by step what I should add? And what I should I input in command prompt with BCEDIT?

 

I have downloaded the Apple Mac OS 10.6.8 Snow Leopard. Is that the best one to use?

I do not find in the file a file by the name of "chain0."

Where would it be?

Do I need to download Chameleon also, and if so how would I use it?

Do I just need the file "chain0" out of it?

If so, where would I put it on my hard drive?

 

The program you mentioned "MacDrive" sounds very useful as well, once I get everything else set up.

 

Again, I thank you for your help and look forward to your reply and some more useful information.