Triple boot with the ASUS recovery DVD

[tiagobt]

Is it possible to triple boot an ASUS N82JQ notebook using the Windows 7 contained in the recovery DVD? The installer provided by ASUS is simplified, so only two partition options are available:

 

- A single NTFS partition containing Windows 7.

- Two NFTS partitions, one for Windows 7 and one for data.

 

The installer doesn't provide advanced partition options, so I don't think a GPT-only disk would work.

 

Besides Windows 7, I'd like to install Mac OS X (Snow Leopard or Lion) and Ubuntu 11.04. An extra data partition would also be interesting (if possible).

 

I've already installed Mac OS X Snow Leopard on this notebook (using [url="http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/"]#####[/url] + [url="http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/"]#####[/url]) and most of the hardware is working. However, I only have one partition (and one operating system) right now.

 

What would be the best installation order? Is a hybrid GPT/MBR recommended? Or is it easier to use an MBR-only disk? Do I have to clone the Mac OS installation at some point?

 

Thanks a lot for the help,

Tiago

[3.14r2]

Is it possible to triple boot an ASUS N82JQ notebook using the Windows 7 contained in the recovery DVD?

Sure it is possible, but you have to use a 3d party tools for that.

 

1. Use the second option - System partition plus Data partition, using all free space available for data partition left after System partition creation
   
2. Install Windows
   
3. Boot to Gparted Live CD (or similar tool) and shrink the data partition and create other partition you need for other OS. Or use the build-in Windows disk management tool for that. Alternatively you may just shrink the partition and created needed partitions along the way (IMO Gparted is more flexible tool)
   
4. Use an second HDD (USB/Firewire/a spare HDD) to install Retail OS X
   
5. Adjust OS X to fully working condition, then clone it to Windows disk (using Clonzilla Live CD or similar tool)
   
6. Install boot loader etc...
   

SOME IMPORTANT NOTES:

Windows 7 can boot both from GPT/MBR disks. However GPT option for Windows 7 is possible (for x86 platform) if: it's 64-bit version and motherboard is UEFI2.x enabled. In other cases it's MBR only.

 

OS X (using the unmodified Retail disk) usually can be installed only to GPT disk. Therefore a distro disk (these are patched to be able to install to MBR disks) should be used or a patched Retail disk. Also you can clone OS X from a GPT disk and it should work.

 

There are other methods to make Windows coexist with OS X on the same drive. But it's a very broad subject.

 

Hybrid disks may not be as reliable as pure GPT or pure MBR disk (although Apple uses it on Macs via BootCamp, but that's another story). For OS X GPT is the best option, while for Windows MBR is the safest option. Linux can use both, but it's easier to install and maintain it on MBR disk.

 

IMO 3 different OSs on the same HDD (esp. with data partition each) is quite complex structure (let's count - Linux (swap*+home+root=3), Windows (System Reserved*+System+Data=3), OS X (EFI**+System+Data=3) 9partitions in total;*-optional partitions,**-optional then cloning to MBR disk)) that most likely will not be very stable and in an event of failure with one of the OSs, may have sad consequences for other OSs too. As you may know, Windows 7/Vista doesn't "like" other OSs (boot loaders namely) on the same drive when installing service packs. You may imagine how "glad" it would be to have the other 2 OSs near by.

 

The best option is to have a dedicated drive for each OS (Windows+Linux=HHD1, OS X=HDD2). But in case with notebooks it quite difficult to have (not many notebooks have a secondary HDD). Sure one could buy an optical drive HDD adapter and have two HDDs in nearly any notebook...

[tiagobt]

Thanks a lot for the answer. I'll try the procedure you described. I just have a few more questions:

 

- I'm not sure how to clone the Mac OS X installation from the external HD to the notebook HD. Is there a tutorial out there showing how? Using this method, do I still need an EFI partition?

 

- I don't think I'll need 9 partitions (no separate partition for Linux home, no swap partition for Linux, just one data partition for all operating systems, etc.). However, I'll probably have more than 4 partitions. Considering my disk will be MBR-only, do I have to take care about which partitions are primary and which ones are extended?

 

Thanks again,

Tiago

[3.14r2]

- I'm not sure how to clone the Mac OS X installation from the external HD to the notebook HD. Is there a tutorial out there showing how? Using this method, do I still need an EFI partition?

If using Clonzilla Live CD:

how to clone the Mac OS X installation from the external HD to the notebook HD connect the external HDD to PC, boot from Live CD and follow the above guide. No, with this method EFI partition is not necessary.

 

When you install Mac OS X on GPT disk (as it is intended by Apple), OS X creates an additional EFI partition (it must be present according to EFI specification, therefore Apple is forced to use it, although in real life (on Macs) it is not used for anything at all). The EFI partition is something like System Reserved partition on the Windows 7/Vista PC, but again on Macs it is not used for any purpose.

 

Since it is present but not used, on Hackintosh we may use it to store the Chameleon files (there are some benefits for that, as well as disadvantages). However Chameleon might be installed to the same partition as OS X itself is installed or to any other dedicated HFS+ partition.

- I don't think I'll need 9 partitions (no separate partition for Linux home, no swap partition for Linux, just one data partition for all operating systems, etc.). However, I'll probably have more than 4 partitions. Considering my disk will be MBR-only, do I have to take care about which partitions are primary and which ones are extended?

IMO any system partition should be primary, while any data partition might be extended.

Sure Windows should better be installed first.

 

I'm not sure that "just one data partition for all operating systems" is going to work well. Which file system you will be willing to use?

Linux can read/write HFS only with root prev.. Probably same with NTFS.

Mac OS X has native NTFS drivers, but read-only option is enabled by default. It has no ext2/3 native support.

Windows by default can read none the file system used in Mac OS X/Linux.

 

FAT is limited to 2GB file size, therefore not suitable for storing large files. So there not much options you have. Except for exFAT which seems to be suitable for all the above OSs.

[tiagobt]

I've purchased Mac OS X Lion from the App Store and I was hoping I could install it in my notebook (instead of Snow Leopard). I found quite a few tutorials (most of them using USB sticks) in the installation forum. I wonder what procedure would work best with the instructions you described (installing to an external HD and then cloning to the internal HD). Is there a special procedure you'd indicate?

 

About the unified data partition, I was planning on using NTFS. It's the native format in Windows and it works well in Linux and Mac with NTFS-3G (both for reading and writing). Besides, it doesn't have the size limitations of FAT32.

 

Thanks,

Tiago

[3.14r2]

I wonder what procedure would work best with the instructions you described (installing to an external HD and then cloning to the internal HD). Is there a special procedure you'd indicate?

I guess you need to google extensively as there are quite sufficient amount of information already.

[tiagobt]

I've tried the procedure a few times, but I keep getting stuck on the Clonezilla part. I'm doing the following:

 

- Use the ASUS recovery DVDs to format the HD and install Windows 7. I ended up with 3 partitions:

1. Hidden partition where the Windows recovery information is located.
   
2. NTFS partition where Windows 7 is installed.
   
3. NTFS data partition.
   

 

- Use [url="http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/"]#####[/url] and the Snow Leopard DVD to install Mac OS on the external HD. I used a rather small HFS+ partition (40GB) to make sure I'd be able to clone it later on. The installation went fine and I was able to boot Mac OS from the external HD.

 

- Use the GParted live CD to change the partition table. I ended up with the following partitions:

1. Hidden restore partition (primary).
   
2. Windows 7 NTFS partition (primary).
   
3. HFS+ partition for Mac OS (primary).
   
4. Ext3 partition for Linux (logical).
   
5. NTFS data partition (logical).
   

 

- Use the Clonezilla live CD to clone the external HD installation onto partition number 3. Partition number 3 is larger than the HFS+ partition on the external HD. I followed the instructions of the link you provided. I used the exact same options indicated by the article. The cloning process went fine.

 

- I used [url="http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/"]#####[/url] again, but no partitions were shown this time! I also booted the GParted live CD again to see what was wrong. Partitions 1, 2 and 4 are now unknown file systems. Partitions 3 and 5 became unallocated space.

 

Do you guys know what I did wrong? Is there a way to recover my partitions?

 

Thanks a lot,

Tiago

[tiagobt]

I'm starting to think I'm choosing the wrong options in Clonezilla and the MBR becomes corrupted...

 

I'm using the following options:

• device-device
  
• Expert mode
  
• part-to-local-part
  
• source: sdb2 (HFS+ partition on the external HD)
  
• target: sda3 (HFS+ partition on the notebook HD)
  

 

And the following advanced parameters:

• -e1 auto: Automatically adjust filesystem geometry for an NTFS boot partition if it exists.
  
• -e2: sfdisk uses CHS of hard drive from EDD (for non-grub boot loader).
  
• -j2: Clone the hidden data between MBR and 1st partition.
  
• -m: Do NOT clone boot loader.
  

 

And the following mode to create the partition table on the target disk:

• -k1: Create partition table proportionally (OK for MBR format, not GPT).
  

 

Maybe I shouldn't be using the -k1 mode. Would it make more sense to use the -k mode instead ("Do NOT create partition table on boot sector of target machine")?

 

Thanks,

Tiago

[tiagobt]

I had no luck with Clonezilla, but Disk Utility (from Mac OS X) seems to work! I used the "Restore" feature to clone the installation from the external HD to the notebook HD. Now I have a dual boot!

 

However, I had an issue when trying to configure Mac OS X. I tried to install Mac OS X 10.6.8 Combo Update, but once the download was completed, the following error showed up: "SafariErrorDomain Error2". If I try to launch the DMG file manually, I get an error message saying that the disk image could not be opened. Is there a way to fix this?

 

Right now, I have Mac OS X 10.6 and Darwin Kernel 10.5.0.

 

Thanks,

Tiago

[night_mare007]

hey m8...

You can install grub or burg ( both are linux based ) as primary bootloader, and let one of them redirect you to what-ever partition you want: osx, windows, linux, windows-backup/restore ( hidden or not )...

 

Look at my guide for using burg bootloader.

I use it, and I have osx+windows+linux.

as yuo can see from my guide's images, I only have there 3 "icons" as boot....

but when I press the "F" key during this screen I get to see ALL the hidden partitions and linux's various kernels, so as total I have like 9 different options to boot from... ( Of course that depends on how many partitons and kernels you've got on your system )

 

So if I want to boot regular windows/linux/OSX ( then it launches chameleon )

- I hit 1 button.

If I want to enter windows's backup/restore/hidden partition or to boot to linux safe mode/other kernel

- I hit "F" move with the arrows to choose the right icon and then enter.

 

easy, WORKING for sure for Snow 10.6.7+linux 10.10+windows 7 sp1 - and BEAUTIFUL !!!

[tiagobt]

Cool! I'll try that. Just a quick question. I'm about to install Ubuntu Linux (Windows 7 and Mac OS X are already working with Chameleon ). Ubuntu Linux will try to install GRUB somewhere. Should I install it to the disk or to the Linux partition? I want to follow your guide when I'm done in order to use BURG.

 

Thanks,

Tiago

[tiagobt]

I've written a step-by-step guide describing how I got the triple boot working on the ASUS N82JQ. In case someone is interested, check it here.