The Official Dual Booting Thread

[cbmkgd]

Make osx active, boot in osx, and see if darwin bootloader will take care of vista.

[private]

Make osx active and then HFS+ error.

I can't boot OsX.

[specialagented]

Sorry if this question is unrelated.

 

I created a new FAT32 Partition on the HDD that I am wanting to install Mac OSX. I tried setting it as a Primary Partition and as a Logical Partition, but when I go to install Mac, my HDD shows up in the Disk Utilities, but not the seperate partitions? What could I be doing wrong? Do I need to set the FAT32 partition as Active? I can't seem to do this from windows.

 

Thanks for any help you can give me,

 

Ed D.

[specialagented]

BTW: I have a SATA HDD.

[Hsarci]

Just for my Input...

 

I have Windows XP SP2 and MacOSX 10.4.7 working on a dual boot FLAWLESSLY.

 

Heres my system:

 

Dell Latitude C640(aka Inspiron 4150)

P4m 2.0GHz SSE2

Crystal Audio Sound Card (doesn't show up in the system profile but still works!)

ATI Radeon 7500 (working with QE support thanks to this thread + callisto .005 )

Intel Pro Wireless 2100 3A (this is not working but I have a OSX compatible internal wireless on the way)

 

I used JaS 10.4.7 Repack with the Combo Update, Wireless Patch, and SSE2 Patch.

 

I have 1 single hard drive with 2 partitions.

 

Basically to get the dual boot to work on what I'm assuming is ALL hackintosh's alll you have to do is edit this file: com.apple.Boot.plist (loacted in Library/Preferences/System Configuration)

 

Make sure that these lines are included:

 

		<key>Quiet Boot</key>
	<string>No</string>
	<key>Timeout</key>
	<string>10</string>

 

And your all good to GO! Mac will recognize your windows partition as a bootable OS and give you 10 seconds to choose which one you wish to boot.

[Hsarci]

Just for my Input...

 

I have Windows XP SP2 and MacOSX 10.4.7 working on a dual boot FLAWLESSLY.

 

Heres my system:

 

Dell Latitude C640(aka Inspiron 4150)

P4m 2.0GHz SSE2

Crystal Audio Sound Card (doesn't show up in the system profile but still works!)

ATI Radeon 7500 (working with QE support thanks to this thread + callisto .005 )

Intel Pro Wireless 2100 3A (this is not working but I have a OSX compatible internal wireless on the way)

 

I used JaS 10.4.7 Repack with the Combo Update, Wireless Patch, and SSE2 Patch.

 

I have 1 single hard drive with 2 partitions.

 

Basically to get the dual boot to work on what I'm assuming is ALL hackintosh's alll you have to do is edit this file: com.apple.Boot.plist (loacted in Library/Preferences/System Configuration)

 

Make sure that these lines are included:

 

		<key>Quiet Boot</key>
	<string>No</string>
	<key>Timeout</key>
	<string>10</string>

 

And your all good to GO! Mac will recognize your windows partition as a bootable OS and give you 10 seconds to choose which one you wish to boot.

[BlackCH]

...for the record...

 

I have Windows XP and OSX dual booting and working great. I have a single HD with 4 partitions. (at one point I had 2 XP and 2 Osx all boting OK, just for testing)

 

Since I can not boot the Install DVD ('cos IDE hardware setting) the first method I used was the dd method guide. Man, it works great. Still if you want to install from the DVD I suggest you generate the OSX partition you're planing to install in, as explained there.

After I played around with the deadmoo img , I wanted to have a fresh OsX installation. So, for that I used Vmware 5 , and 10.4.6 Myz DVD. Luckly the DVD boots within Vmware. I bulided a suitable virtual machine and asigned a physical partition (the one with the deadmoo image) as primary master HD, the DVD must be primary slave. Then boot from the installation DVD. It takes its time until the menu bar comes up. From utilities/disk utility , I erased the deadmoo partition and then install a fresh version of OsX there. like that I get a 6 gb partition for OsX (is ok for me, my HD is no so big), but if you want a bigger partition I guess Diskpart would do (read the guide from the link above!).

Finally to multiboot Im using Acronis Boot Selector. It works great. Just install it and it goes by it self. You get a 'windowslike' boot menu with mouse support where you can select OSs and modify settings for eachone. Also it autodetects all OSs from your HDs.

 

This guide is also nice. I wouldnt use spfdisk as said there thow. I prefer the partition manager recovery CD.

 

must haves:

-Paragon Partition Manager (the recovery CD version too!). Is great if you want to resize and make new partitions.....

-Vmware. Would help you if you have troubles to boot natively. You could try to boot your physical OsX partition from vmware and fix what is wrong.

-Norton Ghost. Just in case it goes totally wrong, you can go back to your windows....

-Acronis Disk Director. To get the boot selector from.

 

well....thats that.

[Alcyone]

OSL2000 (a free program) is the easiest and most hassle free way to boot multiple operating systems. I tried every method in the book and this was the only thing that worked. Just install it under windows and when you reboot, you get a list of partitions to chose from.

[johnnytluxury]

Is OSL200 fast, tho? Acronis OSS was too slow for my likings (I know, i know, Im being picky), so is OSL2000 faster?

[Alcyone]

Reletively. But eventually you get a nag if you don't register it. You have to hit OK to clear the nag. It went away fairly quickly when I was tri booting with osx, vista and xp but when I added linux the nag started taking about 3-5 seconds to clear.

[svens]

Here are bootscreens if you want some for use with grub or wingrub

in wingrub copy the xpm.gz file into c:\your\wingrubfolder\LOGO\

 

I hope I could give this small part back to the community and you enjoy it...

 

New Screen added

 

apple1.xpm.gz

 

apple2.xpm.gz

 

apple2_1hack.xpm.gz

 

apple3_1hack.xpm.gz

 

apple3hack.xpm.gz

boot.xpm.gz

Edited January 28, 2007 by svens

[punkingindrublic]

I have Acronis Load up. From there I can select Win XP or OSX. When going into XP if I would like to jump to mac OSX I have the chain0 file setup. So with it I can also pop over to MacOSX. Then the mac bootloader loads up. And I can go between Windows and Mac again.

 

I guess I made it way more complicated then what it had to be, but either way. It works though.

[Guyfromorem]

Ok. I don't know why I am having so much trouble. I have the 10.4.6 goatsecx disk. I already have xp running. I have Partition Magic 8 also. I ran a dual boot a few months ago but for some reason I can't figure out how to do it again. I have formatted my computer 3 times now. Please give me a EASY EASY walkthrough. Im having problems. Ill list what I am trying to do and please let me know what im doing wrong. Oh, and If you could just message me instead of responding if the forums that would be fantastic.

 

1. XP installed.

2. Use partition magic to create other partition. ( I think I am screwing up here) ( I made it a ntfs partition)

3. I then pop in the macOS install disk, then use the disk formatter to change the ntfs partition to mac journaled extended and then install on that disk.

4. Then, I install, and restart the computer. It says error ntldr missing or something like that.

 

I know I need some boot loader or something. I remember before that I used something with the chain0.

please point out exactly what I need to do. Thanks.

[Milenco]

For some reason I can't get this to work, this is my situation:

 

I have one (laptop) HDD which is 40GB. I first installed WindowsXP on a 10GB NTFS partition. In Windows I created a 10GB FAT32 partition. I started the OSX installation, formatted the FAT32 drive as HFS+. Everything install fine, but when I reboot Windows automaticly boots up.

 

So I changed the HFS+ partition to be the active one. When my laptop boots up, I get a "Error loading operating system", which is most likely caused by my BIOS (I don't think this is a Darwin error).

 

So I reinstalled OSX. Formatted the drive again as HFS+. In the setup I opened up Terminal to mark the partition as being the active one and continued the installation. After that, a reboot gives me the same message. "Error loading operating system".

 

So I did another reinstall, but this time I made sure the partition was the active one all the way. In Windows I deleted the partition and created a new one (didn't format it). I marked it as being the active partition and started the OSX installation. Formatted the drive as HFS+. Still the same error.

 

Since Windows is just booting fine I tried the CHAIN0 method. I copied the CHAIN0 file from the OSX DVD to C:\ and added the line "c:\CHAIN0="Apple Mac OS X x86"" to my boot.ini. When I choose this option at boot, I see a '/'-symbol for about 0.3s and then it returns to the boot screen, asking me (again) to choose Apple Mac OS X x86 or Windows.

 

I can't seem to find a way to make dual boot work. Anyone got some suggestions? I'm near desperation. I'm using the 10.4.6 install dvd.

[GBK.Xscape]

i have been trying to use acronis os selector and this comes up whenever i boot into windows. it works with darwin but in acronis it only detects osx and not windows. kind of dum huh but i think this is the reason. can anybody explain to me what this means. thanks for the help

[cbmkgd]

Show us how exactly your configuration (partitions, type of partition, order, which os on which partition).

Then show us the content of your boot.ini.

[GBK.Xscape]

ok so i have 3 partitions on my hard drive. one nfts for windows that is 32 gigs. i have an osx86 partition that is mac os extended (Journaled) that is 33 gigs and a fat32 drive that is 8 gigs big to use to share files between windows and mac. i partitioned the drive into two drives(mac an windows) and when i found out that mac cant write to nfts i took like 8 gigs off of the windows and made it fat32 to share files between windows and mac. i dont know how to look at the content of my boot.ini. could you explain to me how to. thanks for the help.

[cbmkgd]

So your setup is something like:

• Primary Partition: Windows OS (24GB)
  
• Primary Partition: Fat32 share space (8GB)
  
• Primary Partition: OSX (33GB)
  

Right?

 

Your boot.ini file is in the root (C:\) of your windows system. You can open it with notepad. It is hidden, so set your explorer to show hidden files.

 

It should look something like this if the configuration is as above:

[boot loader]
timeout=15
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windows XP" /fastdetect

The important detail is the multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1).

 

If windows is on the second partition, then it should be partition(2), etc. Adjust accordingly.

 

When did the problems begin, ie when did acronis os selector not recognize windows? After splitting the 32GB in 24+8?

[GBK.Xscape]

ok i have an update on my problem here. the stupid lady at hp told me to do fixboot and i did but i guess it applied it to the active partition, which is mac osx86. now whenever i start up the computer it says

NTLDR is missing

Press and key to restart

i went back and applied fixboot to the right partition and still nothing happen. i tried fixmbr and it did nothing. i think i screwed up darwin bootloader becuase osx is the active partition and darwin is what it would use. not sure but can you help at least boot into windows. i can only boot into mac when i have the install disk in now. dam window never ceases to fail/amaze me

[cbmkgd]

What tools do you have? Did you make the Acronis Recovery Media, the bootable cd? Or some other bootable disk with tools to go check on the ntfs partition? Like BartPE based cd? Booting on such bootable tools can help you have a look at your system and its files.

 

You do have to go look at your Windows root partition; make sure you can see hidden files. You must have the boot.ini, ntldr and ntdetect.com files there. And check inside that boot.ini file.

 

If you have the Acronis bootable cd, you can try to load the standalone disk director DD. You can use DD to see if you have the files above; you can even use it to see the content of boot.ini and modify it if you must.

If you have another bootable cd tools, use it to check the above.

 

If ntldr and ntdetect.com are NOT in the root of your windows partition, then you can find them in the i386 folder of your WinXP install cd; try to move them in the root of the windows partition (with floppy, usb, whatever). Fixboot should have done that already, but this allows you to do it manually. Then make the windows partition active and reboot.

 

You still haven't confirmed if the partitioning is as I mentioned above.

 

Also, don't blame Windows: if one messes with bootloading/mbr/bootsectors in an experimental setup -- which is the case when dealing with hackintoshes -- then don't take for granted that your system will behave normally.

[Davinchy]

I don't know much about these things but here goes. I have done similar things and messed up my system in the past. First off someone correct me if I'm wrong but I think there is only one MBR. I think it's in a special part of the disk just for that. If thats true you didn't mess your windows at the fixboot or fixmbr point. I'm guessing you set your osx to active wich switched your windows to hidden. So just set your windows back to active and you'll be able start up in windows.

 

As far as getting your os x working again you can try setting up chain0 since you should have your windows working.

 

Again I don't really understand hard drives all that well So take my advice with a grain as they say. good luck

[cbmkgd]

Yes, MBR is in the very first sector of the drive.

When making OSX partition active, it doesn't hide the Win partition, it just, well, makes it un-active if you will, an ordinary primary partition.

 

Making Windows partition is a good move, but his boot.ini might be problematic from a previous incident, that's why I'd like him to check that. But making active and trying straight away wouldn't hurt, you're right.

[GBK.Xscape]

well can i make the windows partition active through mac? and can i see hidden files on the windwows partition through mac? ok i didnt make up any back up discs so i cant do anything there. yes you did restate my partition set up correct. and i dont think i messed up windows because ever since i installed osx my mac partition has been active and i used darwin. the mac partition is still active and i messed up darwin now and it i can only get into mac through the install disc. i cant get into windows. i will try to set the windows partition to active and see if it will boot then. can i make an image of the mac partition so i can just make windows active, then reformat the mac partition and then reinstall osx and then go from there or is there something wrong there? sorry but i dont know much about booting and that kind of stuff.

yea thats true i shouldnt blame windows but the dum hp lady that told me to do the wrong thing.

[cbmkgd]

Take care of your windows system first. Make sure it's working again.

I don't remember if I could see the windows hidden files through mac, but you could try. And if you can see them, you can also open boot.ini (eg with a text editor) to see its contents.

 

Here: http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=22844 is a tutorial to make a partition active; hope it works for windows partition

I really suggest though you get some good bootable cd tool, like hiren's boot cd, or some BartPE-based cd. I think Hiren's contain a version of PartitionMagic with which you can handle partitions.

 

As for repairing osx's bootsector, i'll have to find the proper link with instructions someone gave. Don't reformat osx partition yet!

 

/edit: Hmm... here's the post about repairing the osx bootsector:

http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?s=&...st&p=166040

 

Somebody else might give you a better idea though, some simpler solution.

[GBK.Xscape]

ok well ntldr and ntdetect.com are there but boot.ini isnt there. should i go along with setting the windows partition active even thought the boot.ini isnt there? i will wait for your response.

yea i even used spotlight and it found the 2 other files but not boot.ini