StrongBad18 Posted September 20, 2008 Share Posted September 20, 2008 I've got a 10.5.5 running perfectly with GPT and want to install vista to a second partition. How can I do this without screwing up osx? I've done a dual boot on MBR before with Vista installed first, but never xp and then vista. Also, I made a backup of a vista partition with the Backup and Recovery center, but I can't figure out how to restore the VHD backup to a single partition. Vista says it has to toast the whole partition scheme and reformat to restore the image. HALP! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
saivert Posted September 24, 2008 Share Posted September 24, 2008 Vista will install it's own bootloader (NTLDR) in the MBR, so you would have to take a backup of the current MBR before you install Vista x64. Vista x64 supports GUID partition tables, but you are never given the option to format your drives using this system. It always choses MBR, but I think it's differently if the drive is already GPT. This needs some investigation though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Embio Posted September 24, 2008 Share Posted September 24, 2008 did this one earlier this week - Vista cannot be installed on GPT. personally I prefer to have a separate disk and grub on a pen drive. this way the OSes do not need to be disturbed or coerced into coexisting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SilverMac Posted September 25, 2008 Share Posted September 25, 2008 Vista will install it's own bootloader (NTLDR) in the MBR, so you would have to take a backup of the current MBR before you install Vista x64. Vista x64 supports GUID partition tables, but you are never given the option to format your drives using this system. It always choses MBR, but I think it's differently if the drive is already GPT. This needs some investigation though. Shouldn't be a problem. Here is how I went about it: I had XP on a first HD, and was my sole HD. I added a second HD, which I then partitioned with the Kalyway 10.5.2 into 2 partitions using GUID. I installed OSX on one partition (MacOS journaled and Fat32 for the other), and configured it to my satisfaction (quartz extreme enabled with my 9800GTX card, etc). I then installed Vista 64 on the second partition. Vista wouldnt accept the second partition as was, so I formatted it (not touching the OSX partition), and installed, again without any problems. I then booted to XP, installed EasyBCD, setup the multi-boot for the 3 OSes, and that was it. I have the 3 OSes, and no problems with any of them. Just FYI, *after* I had done all this, I managed to screw up my MacOS with an unsuccessful upgrade, and still managed to reinstall on it (erasing the old with Kalyway), and didnt touch the Vista partition. I looked at the partition with Kalyway, and it still identified the Mac partition as GUID. I'm not a MacOS expert by any means (utter newbie would be a more apt description), however I imagine there are MacOS tools equivalent to Partition Magic, that would allow you to separate some of the space left on your single partition, and set it in Fat32, allowing you to follow a similar procedure to mine above. As to restoring a full Vista image, and whether it would work, even if that partition were formatted to NTFS with the Windows Install disk.... No idea, but that is how I would try it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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