[HowTo] XP + OSX 10.4.4-10.4.8 native dual boot

[dr.funk]

I had to do it this way....

 

created 2 65 gig partitions. Both fat32. then install OSX on the first one.

Then I installed xp along with acronis disk director on the other. that one became a ntfs I think..

 

I used a windows install cd to make the partitions...

 

it worked for me..But I cant get usb midi devices to work correctly, or show up.

[cbmkgd]

When Mac is installed on a Primary Partition, it does NOT write a bootsector!!

So, when you run Chain0, which does nothing but scans your partition table and boots the partition with the signature AF, it hangs and says: Chain Booting error, since there is nothing to execute!

 

Except that I never installed osx on a logical, did it right away in a primary of type 0xAF* (although i didn't create partition with acronis; but did use osx install disk's "disk utility" to erase/format in hfs+).

 

And AOSS can boot this osx.

 

/edit june7th:* that it was of type 0xAF is important.

[dtm3dd]

when i reach the disk utility portion of the install none of my partition show up and neither does my hard drive only the dvd drive shows up, any help??

I had a similar problem, are you using a SATA hard drive??

[ChadyzGroove]

I had a similar problem, are you using a SATA hard drive??

 

yeah i am using a SATA hard drive, but i went out and got an EIDE hard drive so I can just use that for everything for the OSX stuff, i believe it will work here shortly...

 

update: definitely did not work, i have to figure out how to boot from a usb hard drive, because there is no ata slot on my motherboard, if anyone has any simple help it would be aprreciated

[dilnalomo]

so...someone just PMed me with success number 27 ^^

 

and...I have a SATA HD, and I dont have any problem with it.

 

but...i found these in the wiki and forum, if they are any help at all...

 

Is NForce chipset SATA supported?

Yes, editing AppleVIAATA kext with your nForce device ID's will enable SATA. Search forum for more info.

http://forum.osx86project.org/index.php?showtopic=957&hl=

http://wiki.osx86project.org/wiki/index.ph...rollers_work.3F

http://wiki.osx86project.org/wiki/index.ph...ATA_hard_drives

http://forum.osx86project.org/index.php?sh...c=17330&hl=SATA

http://forum.osx86project.org/index.php?showtopic=13219&hl=

 

so...good luck to ya all

[wyldeice]

I am using acronis, but it no longer shows windows xp as an option so I just set the mac partition to active and use the Darwin boot loader, but is there a way to get XP as an option?

[dilnalomo]

if you want to use windows boot loader, use the chain0 method.

[wyldeice]

I think you missunderstand, acronis doesnt see that there is a windows installation at all.

[dilnalomo]

I think you missunderstand, acronis doesnt see that there is a windows installation at all.

...what did you to it? it disappeared suddenly?

[wyldeice]

I just reinstalled Mac osx after I had screwed it up messing with the grahics stuff and it no longer sees the windows instal, only way to get to windows is though the Darwin Boot loader which is fine for now, but what if i need to uninstall mac at some time? Will i have to reinstall windows afterwards?

[dilnalomo]

is your windows partition still a primary? maybe os selector wont see it cause it's not a primary?

[Perchik]

Yay!

I succeeded after multiple attempts* I'm running a Dell Inspiron E1505/6400 Laptop, with dual intels** I did not install to the laptop's hard drive, instead I installed to a 250gb external Hd. I'm using Chain0 to choose Os. The iso I used was the MacOSX_10.4.6_GoatsecxDVD.iso. However it took multiple attempts to finally get it to work correctly. I used Partition Magic to create the partitions and Nero to burn the iso to a dvd.

 

So mark up one more success!

 

Now, I decided that I want to partition the laptop hd and install OsX directly to the laptop so I dont have to have this external hd. This task proves to be harder than one would think. Well for me anyway. I had been using the portable version of Partition Magic, which does not have the seperate program that is used on startup to edit a partition. After I realised that that was the problem, I proceeded to download(crack) the full partition magic program. Anyway, after I did that, I got the partition set up. When you buy a dell laptop, it comes partitioned. My 100gb hard drive had 86gigs for the c: drive. There was one little 5mb partition and the rest belonged to the 3rd partition. I decided that it would be unwise to touch those partitions without a ton of research....and I didnt feel like research. To make a long story short I defragged the C:\ drive, then split the 86gb partition into two 43gig partitions.

 

After all that I ran the mac install again, got to disk utilities and it would not erase the one I wanted to install mac on (Could Not Write Partition Map)***. So then I move the partition and tried again. Same error. So then I decided to try this Acronis thing. Bad Idea. While trying to install the Os Loader it determined that there isnt enough space on the disk to install it. Acronis doesnt seem to know what to do when thats the case....so it just fell into a loop. Try to install. Report on low disk space. Try to install.....so I rebooted....and the same thing happened. After clicking cancel a few times, I actually got to the OS loader. but it didnt see my Windows installed. So currently I'm reinstalling windows. I can still boot the mac from the external, but I need windows as well. (and on a side note, mac install is so much better than windows) ~And now windows is reinstalled.

 

The good news is that I'm on a brand new laptop, therefore theres nothing on it but apps. No files :-)

 

So right now im sitting here, watchin windows load, but i did want to report that I got my dual intels to work with the external hd.

 

Will check back frequently,

Thanks for the great writeup

Perchik

 

*I estimate that I treid about 10 times over the course of 3 days. The first attempts never got past the white screen w/ a grey apple. I attributed this to a bad dvd. So I made a new dvd and it worked. Well until my laptop fell asleep. It was probably still installing, but my screen was black (side affect of going to asleep) and I couldnt wake it. So I started over. The last few attempts were great, it would look like it worked great, then after booting, it just looked like it got everything installed, except the graphics. Just a solid black screen with some blue lines. Then I wiped it, and reinstalled. It worked this time...excpet it froze in the initial...survey (?) thing. So I rebooted and it finally works. Now whenever I choose to boot into osx it works great. :-)

 

**I will update this post with hardware specs soon. Dell provides an online utility that will tell the current hardware specs. But you have to access that utility from the laptop.

 

***In the original tutorial, that was the error that he didnt know what to do about. I've quickly scanned through all the posts in this topic, but I could have missed something easily.

[dilnalomo]

i still dont know how to fix that"Could Not Write Partition Map" error.

 

this may help.

http://forum.osx86project.org/index.php?sh...Write+Partition

[Perchik]

i still dont know how to fix that"Could Not Write Partition Map" error.

 

this may help.

http://forum.osx86project.org/index.php?sh...Write+Partition

 

 

Yea I had looked at that before installing acronis. I'm currently installing all my windows stuff again b/c of acronis. I'm not too disappointed though. To me its like...if you're playing with fire, you have to expect to get burned occasionally. i.e. if you're installing an operating system from a downloaded iso, there will be some issues lol.

[dilnalomo]

recently people reported with all kinds of problem with acronis, i never expernenced any of these problem.

 

naturaly, my guide should work fine if you follow every step. but if you did anything after, like editing osx files, or messing with boot loader, you will likely to experernce some kind of problem. those problems are not generated by my guide, so i have basically no idea how to fix them. so whatever you do beyond the 8 steps in my guide you are doing it at your own risk.

 

just so you know, you can ask questions here, i will try my best to help you, but dont expect me to fix everything.

 

[Perchik]

Oh yea I agree. The guide worked fine the time. It was acronis that screwed me over

[dilnalomo]

if acronis doesnt work for you you have 3 alternatives.

1. good old win boot loader - use chain0

2. darwin boot loader - follow my boot time guide

3. use Grub - get Grub from a linux install.

[Perchik]

yea, I was using chain0 when I was using my external hd to run OsX but I had downloaded acronis mainly to try to fix the partition.

 

 

 

 

Hey I think I may have stumbled on something with the "Could not write partition map" error. For the people who

ve gotten it, did you have any usb drives/harddrives plugged in the first time you ran the iso? The first time I ran it I had my jump drive and my external hd plugged in.....but then the times I got the error I didnt have either. I just plugged them back in, and no error. Maybe theres something that records your system config ? Just an idea lol

[cbmkgd]

When I wrote about my 'success' (around page 12), I mentionned that before making Acronis OSS work, I had a glitch "probably because I had forgotten to remove the chain0 bit from boot.ini".

 

That "glitch", in more detail, was that (1) my Win2000 wasn't recognized by AOSS, only the MacOSX and Mandriva; and (2) when I could boot into Win2000, through other means, my Win2000 partition was completely filled, the BOOTWIZ folder on that partition containing a strange boot.ini file measuring more than 3GB! Not our usual ascii file! This was causing some major loss of space: as soon as I removed some files to make space, once I rebooted the new space was taken over by that growing boot.ini file, so I was always out of space!

 

It took me some time to regain a normal use of that partition, as I didn't want to reformat. I managed to uninstall Acronis Disk Director and AOSS, and make everything work again. Before removing the app though, I made the Acronis 'rescue cd', which contained a portable DiskDirector, as well as a way to install ONLY AOSS from it.

 

When I managed to take charge of all my partitions again, I gave another chance to AOSS, by installing it from the CD, without installing DiskDirector (it's just before that I noticed I had forgotten the "chain0" reference in the boot.ini before trying the Acronis method). And this time it worked: no mutant boot.ini file growing like a cancer, and my win2000 was well recognized.

I didn't write about these details before, thinking it was due to some stupid error I made.

 

Now in retrospect, and just reading about the problems above that look like those I had (no more space, Windows not recognized), I see that maybe it wasn't due to my forgotten "chain0" in the boot.ini. Due to what else? I don't know. (/edit: see below)

 

So maybe what I've just written can be of help to pinpoint where the problem could be; I myself don't know anymore. At least I can say that one doesn't have to reformat/reinstall Windows, it's still quite recoverable.

 

I hope this can help some people who run into these problems...

 

[in my initial post about my 'success', I also mentioned I had avoided some Acronis apps in the past, esp. AOSS. Well, I guess it still gave me some cold sweat! Maybe I'll try some standalone grub instead, like Wingrub... I don't know. Ah! the joys of uncertainty!]

 

/edit: I just read the post from Perchik above: "I was using chain0 when I was using my external hd to run OsX."

Question: did you keep that chain0 in the boot.ini when you installed the Acronis product?

/edit2: I did not have the "Could not write partition map" error.

[sp0rsk]

Okay this is a question related to acronis only. I installed the program and the os selector and for some reason the os selector never wanted to boot.

 

so i reboot windows and i go into the disk whatever program and from the os selector menu i choose to not use the selector and boot straigh into windows xp proffessional (english)

 

but since this program hasnt liked me from the very beginning now when i start up my system it says

 

loading acronis os selector... press esc to enter menu press f6 to skip menu. and no matter what i press or if i press nothing it just sits there and does nothing.

 

what can i do to remove this thing off my system? can i clear my cmos or remove it from a windows install cd or something? its essentially locked me out of my computer otherwise. Im using a school computer right now to post this.

[dilnalomo]

When I wrote about my 'success' (around page 12), I mentionned that before making Acronis OSS work, I had a glitch "probably because I had forgotten to remove the chain0 bit from boot.ini".

 

That "glitch", in more detail, was that (1) my Win2000 wasn't recognized by AOSS, only the MacOSX and Mandriva; and (2) when I could boot into Win2000, through other means, my Win2000 partition was completely filled, the BOOTWIZ folder on that partition containing a strange boot.ini file measuring more than 3GB! Not our usual ascii file! This was causing some major loss of space: as soon as I removed some files to make space, once I rebooted the new space was taken over by that growing boot.ini file, so I was always out of space!

 

It took me some time to regain a normal use of that partition, as I didn't want to reformat. I managed to uninstall Acronis Disk Director and AOSS, and make everything work again. Before removing the app though, I made the Acronis 'rescue cd', which contained a portable DiskDirector, as well as a way to install ONLY AOSS from it.

 

When I managed to take charge of all my partitions again, I gave another chance to AOSS, by installing it from the CD, without installing DiskDirector (it's just before that I noticed I had forgotten the "chain0" reference in the boot.ini before trying the Acronis method). And this time it worked: no mutant boot.ini file growing like a cancer, and my win2000 was well recognized.

I didn't write about these details before, thinking it was due to some stupid error I made.

 

Now in retrospect, and just reading about the problems above that look like those I had (no more space, Windows not recognized), I see that maybe it wasn't due to my forgotten "chain0" in the boot.ini. Due to what else? I don't know. (/edit: see below)

 

So maybe what I've just written can be of help to pinpoint where the problem could be; I myself don't know anymore. At least I can say that one doesn't have to reformat/reinstall Windows, it's still quite recoverable.

 

I hope this can help some people who run into these problems...

 

[in my initial post about my 'success', I also mentioned I had avoided some Acronis apps in the past, esp. AOSS. Well, I guess it still gave me some cold sweat! Maybe I'll try some standalone grub instead, like Wingrub... I don't know. Ah! the joys of uncertainty!]

 

/edit: I just read the post from Perchik above: "I was using chain0 when I was using my external hd to run OsX."

Question: did you keep that chain0 in the boot.ini when you installed the Acronis product?

/edit2: I did not have the "Could not write partition map" error.

 

if you have Mandriva, you probably better off using Grub to boot.

 

 

Okay this is a question related to acronis only. I installed the program and the os selector and for some reason the os selector never wanted to boot.

 

so i reboot windows and i go into the disk whatever program and from the os selector menu i choose to not use the selector and boot straigh into windows xp proffessional (english)

 

but since this program hasnt liked me from the very beginning now when i start up my system it says

 

loading acronis os selector... press esc to enter menu press f6 to skip menu. and no matter what i press or if i press nothing it just sits there and does nothing.

 

what can i do to remove this thing off my system? can i clear my cmos or remove it from a windows install cd or something? its essentially locked me out of my computer otherwise. Im using a school computer right now to post this.

 

 

i was trying to investage al these weird acronis problems, so about an hour ago, i was dumb enough to try a dual boot on my ancient PIII 800mhz machine. and i got the exact problem you said above. and i tried to put my windows install cd in my dvd rom and reboot, the os selector loaded, but when i click on my windows it failed to boot. you can try to do that see if your windows boot.

 

i ended up booting the win install cd and i was able to do a repair install...good luck to you.

[sp0rsk]

Could you give me a run down of what exactly you did with the windows install cd

 

did you just install over hte old windows install or did you hit R and go into repair mode.

 

if you were in repair mode what did you do from there?

[dilnalomo]

edit:

i put my windows cd in my dvd rom, reboot.

then os selector loaded (passed the "loading acronis os selector..." text).

i click the icon to boot with my windows install cd.

when the installer loads, i hit R for repiar mode. but the install went like a normal install, i saw it copied files and stuff...

 

and this may not apply to you, but if you are not using a genuine copy of windows, when you boot after the install, you will get locked at the logon screen. you have to activate it or ......

[Perchik]

/edit: I just read the post from Perchik above: "I was using chain0 when I was using my external hd to run OsX."

Question: did you keep that chain0 in the boot.ini when you installed the Acronis product?

 

Nope. I had actually considered this, and replaced teh new boot.ini with a copy of the original.

[cbmkgd]

if you have Mandriva, you probably better off using Grub to boot.

Well, the two Linuxes are there for trying out other avenues (just as osx), and might not be there later.

But yes, grub seemed to handle the stuff quite well. If one of those Linuxes stays, won't need aoss or sys.commander.

 

I had actually considered this, and replaced teh new boot.ini with a copy of the original.

Well then, can't pinpoint what went wrong that first time when i used aoss. Anywhoo, it worked eventually.