Nightfly19 Posted June 17, 2008 Share Posted June 17, 2008 I've got my harddrive partitioned as follows sda1 NTFS (Windows Vista) sda2 HFS+ (OS X) sda3 Fat32 (files) sda4 Extended sda5 ext3 (Ubuntu) Using: LinuxMint 5.0 (Ubuntu 8.04) OS X 10.4.9 (Uphuck) Windows Vista (Home Premium) Vista was installed first, then Ubuntu was installed, then OS X. All had boot loaders installed to the master boot record. After installing Ubuntu I made a backup of the MBR. At that point in time I could boot into both Vista and Ubuntu. After installing OS X the only OS's I could boot into were OS X and Ubuntu, Vista would refuse to boot; I made another copy of the MBR. As a test I installed a copy of grub into the boot sector of sda5 (Ubuntu's boot volume), using diff I compared it to the copy I made of the MBR before installing OS X and it is identical. The OS X loader will load up grub, but Vista refuses to boot after being chainloaded from grub. If I restore the backup I made of the MBR before installing OS X I can still boot into Vista. This makes me think that Vista checks the MBR everytime before booting. I've tried using the chain0 Darwin loader to boot up OS X from grub by copying it to my boot folder in Ubuntu and chainloading it with the grub entry root (hd0,4) chainloader /boot/chain0 but it fails with a chainload error. I really don't want to start over from the beginning as I seem to have the basics put together already. What would be the best way for me to be able to triple boot Ubuntu, Vista, and OS X without having to swap MBRs when ever I want to switch between being able to use Vista or OS X? Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/111155-triple-booting-vista-os-x-and-ubuntu-advise-needed/ Share on other sites More sharing options...
perfran Posted June 17, 2008 Share Posted June 17, 2008 Hi, I have a triple boot that works perectly well. I've set the MBR to load grub and then grub loads everything I want (windows, linux or OSX). in order to do that, under ubuntu type sudo grub-install hd0 then add the lines for vista and osx in the /boot/grub/menu.lst For vista you should have something like title Windows NT/2000/XP root (hd0,0) savedefault makeactive chainloader +1 and for OSX you should type (modify with the correct partition numbers of course) title Leopard root (hd0,1) makeactive chainloader +1 It loads darwin and then osx It works perfect on my computer try and tell me! Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/111155-triple-booting-vista-os-x-and-ubuntu-advise-needed/#findComment-787469 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nightfly19 Posted June 18, 2008 Author Share Posted June 18, 2008 Thanks for the idea. I tried it but if failed with an HFS+ Partition error, which I'm guessing is because there is no boot loader in the boot sector of the OS X partition... What order did you install your OS's in? Also, who's installer for leopard did you use? I'd try writing the OS X booter loader from the MBR to it, but I'm afraid it would corrupt the partition... Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/111155-triple-booting-vista-os-x-and-ubuntu-advise-needed/#findComment-787866 Share on other sites More sharing options...
phantom8 Posted June 18, 2008 Share Posted June 18, 2008 The easiest way to triple boot these 3 OSes is to download EasyBCD for Windows. It will then modify Vista bootloader to boot up any of your OSes. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/111155-triple-booting-vista-os-x-and-ubuntu-advise-needed/#findComment-787880 Share on other sites More sharing options...
perfran Posted June 18, 2008 Share Posted June 18, 2008 The situation is a bit more complicated for me, that's probably why it did not work like for me. I have two hard drives: one with Vista, XP and Leopard, on this one the mbr launch darwin (I installed with Kalyway 10.5.2, but I don't remembe if I set GUID or MBR i think it was GUID..) On the second disk there's grub and some linux OS. I set the bios to boot the second HD and grub is able to load darwin, vista or XP (and linux of course). If I set the bios to boot the first HD then it boots darwin. I use grub to load everything because it's easy to configure, it's only one config file. I think Vista uses a modified grub for dos that is hard to configure, you could try what phantom8 told you I never tried (that's too dark for me ). I have had once an HFS+ partition error I don't know why but I rebooted and it disappeard.. Check which partition is flagged boot (you can see/change it with gparted under linux) Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/111155-triple-booting-vista-os-x-and-ubuntu-advise-needed/#findComment-788254 Share on other sites More sharing options...
wmarsh Posted June 18, 2008 Share Posted June 18, 2008 As a test I installed a copy of grub into the boot sector of sda5 (Ubuntu's boot volume), using diff I compared it to the copy I made of the MBR before installing OS X and it is identical. I find grub (installed to MBR) boots all 5 of my OSs perfectly. Here is my tutorial for booting OS X from grub http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?s=&...st&p=606752 Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/111155-triple-booting-vista-os-x-and-ubuntu-advise-needed/#findComment-789145 Share on other sites More sharing options...
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