The Weez Posted June 19, 2011 Share Posted June 19, 2011 I have a Windows 7 installation that I would like to keep intact. It is on the hard drive that I intend to use as the main hdd for this PC. I installed 10.6.7 on a spare drive that I had lying around just to see if how it works with my PC. Now i would like to move them both to the main hdd. Can this be done without screwing up the Win7 instl? I can reinstall OSX if I must, but I really have Win7 set up the way I want it and don't want to reinstall. I have Norton Ghost. Right now I'm booting from [url="http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/"]#####[/url]. What do you guys think? Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/259698-move-existing-win7-and-osx-installations-on-different-drives-to-1-drive/ Share on other sites More sharing options...
3.14r2 Posted June 19, 2011 Share Posted June 19, 2011 It is better to have a separate drive for each OS. Much less complicated system management. Though you can clone an OS from one drive to another (I usually use Gparted Live CD). The thing is that OS X use GPT (GUID partition table) while Windows 7 usually (there are exceptions though) uses MBR (Master Boot Record) type disks. More info in this topic. I'm not an expert on the subject (I use separate disks for each OS), so please be sure to search the forum for HOW-TO. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/259698-move-existing-win7-and-osx-installations-on-different-drives-to-1-drive/#findComment-1700193 Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Weez Posted June 19, 2011 Author Share Posted June 19, 2011 Well right now I have Snow Leopard on a little 20GB drive that I had lying around from an xbox so I need to put it on something substantial, unless I choose to use part of my main drive (the one that has Windows) as storage. I'm trying to get away without spending much money b/c this is really just a "see how it works out" kind of thing for now, I'm normally a Windows user and it will take a lot to get me to switch to osx for good. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/259698-move-existing-win7-and-osx-installations-on-different-drives-to-1-drive/#findComment-1700249 Share on other sites More sharing options...
3.14r2 Posted June 19, 2011 Share Posted June 19, 2011 Well right now I have Snow Leopard on a little 20GB drive that I had lying around from an xbox so I need to put it on something substantial, unless I choose to use part of my main drive (the one that has Windows) as storage. I'm trying to get away without spending much money b/c this is really just a "see how it works out"... In this case a separate drive is even better solution (you wont lose Windows and have both OSs). Having them on the same drive IMHO is much drastic and risky decision. If you have both OS on a dedicated drive, then a crash of one OS will (in most cases) not affect another. BTW OS X uses much less space, then for instance Windows does. My SL notebook system disk is about 12.5GB (space used) including Xcode and some other basic stuff. Therefore 20GB should be enough. Sure an additional space for storage will be required if you plan to use OS X on daily basis. However it shouldn't be a problem if you use OS X in "experimental" mode (without downloading much data to OS X disk). Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/259698-move-existing-win7-and-osx-installations-on-different-drives-to-1-drive/#findComment-1700325 Share on other sites More sharing options...
srs5694 Posted June 20, 2011 Share Posted June 20, 2011 The GPT/MBR thing isn't nearly as solid a wall as 3.14r2 suggests. There are several ways around it, although some options are better than others: Although a stock OS X installer will only install to a GPT disk, OS X boots just fine from an MBR disk. (I think it needs a primary partition, though, which could be an issue, depending on how many primary partitions you're already using.) You can copy your current installation over using Disk Utility, Carbon Copy Cloner, or other tools and then get it working. The biggest hurdle is to get the boot loader installed and working correctly. A mistake on this score can make it hard to boot either OS until you get it corrected. It's possible to convert Windows to boot from a GPT disk by using UEFI DUET. There's a thread on this site that details the procedure, and I've written a Web page on the topic. This approach is very much "bleeding-edge," though. If you wanted to try it, I'd recommend digging up another spare disk for experimentation purposes before converting your existing Windows installation. A hybrid MBR is always a possibility. This makes Windows think the disk is an MBR disk and OS X sees it as a GPT disk. This is an easy solution, and it's the one that Apple uses to boot Windows on real Macs, but it's risky -- I've seen many reports of problems caused by hybrid MBRs. I recommend this option only if others are impossible or very impractical. Overall, I'd agree with 3.14r2 that the optimal solution is to use two disks; however, if the only second disk you've got is a 20 GB model, and if your main disk is something significantly more modern, you might get better performance by copying OS X over to your main MBR disk or installing UEFI DUET so that Windows works from a GPT disk. Note that you can carve up part of your main disk for use as an OS X data disk (even storing applications there) even if OS X itself lives on a secondary disk. In fact, this configuration can have some performance benefits, since there'll be less need for head seeks when the OS needs to access files that would exist on both drives. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/259698-move-existing-win7-and-osx-installations-on-different-drives-to-1-drive/#findComment-1700873 Share on other sites More sharing options...
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