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Easy OS X 10.6.3 Windows 7 Dual Boot


Hackintosh2000
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I accomplished an almost idiot proof dual boot fairly easily with nothing more than nawcom's latest ModUSB installer, an original OS X 10.6.3 disk and an original Windows 7 install disk. No need to download any other utilities or files.

 

The hard part was you have to prep the disk with diskpart. First boot up with the Windows 7 install disk. When you get to the point where it asks you what you want to do choose repair Windows (or something like that). You will then be given a number of choices including a command prompt. Select the command prompt. At the prompt type diskpart.

 

For a useful tutorial on how to use diskpart go here... http://forums.techarena.in/guides-tutorials/1172499.htm

 

type the following:

list disk *lists disks connect to computer

select disk n *select the disk you are going to work on. n=disk number

clean *This will erase the entire hard drive including partitions

create partition primary size=n *creates a partition. n is size in megabytes (I know... pain in the @$)

 

You can google an online mb to gb converter to determine the size of partition you want.

Repeat the create partition primary command at last 1 more time and up to 3 more times. I made 4 partitions on a 2TB hard drive... One for Windows 7 OS, one for OS X 10.6.3, on for OS X data, and one for Windows 7 data. You cannot have more than 4 primary partitions on a single hard drive. Make sure you assign ALL the space on the hard drive to your partitions. Do NOT leave any unallocated space... well 20-30 mb won't hurt.

 

list partition *list the partitions on your newly partitioned hard drive

select partition n *select the partition you want to work on n=partition number for Windows 7

Active *makes the partition you are working on the boot partition

assign letter=l *you will have to select different partitions and use this command to assign drive

letters to each

 

Make the first partition on the drive the active partition and install Windows 7 to this partition. I made the second partition Snow Leopard and then I followed that with the two data partitions.

 

exit *quit diskpart and return to prompt

 

At the prompt you need to format ALL the disk partitions you created. Use the format command

 

Example for your c: drive... FORMAT C: /Q /FS:NTFS

You should have assigned a drive letter to each partition. Obviously the first partition where you are going to install Windows 7 should have been assigned the letter C. I skipped the letter D because that is usually DVD/BluRay drives. Make sure you use /Q for quick format. Otherwise it will take awhile. Format all the partitions in NTFS. We will reformat them once we install OS X.

 

After you're done formatting all the partitions type EXIT. Proceed with Windows 7 install. After windows install reboot your computer with the nawcom ModUSB and install OS X. Remember to only re-format partitions that will contain OS X system file and data. See my other post for nawcom ModUSB install instructions.

 

When you are done with the OSX install your computer will boot via chameleon. When you do the nawcom ModUSB install it makes the OS X partition the active partition. This is fine because the chameleon loader will present you with a choice of which hard drive to boot from every time you turn on your computer. If you do nothing it will boot OS X. If you hit a key on the first page with a picture of a hard drive and a count down bar it will present you with a choice of hard drives.

 

I've rebooted several times and everything seems to be fine in Win7 and OS X.

 

The key to this trick is partitioning and formating the entire hard drive so windows can't create its 200mb useless partition when installing. Thats why you have to do all that stuff at the command prompt BEFORE you install Windows 7. The other thing is you must put Windows 7 on the hard drive first so it can't mess with chameleon.

 

Any comments or corrections let me know.

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Make sure you assign ALL the space on the hard drive to your partitions. Do NOT leave any unallocated space... well 20-30 mb won't hurt.

 

The key to this trick is partitioning and formating the entire hard drive so windows can't create its 200mb useless partition when installing. Thats why you have to do all that stuff at the command prompt BEFORE you install Windows 7. The other thing is you must put Windows 7 on the hard drive first so it can't mess with chameleon.

 

Any comments or corrections let me know.

 

The 200mb partition is created so that the user can use bitlocker, and is created by default in Windows 7 Ultimate. The version usually included with new computers is Windows 7 Home Premium and it doesn't create the 200mb partition; boot and recovery files are installed on C: only.

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