Triple Boot over 2 HDDs

[brainiac8008]

Okay, here's my current setup. I have my Primary SATA HD (320 GB WD) with Ubuntu 8.10. There's the / partition, the /home partition and the swap partition on this drive. My Secondary SATA HD has Vista Home Premium on it. On the MBR of the primary drive is GRUB, which was installed when I installed Ubuntu. There's an option to boot Ubuntu or Vista.

 

I would like to install Mac OS X Leopard on the primary drive with Ubuntu. How should I set up my system so that I could boot either Mac OS X, Ubuntu, or Vista?

 

Note: I don't yet have the image file so I won't be able to try anything out just yet.

 

Thanks,

Noah

[MacUser2525]

Okay, here's my current setup. I have my Primary SATA HD (320 GB WD) with Ubuntu 8.10. There's the / partition, the /home partition and the swap partition on this drive. My Secondary SATA HD has Vista Home Premium on it. On the MBR of the primary drive is GRUB, which was installed when I installed Ubuntu. There's an option to boot Ubuntu or Vista.

 

I would like to install Mac OS X Leopard on the primary drive with Ubuntu. How should I set up my system so that I could boot either Mac OS X, Ubuntu, or Vista?

 

Note: I don't yet have the image file so I won't be able to try anything out just yet.

 

Thanks,

Noah

 

Your really better off doing it with OS X on a drive by itself with the Vista/Ubuntu dual booting off the primary drive. The way to do this is install Vista in the first partition on primary drive then your Ubuntu next so Grub gets installed on your primary drive then the OS X on the secondary with its boot loader installed there. Now you would only need to add an entry similar to the one for Vista to your /boot/grub/menu.lst to chain load the second drive where the OS X boot loader that was installed would boot it this way you can partition the second drive GUID. BTW you should make a signature with all the hardware in your machine so people will know what you have it makes it easier to help you.

[brainiac8008]

This would require getting rid of my Ubuntu installation and putting it on the drive with Vista on it. I haven't been using Ubuntu much anyway, so I think my best bet would be to install Mac OS X on the primary drive, erasing Ubuntu at the same time.

 

Question 1: Would the Mac OS X bootloader have an option to boot Vista on the second drive if I were to set it up this way?

 

I just came up with something. If I want Ubuntu back, I could partition OS X and put Ubuntu back on the primary drive. GRUB would therefore overwrite the MBR and should make options to boot all three OSes. I would probably just stick with OS X though if it works.

 

I am wondering whether it is worth doing all this if OS X isn't even compatible with my hardware. It may not work with my wireless (ZD1211); that thing has given me some problems in the past. If I don't have wireless, it's over.

 

Question 2: Would OS X work with my hardware? I know this is vague, but I just want to have some idea of what may/may not work. (See signature - thanks for the recommendation)

 

Question 3: When installing OS X, would it allow me to test my hardware (ie. wireless internet)?

 

Thanks,

Noah

[brainiac8008]

Anyone?/*bump*

[MacUser2525]

This would require getting rid of my Ubuntu installation and putting it on the drive with Vista on it. I haven't been using Ubuntu much anyway, so I think my best bet would be to install Mac OS X on the primary drive, erasing Ubuntu at the same time.

 

Question 1: Would the Mac OS X bootloader have an option to boot Vista on the second drive if I were to set it up this way?

 

Most BIOSs have an option to hit a key during boot to select the device to boot from you should check yours it will be simpler. Not sure about the OS X but I have seen posts on using the windows loader to boot OS X so you may want to search on them use Google with site:insanelymac.com on the end of the terms to get any meaningful results.

I just came up with something. If I want Ubuntu back, I could partition OS X and put Ubuntu back on the primary drive. GRUB would therefore overwrite the MBR and should make options to boot all three OSes. I would probably just stick with OS X though if it works.

 

You really want the OS X drive partitioned GUID that rules out booting any other OS but it off the drive so windows/Ubuntu MBR partitioned drive is the way to go for dual boot on same drive.

I am wondering whether it is worth doing all this if OS X isn't even compatible with my hardware. It may not work with my wireless (ZD1211); that thing has given me some problems in the past. If I don't have wireless, it's over.

 

Since I see you have an AMD chip it is a good chance it will be a job getting it on the machine you should try the Google with site:?? on the end for your hardware make and model to see if others have had success.

Question 2: Would OS X work with my hardware? I know this is vague, but I just want to have some idea of what may/may not work. (See signature - thanks for the recommendation)

 

See above.

 

Question 3: When installing OS X, would it allow me to test my hardware (ie. wireless internet)?

 

Thanks,

Noah

 

Most likely for the wireless you are going to have to install a driver/modify an existing one to get it to work unless it is one of those cards that have the same PCIID as an airport card then it will work out of the box as they say.

[brainiac8008]

Thank you for the explanation about a GUID drive. Good to know! I know this sounds stupid, but just to make sure: could a GUID drive be formatted so I could install another OS on the drive with a different type of partition table?

 

I've looked up my processor and it seems like many recent AMD chips will work because they are SSE3-compatible. I found a driver for my wireless in case my wireless doesn't work out of the box. I just discovered that iDeneb includes many drivers and things, including the ZyDAS driver I need and an "AMD patch"! I don't have to install the driver manually, and my processor should work fine.

 

I just found this iDeneb/insanelymac patch that apparently fixes an issue that people have had with nForce motherboards. For these people, when they tried to boot up, it would say, "STILL THIS FOR ROOT DEVICE." I don't know what that's supposed to mean (a bad translation from Italian to English I guess), but I have an nForce motherboard. I don't want to burn a DVD without the patch and try it only to find that I get the error message and have to apply the patch, burn another disk and install again. Do you think I should just apply the patch to the iso before I burn it and install it? It couldn't hurt anything if I do apply it, right?

 

One last question. What does EFI do? Does it really matter? Does it have any impact on updating the system? (I read that you might be able to perform updates if you successfully install Mac OS X with EFI)

 

Sorry for asking so many questions. I am most likely going to install OS X sometime next week. I'll keep you updated.

 

-Noah

[MacUser2525]

Thank you for the explanation about a GUID drive. Good to know! I know this sounds stupid, but just to make sure: could a GUID drive be formatted so I could install another OS on the drive with a different type of partition table?

 

No one partition table one drive that is how it works, actually on MBR drive there is a backup of the same table that is already there so two really GUID not sure about this backup being there.

 

I've looked up my processor and it seems like many recent AMD chips will work because they are SSE3-compatible. I found a driver for my wireless in case my wireless doesn't work out of the box. I just discovered that iDeneb includes many drivers and things, including the ZyDAS driver I need and an "AMD patch"! I don't have to install the driver manually, and my processor should work fine.

 

Exactly AMD patched installer is needed once done with this install you may want to check out the Voodoo kernel it is supposed to help solve some of the problems installing on AMD causes.

 

I just found this iDeneb/insanelymac patch that apparently fixes an issue that people have had with nForce motherboards. For these people, when they tried to boot up, it would say, "STILL THIS FOR ROOT DEVICE." I don't know what that's supposed to mean (a bad translation from Italian to English I guess), but I have an nForce motherboard. I don't want to burn a DVD without the patch and try it only to find that I get the error message and have to apply the patch, burn another disk and install again. Do you think I should just apply the patch to the iso before I burn it and install it? It couldn't hurt anything if I do apply it, right?

 

Still waiting for root device this happens when the controller is not supported by the install disk being used or it is set to the wrong device mode eg. AHCI or IDE in the BIOS. For the patch question you may as well go with the patched version first the nForce boards are tricky to get installed on I see posts here all the time on that idea.

 

One last question. What does EFI do? Does it really matter? Does it have any impact on updating the system? (I read that you might be able to perform updates if you successfully install Mac OS X with EFI)

 

The EFI is what Apple uses instead of a BIOS on the chips it is basically a table/list of devices that the machine contains with the capabilities of those devices contained in it. When the machine posts it reads/loads the firmware for each of those devices to enable initialization of them during boot with an emulator for EFI installed these normal PCs with a BIOS will not boot as there is nothing there to translate the system calls made to it from the OS X install to tell it what devices it has.

Sorry for asking so many questions. :censored2: I am most likely going to install OS X sometime next week. I'll keep you updated.

 

-Noah

 

No problem everybody needs to start somewhere figuring this out, good luck with the install hopefully it goes well.

[brainiac8008]

Sounds good. By the way, for my first question about formatting the drive, I meant after the installation. I understand that OS X must be by itself on a hard drive. My question is this: If I install OS X on a hard drive, would I later be able to completely erase and format the drive, and then install Linux or another OS if I am dissatisfied with OS X or OS X doesn't work? I am assuming that even though OS X does not use MBRs, the act of formatting the drive and installing Linux or Windows on it would create a MBR on the drive. As I said, I just want to be sure because I don't want to be left with an unusable hard drive if OS X does not agree with my hardware.

 

Thank you for your patience,

Noah

[MacUser2525]

Sounds good. By the way, for my first question about formatting the drive, I meant after the installation. I understand that OS X must be by itself on a hard drive. My question is this: If I install OS X on a hard drive, would I later be able to completely erase and format the drive, and then install Linux or another OS if I am dissatisfied with OS X or OS X doesn't work? I am assuming that even though OS X does not use MBRs, the act of formatting the drive and installing Linux or Windows on it would create a MBR on the drive. As I said, I just want to be sure because I don't want to be left with an unusable hard drive if OS X does not agree with my hardware.

 

Yes it is just the same as you would normally do when installing with windows it will show up as an unknown partition type I believe that you need to delete then create new partition. With cfdisk in Linux it will tell you that the partition type is unsupported then you just use fdisk if I remember it correctly to erase the partition table then I used cfdisk for normal my partitioning scheme for an install.

Thank you for your patience,

Noah

 

Your welcome.