Tri Boot Issues

[N8VFX]

Hello everyone!

 

I have an issue that I cannot seem to find the answer to here in the forums. I have a Mac Pro (sorry its the real deal) and last summer I went through the process of dual booting it with centOS 5.3. It took me awhile to get it to work but it finally did. Now I would like to add windows 7 to the mix without redoing everything. I don't do this all the time so it would be a lot of work for me to do. What I have done so far is I have taken out the primary drive, installed a new one, installed windows on that new drive then put that drive into a secondary slot (number 4 to be exact). I know that at this point I need to edit the MBR and GPT so that windows can boot but I am just not sure how do to that and I can not find any information on it. I am using rEFIt as my boot loader.

 

Let me know if you need any more info.

 

Thanks,

 

N8

[mulcyber]

Hello everyone!

 

I have an issue that I cannot seem to find the answer to here in the forums. I have a Mac Pro (sorry its the real deal) and last summer I went through the process of dual booting it with centOS 5.3. It took me awhile to get it to work but it finally did. Now I would like to add windows 7 to the mix without redoing everything. I don't do this all the time so it would be a lot of work for me to do. What I have done so far is I have taken out the primary drive, installed a new one, installed windows on that new drive then put that drive into a secondary slot (number 4 to be exact). I know that at this point I need to edit the MBR and GPT so that windows can boot but I am just not sure how do to that and I can not find any information on it. I am using rEFIt as my boot loader.

 

Let me know if you need any more info.

 

Thanks,

 

N8

 

I am not familiar with genuine Macs. But I have some observations which may help. If you successfully installed Windows using your Mac hardware, it reboots during the install process, you saw a Welcome screen etc., it means that Windows installed itself in the MBR of that hard drive, the boot files are in the MBR and on the drive.

Did Windows install drivers for your Mac hardware, could you use the internet?

 

My Intel pc has a Bios. One of the things I can do is boot from any of the three hard drives I have installed, as the computer starts up. Does your computer have the same functionality? Bios or not. If it does, you should be able to boot the Windows drive directly, if you were able to install Windows directly on your Mac system. [selecting the OS with the Alt or Option key?]

 

Do you still have centOS installed. If it is on it own drive, grub the bootloader may be installed to the MBR or to the linux root partition. Does rEFIt access the grub boot menu when you boot up centOS? If it does, Windows won't be on the grub boot menu because Windows was installed after it. But it's possible to edit the grub boot configuration file, (grub.conf, menu.lst) or, reinstall grub and update-grub, use Google for details.

 

Then Windows will be on the grub boot menu and you may be able to boot Windows with this menu. But at least on a Intel PC, Windows prefers to be primary and booted first. Never use Chameleon for your Mac bootloader. HTH

 

http://derekhat.com/install-vista-on-a-mac...thout-bootcamp/

I think that if vista can be installed on the same drive as OS X on the MacBook Pro, then there should be no

problem installing and booting Windows on a Mac Pro using a separate hard drive. Most comments said that

they used the BootCamp drivers to install the Windows devices; you don't mention a problem with Win drivers?!

[N8VFX]

Thanks for getting back to me. I haven't tried to install the windows drivers yet, I am sure that part won't be an issue, they are all found on my mac pro install CD. I guess what I need to know is does rEFIt use the grub boot loader and if so can I edit it to add the new drive to the list? Or would that even work? knowing that the mbr on the drive that the windows installed on would be different than the other mbr. Maybe what I should do is use partition magic to partition my primary drive and then install windows there using boot camp. Any thoughts?

[mulcyber]

Thanks for getting back to me. I haven't tried to install the windows drivers yet, I am sure that part won't be an issue, they are all found on my mac pro install CD. I guess what I need to know is does rEFIt use the grub boot loader and if so can I edit it to add the new drive to the list? Or would that even work? knowing that the mbr on the drive that the windows installed on would be different than the other mbr. Maybe what I should do is use partition magic to partition my primary drive and then install windows there using boot camp. Any thoughts?

 

Well, I believe in not fixing what isn't broken. So if Windows is installed to another hard drive, you

should be able to boot into using the Option key (or PC Alt key). The Option key should offer one

a choice between the rEFIt bootloader or the native Startup Manager. Try to see if either bootloader

offers Windows to boot up. http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1310 -> Option key usage howto.

1) "Turn on, or restart, your Mac.

2) Immediately press and hold the Option key. After a few seconds, the Startup Manager should appear. The

Startup Manager scans for available available volumes." Use left and right arrow keys to select choice, then <enter>

--------------------------------

 

http://refit.sourceforge.net/doc/c2s1_activate.html

 

Getting into the rEFIt menu

"If you have installed rEFIt on your Mac OS X volume, it will be loaded automatically when the Mac starts up.

 

With rEFIt installed on a separate volume (internal or external) or on a CD, hold down the “Option” key while the Mac starts up. That activates the built-in boot menu, where you’ll see an icon labeled “rEFIt”. Choose it with the arrow keys and hit Return, and the rEFIt menu will be loaded.

 

You can configure your Mac to automatically start the rEFIt menu even when it is installed on a separate volume. Just use “enable-always.sh” instead of “enable.sh”.

 

Next: Starting an Operating System

 

 

Using the rEFIt menu

The main menu displays two rows of icons. You can navigate the menu with the arrow keys. Press Return or Space to select an entry.

 

The upper row shows all operating system loaders detected on the available storage media. The Mac OS X installation on the internal disk will usually be the first entry. Each entry is badged with a small icon representing the volume it is on. Each boot entry also has a submenu with additional boot options. It can be accessed by pressing ‘+’ or F2. The boot entries can be activated directly by pressing one of the number keys. The first entry on the left is '1', the next one is '2', and so on. Additionally, the letter keys 'M', 'W', and 'L' can be used to start the first Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux entry, respectively. ..

 

Problem: When choosing a legacy operating system (e.g. Windows) from the rEFIt boot menu, you get an error message saying "Error: Not found while loading legacy loader".

 

Solution: If you have a Mac Pro and are running rEFIt 0.7 or earlier, this is a known problem that is fixed in rEFIt 0.8. (This may also apply to other recent Core 2 Duo based models.) [Version 0.14 (March 7, 2010) is the newest version]

 

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When I first read your post, I thought this should already be working. That is why I questioned you on whether you knew that Windows was actually installed; because Windows reboots once or twice during the install process, until you see a Welcome.

 

Partition Magic worked very well for Windows XP, but Norton bought it and put it on the shelf, I don't think it works even for Vista anymore. Windows now has its own shrink method under Disk Management. For Macs and Hackintosh, the tool most recommended is the free download of Gparted. I don't think you need it yet, but it is good to have it in the toolbox.

 

"Multiple Internal Disks [From Troubleshooting rEfit ]

 

Booting Windows or Linux from the second (third, fourth, ...) internal hard disk through rEFIt currently does not work as expected.

 

According to Apple’s Boot Camp FAQ any internal disk works, so you may be able to boot from the second disk using the built-in boot menu. Hold down the Option key during startup to activate that boot menu.

It may be possible to properly support booting from the second disk in rEFIt, but the author currently lacks a suitable test system. If you can help investigate this and are willing to test patched rEFIt builds, please get in touch."