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[Guide] The Fool-Proof Vista & XP / Mac OS X Dual-Boot Guide

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devilhood
devilhood
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My only request, having put this guide together, is for anyone to kindly give my band music a whirl; it's fairly eclectic and similar to Jeff Buckley/Radiohead, so if you're into that sort of thing, you might like it.

 

Preparing for Dual-Boot:

 

First off, I'm completely aware that there is an abundance of dual-boot guides, but with mine, I have tried to keep the methodology simple, and to explain everything so that you understand what to do every step of the way.

I just want to begin by saying that this guide does NOT cover the Acronis OS Selector method, as it is an extremely unreliable method of dual-booting.

 

I would just like to also state that for people who are having problems with their hardware and/or cannot seem to install Mac OS X properly, please make sure you have downloaded the very latest iATKOS or Kalyway 10.5+ release.

 

If you still experience problems after this, please search the forums for your answer before asking questions. There is no need to turn this guide into a thread for troubleshooting your own hardware incompatibility issues if the solution already exists.

 

I cannot be held responsible for anything that goes wrong with your system as a result of following this guide.

 

Ok, let's begin.

Firstly, install Windows XP or Vista so that you are ready to prepare for Dual-Boot.

Note: Vista has a couple of snags which can cause much head-scratching, but don't worry, I covered these problems below.

 

During the Windows installation procedure, remember to create a partition to your requirements or at half the size of your total disk space.

Leave the left-over space untouched as this will be used for the Mac OS X partition.

It is highly recommended, although not necessary, for Vista users to use two separate hard-disk drives for dual-booting purposes.

For those who already have a working installation of Windows on their hard disk, I recommend using Hiren's BootCD (which includes Partition Magic as well as many other useful tools) for deleting, re-sizing and creating a new partition.

If you're using Vista and haven't got enough space left over to install Mac OS X, you can simply shrink the size of your current C:\ drive using Disk Management.

I personally use Paragon Partition Manager Professional or the GParted LiveCD for related tasks.

 

Make sure you're on the desktop of your Windows installation.

Press WIN+R to open the Run prompt, then type DISKPART and press Enter.

Now we're going to use DISKPART to create a HFS+ compatible Mac partition that we can boot off.

 

Follow these next set of commands:

 

DISKPART> list disk

Will show you a list of selectable disks

 

DISKPART> select disk n

[where n = the disk number]

This will specify which disk to create a new partition on, assuming you have already used the XP Install Disc, Partition Magic or Windows Disk Management to set aside some unformatted space. If not, and the drive you want to install Mac OS X on is empty, just follow the instructions immediately below for creating a partition.

 

DISKPART> create partition primary size=n id=af

[where n = the size in MB of the partition, however if no size is specified then the remaining space of that drive is used]

[where af = hfs+ compatible]

Will proceed to create a bootable primary partition for the Mac

 

For example: create partition primary size=100000 id=af

This will create a 100GB partition for Mac OS X.

 

DISKPART> list partition

This will show you the partitions on your selected disk

 

DISKPART> select partition n

[where n = the newly created OSX partition]

This will specify the partition

 

DISKPART> active

Will make your OS X partition the first-boot active partition

 

DISKPART> Exit

Leaves DiskPart...

 

If you screw up down the line and want to delete a partition via DISKPART, you may get a message saying that there are Temporary files in use.

To overcome this, you can either boot from the Vista Installation disc or use the XP Recovery Console to load DISKPART.

Deleting a partition follows almost the same process as above:

 

DISKPART> list disk

Will show you a list of selectable disks

 

DISKPART> select disk n

[where n = the disk number]

This will specify which disk you want to delete a partition on

 

DISKPART> list partition

Will show you a list of selectable partitions

 

DISKPART> select partition n

[where n = the partition number]

This will specify which partition you want to delete

 

DISKPART> delete partition

This will delete the partition

 

If you're using Vista, please Disable UAC (User Account Control) before installing Mac OS X.

To do so, press WIN+R to open the Run prompt, type in MSCONFIG to open the System Configuration Utility, click on the Tools tab, scroll down and select 'Disable UAC' then press Launch.

 

Put your bootable Mac OS X Tiger or Leopard Installation Disc into the DVD drive and restart your computer.

Make sure you press any key to boot off the DVD when it asks; the Darwin prompt should then appear and proceed to load the Mac OS X installation process.

 

Once it has finished loading and displays the first prompt after language select, click to the menu bar at the very top and load Disk Utility.

A list of disks should appear on the Left, using your Mouse, right click on the newly created Mac partition, click on Erase, this will allow the Mac to prepare the File System for OS X installation.

Quit Disk Utility and continue installing Mac OS X; remember to select 'customize' and specify which components you require for your system.

Once installed, load up Disk Utility again and repair permissions.

 

If you experience an HFS+ error after restarting, this is because of Vista. It can be fixed by reading the related sections further down.

 

Darwin has its own dual-boot menu which is easy to activate, just press F8 on your keyboard before the Darwin prompt and Apple boot logo.

The dual-boot menu might appear by itself depending on whether or not the install disc automatically sets the time-out period for you.

 

If you want to create a time-out that will allow you to select which OS to boot from without pressing F8, follow these instructions:

 

Firstly, load up Terminal (Applications/Utilities/) from within OS X, then type:

sudo nano /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.Boot.plist

 

edit the Darwin time-out flag accordingly:

 

<key>Timeout</key>

<string>8</string>

 

Press CTRL+O and then Enter to save the file, after which you can safely close the session by pressing CTRL+X.

 

If you intend on partitioning another drive for storage via Disk Utility after your Mac is fully installed, make sure you specify it as an MBR partition.

 

If you're interested in creating a clone of your installation, please use Clonetool Hatchery.

 

Windows XP users can prioritize the standard XP Boot screen if you have installed both Operating Systems on seperate drives.

If your Windows partition isn't currently active (first-boot) or selectable via Darwin, either use the XP Recovery Console with DISKPART, or boot off your OS X Installation Disc in single user mode to use fdisk. The fdisk method can be done by pressing F8 at the disc's Darwin Prompt and typing -s.

At the single user prompt, type these commands exactly:

 

fdisk -e /dev/rdisk0

Specifies the disc that you have XP installed to

The specified location rdisk0 may of course be different if XP was installed on a different drive, e.g. rdisk1, rdisk2

 

flag 1

Marks XP as the active partition (assuming it was installed on the first partition of that particular disk)

 

quit

This will quit fdisk and take you back to the normal single user prompt

 

reboot

Your machine will restart and boot OS X as normal

 

When you have finally booted into XP, copy CHAIN0 from your Mac OS X partition or Installation Disc into the root of C:\

Edit your boot.ini to include this line of text at the bottom:

 

c:\CHAIN0="Apple Mac OS X x86"

 

When you next restart, you should be able to select Apple Mac OS X x86.

It will then either boot straight into your Mac install or show you the Darwin prompt if you have a timer set.

 

 

If you want retain Vista's Boot Loader instead of Darwin's Boot Loader:

 

Before attempting to follow the instructions to retain Vista's Boot Loader, please be aware that this method does not work for all system setups.

This usually works better if you have your Vista and Mac OS X installation on SEPERATE drives only.

It should be noted, that since using the Uphuck 10.4.9 Intel x86 Install DVD v1.4i r3 release and EasyBCD v1.7, I was able to dual-boot Vista and Mac OS X on a single drive without any problems.

Those of you who are using Vista OEM emulation loaders may need to prioritize the Vista Boot Loader in-order for it to work properly.

The Darwin Boot Loader method is a much more reliable method for dual-booting, explained above and also noted at the bottom of this guide.

 

The following instructions refer to editing the Vista Boot Loader using BCDEDIT (BCD stands for: Boot Configuration Data) via the command line, however, if you want to avoid using the command line, you can download a free program by NeoSmart Technologies called EasyBCD from: http://neosmart.net/dl.php?id=1 which is basically BCDEDIT but with an intuitive GUI.

EasyBCD also comes with a built-in HFS+ fixer that will minimize any problems when configuring your system for dual-booting.

 

Once the Mac is fully installed, put the Vista Installation Disc into your DVD drive and restart to boot from it.

Click Repair System, press next and then select Command Prompt.

Type DISKPART and press Enter.

 

DISKPART> list disk

Will show you a list of selectable disks

 

DISKPART> select disk n

[where n = the disk number]

Select the disk which Windows Vista is installed to

 

DISKPART> list partition

This will show you the partitions on your selected disk

 

DISKPART> select partition n

[where n = the Windows Vista partition]

This will specify the partition

 

DISKPART> active

Will make your Windows Vista partition the first-boot active partition

 

DISKPART> Exit

Leaves DiskPart...

 

Reboot into Windows Vista.

Next, you can either follow the command line BCDEDIT instructions below, or use EasyBCD.

 

Copy CHAIN0 from your Mac OS X partition or Installation Disc to the root of your Vista partition C:\.

 

Make sure you have elevated privileges, press WIN+R to open Run, then type cmd to open the command prompt.

Type these commands exactly:

Note: If BCDEDIT does not work for booting OS X, skip this section as you can alternatively use Darwin's F8 Boot Loader.

 

bcdedit /copy {current} /d “Mac OS X”

Copies information from Vista to use as basis for Mac OS X Boot Loader

 

bcdedit /enum active

Enumerates the selectable OS' from Vista's Boot Loader

 

bcdedit /set {YOUR-GUID-HERE} PATH \chain0

Replace {YOUR-GUID-HERE} with the ID that is listed for Mac OS X under the enumerated list

 

 

Fix for the dreaded HFS+ Partition Error:

 

Vista's Boot Loader changes a few things which leaves the Mac's MBR (Master Boot Record) crippled.

Before reading on, you might want to check the PID (Partition Identifier) of your Mac partition first, so scroll down to the bottom section for fixing re-occuring HFS+ errors.

 

Firstly, you'll have to boot off your OS X Installation Disc in single user mode. This can be done by pressing F8 at the disc's Darwin Prompt and typing -s.

At the single user prompt, type these commands exactly:

 

fdisk -e /dev/rdisk0

Specifies the disc that you have Vista and OS X installed to

The specified location rdisk0 may of course be different if Vista or OS X was installed on a different drive, e.g. rdisk1, rdisk2

 

flag 2

Marks OS X as the active partition (or if you installed OS X 1st and Vista 2nd, change the flag to 1)

 

update

Update machine code in loaded MBR

 

write

Write loaded MBR to disk

 

quit

This will quit fdisk and take you back to the normal single user prompt

 

reboot

Your machine will restart and boot OS X as normal

 

Once you're happy that OS X has booted normally, restart back into single user prompt using the OS X Installation Disc.

Type these commands exactly:

 

fdisk -e /dev/rdisk0

Specifies the disc that you have Vista and OS X installed to

 

flag 1

Marks Vista as the active partition (or if you installed OS X 1st and Vista 2nd, change the flag to 2)

 

quit

This will quit fdisk and take you back to the normal single user prompt

 

reboot

Your machine will restart and boot Vista

 

Vista will say "\Windows\System32\winload" corrupted, don't panic! this is normal, however, to fix this problem you must now restart and boot from your Vista Installation Disc. If you only have the Vista Recovery Disc, then you must obtain an actual bootable installation disc.

 

Select your language then click 'Repair your computer' and if required, select the Vista installation you wish to repair.

Once the System Recovery Options prompt appears, click 'Repair and restart'.

This entire process has to be completed, otherwise Darwin will fail to see Vista as as bootable OS.

Check to see if everything is fine by letting it boot back into your Vista installation, or if this is not done automatically, restart the machine.

You can now proceed to add Mac OS X with EasyBCD or via the command line method, or for whatever reason, you can use DISKPART to mark Partition 2 as active again so that you can boot directly into the Mac.

 

If the Vista Boot Loader does not work at all with your Mac OS X partition, you can just simply mark Partition 2 as active and use the F8 method to select which OS to boot from.

No fancy graphics like Vista's method, but hell, it works perfectly :)

Follow the instructions at the top of the page if you want to edit Darwin's Boot Loader time-out.

 

 

Important note for re-occuring HFS+ problems:

 

If you have gone through all the steps above and it still produces an HFS+ error, then you will need to fix the Partition ID.

The only reasons for HFS+ errors to occur are due to a corrupt MBR, the wrong Identifier set for the Mac OS X Partition, or a disk controller problem relating to improper detection of your hard-disk, whether it is software or hardware related.

The ID problem usually occurs if you re-install Vista over itself or over XP when you have an already working OS X partition.

It will leave the Partition ID set to 07 across both partitions even when you update the machine code and re-write the MBR for OS X using fdisk.

You can check if this is the problem by typing 'print' after you have set fdisk -e /dev/rdisk0, it should show you a list of partitions with their ID's; if the Mac partition is set to 07 or anything apart from AF then read below.

 

Firstly, you'll have to boot off your OS X Installation Disc in single user mode. This can be done by pressing F8 at the disc's Darwin Prompt and typing -s.

At the single user prompt, type these commands exactly:

 

fdisk -e /dev/rdisk0

Specifies the disc that you have Vista and OS X installed to

The specified location rdisk0 may of course be different if Vista or OS X was installed on a different drive, e.g. rdisk1, rdisk2

 

flag 2

Marks OS X as the active partition (or if you installed OS X 1st and Vista 2nd, change the flag to 1)

 

setpid 2

Change the partition identifier of the given partition table entry (the number corresponds with the OS X partition)

 

AF

Sets HFS+ as the correct PID so that you can boot Mac OS X

 

quit

This will quit fdisk and take you back to the normal single user prompt

 

Now, when you restart you should have a fully bootable Mac OS X partition with Darwin working perfectly.

 

Many thanks to TopazBar, Scheissenegger, Computer Guru and everyone else involved.

 

If anyone is having a problem, feel free to PM me, but PLEASE remember to search around the forum first if it is hardware related :)

 

My only request, having put this guide together, is for anyone to kindly give my band music a whirl; it's fairly eclectic and similar to Jeff Buckley/Radiohead, so if you're into that sort of thing, you might like it.

 

Pawel.

Edited by devilhood
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devilhood
devilhood
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Very nice, works great :pirate2: Im just stuck at a blue screen with a loading icon in the middle. Any ideas on what the problem could be?

 

First of all, seeing as you told me on IRC that you're using a Dell Inspiron 9400/E1705, update your BIOS to A06, and enter: cpus=1 at the Darwin Boot, then the Blue Screen/Wheel Icon wont cause you any further problems.

Read my other guide for reference: http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=15474

 

Good luck!

Edited by devilhood
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devilhood
devilhood
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Why didn't you just post your own thread instead of hi-jacking two pre-existing threads with your own lengthy guide?

 

My guide is specifically made for dual-booting, not triple booting, and to AVOID use of Acronis Boot Selector as it is a piece of sh%$

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devilhood
devilhood
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Hey, I did not mean anything rude by posting in a couple spots. I know that sometimes it is a bit difficult to weave through all the threads and get good info. I am not wanting to take away from anyting you have said, just to offer my own findings

 

Yeah, that's fine, however your method is completely different from mine, therefore not exactly on-topic.

I appreciate the fact that you are only trying to help, but you essentially double posted by pasting the exact same thing in two separate threads, which is completely unnecessary when you could have just started your own thread.

Dual-Booting and Triple-Booting threads are quite popular. They're also pretty easy to find when you use the search function, so I'm sure it's not such a big problem when people have to weave through a few threads or so.

It's simply a matter of forum etiquette :star_smile:

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borisbadenov
borisbadenov
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Hey, thanks for being understanding regarding my postings. I am just a bit uncertain how to post my own thread so I just did what I did. You, or one of the moderators can do any editing or deleting needed and repost it as a seperate thread. I would but I don;t think I am goodenov

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devilhood
devilhood
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It's ok, don't worry, you just need to take into consideration that when people write down a guide, the whole point in this forum is to actually create a thread specifically for that guide, otherwise you'd end up with messy congested threads.

Don't be afraid to post your own threads! contributing to these forums is very important because not everyone has the time on their hands to get down and dirty with hackintosh installations ;)

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ehh
ehh
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just deleted my vista partition to replace it with osx (leaving xp intact). continuing to install with these instructions...will accordingly update this post. thanks for the guide thus far devilhood.

 

quick question: which os will become the default os?

 

edit1: vista partition was deleted in xp, but the vista bootloader remains intact. trying to figure out how to completely get rid of it before proceeding with osx.

 

edit2: bootloader removed with vistabootpro.

Edited by ehh
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devilhood
devilhood
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no problemo, it should go smoothly.

 

if there are any points in the guide you have trouble understanding, please feel free to ask and I will explain further/elaborate where needed.

 

the partition that was left active before formatting will still be the currently active partition.

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ehh
ehh
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osx does not see the prepared partition. when i do "detail partition" under the selected prepared partition in DISKPART, i get this:

 

Partion 2

Type: AF

Hidden: Yes

Active: Yes

 

how would i change Hidden to "No"? or why isn't osx installer seeing the prepared partition?

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devilhood
devilhood
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how did you manage that? a partition shouldn't be hidden by default.

to hide a partition, you need to format under a specific id, and to unhide it you need to alter the partition table, e.g. change hidden fat16 (type 0x16) to unhidden fat16 (type 0x06).

The best thing for you to do would be to completely delete the partition and re-create it with id=af again.

you didn't enter any extra information other than id=af when you were creating the partition did you?

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devilhood
devilhood
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How do I need to edit those commands so I can fix the HFS+ partition error when all i have installed on my hd is OS X? Having to keep the OS X disc in the drive just so it will boot is really annoying.

 

That's all you have installed? on your first drive? ok that's pretty simple then.

 

Boot off your OS X Installation Disc in single user mode. This can be done by pressing F8 at the disc's Darwin Prompt and typing -s.

At the single user prompt, type these commands exactly:

 

fdisk -e /dev/rdisk0

 

flag 1

 

update

 

write

 

quit

 

reboot

 

Done :D

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James D
James D
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That's all you have installed? on your first drive? ok that's pretty simple then.

 

Boot off your OS X Installation Disc in single user mode. This can be done by pressing F8 at the disc's Darwin Prompt and typing -s.

At the single user prompt, type these commands exactly:

 

fdisk -e /dev/rdisk0

 

flag 1

 

update

 

write

 

quit

 

reboot

 

Done :(

 

Thank you so much, that worked flawlessly. I really appreciate it.

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kyorikusagami
kyorikusagami
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Excuse me if I'm a bit inexperienced but, when I follow your precise instructions, I can't seem to get the installer to recognize my newly created partition. Whenever I look at that HD in the Disk Utilities, It shows no partitions. If I try to erase the disk, the Utility will freeze, leaving me no choice but to close it.

 

A few questions, then. 1)Does it matter if the disk you are using is a slave or master? 2)Does the OSX partition have to be on the same physical drive as XP? I've tried to partition the drive in through various combinations of diskpart and disk management(in windows) to no avail. What could I be doing wrong?

 

 

Hardware:

 

ECS KN1 (non-sli) mobo (it uses nForce 4, I believe)

Athlon64 3800 X2 (939)

The Hard drive I'm tring to put OSX on is the Primary IDE slave.

Windows runs on SATA Channel 1.

 

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

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devilhood
devilhood
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I've followed the directions in this guide (very good, by the way), and I'm just stuck on one area - the GUID.

 

Can you tell me what it is... and how I can go about getting it?

 

Thank you

 

Just use EasyBCD from: http://neosmart.net/dl.php?id=1 which is basically BCDEDIT but with an intuitive GUI.

Makes life a bit easier when configuring the Vista Boot Loader :)

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ehh
ehh
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kyorikusagami, this may help since i had a similar problem: when i prepared the intended partition, it was always logically "behind" another partition. imagine [ partition 1 | partition 2 ] in that order. partition 2 would've been the intended osx partition. instead i prepared the hdd in this fashion: [ partition 2 | partition 1]. from that point on the osx installer saw part 2 everytime i had to reinstall osx. hope that helps.

 

 

btw thanks devilhood. i'm natively dual-booting as we talked about. xp on 2xraptor sata raid 0 and osx on a pata hdd. my atheros wireless card is working like a champ ... now all i need is some support for the 8800gtx >_<

 

this is my first post in osx! good luck everyone

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