naquaada Posted July 7, 2016 Share Posted July 7, 2016 Seven operating systems or more on one harddisk? No problem. My actual systems include: - Windows XP - Windows 7 - OS X 10.9.5 - OS X 10.6.8 - OS X 10.5.8 - ZorinOS 9 (based on Ubuntu 14) - Android-x86 ... and there are still 300 GB for data on the 1 TB harddisk. It's as compatible as possible, a MBR harddisk with 9 partitions is neccessary ;-) Well, this requires some calculation. So I'm beginning from the start. 1. Advanced Sector Format Today's harddisks have real 4K-sectors instead of eight 512 byte-sectors. If the partitions aren't aligned to the 4K-sectors it will decrease the speed or even make block-based backups impossible. This is important because not all partitioning tools support this. Examples are Windows XP and the Disk Utility bis 10.5, maybe higher. Windows Vista and higher is compatible, the newest versions of Disk Utility, too. Linux should be compatible, I'm not using it often. 2. Gigabyte vs. Gibibyte Did you know the problem that a one 1TB HD has just 931,5 GB? That's the problem. Harddisk, SSD and Flashdrive manufacturers are using Base 10 instead of Base 2. Computer RAM is still using Base 2. The calculation is really stupid, let's check this out. The smallest item is a Bit: 1 = 2^1 Rather unknown is the Nybble: 16 = 2^4 Most common is the Byte: 256 = 2^8 the Kilobyte is 1024 = 2^10 the Megabyte is 1.048.576 = 2^20 But an 1-TB-Harddrive has 2^8 * 10^12 Bit ?! That's why the names has changed, but nobody cares about. All what we earlier know as Base 2 is now Base 10, because names like 'Kilo' or 'Mega' are metric units. Here are the earlier names and the new names, including their abbreviations. Kilobyte (KB) -> Kibibyte (KiB) Megabyte (MB) -> Mebibyte (MiB) Gigabyte (GB) -> Gibibyte (GiB) Terabyte (TB) -> Tebibyte (TiB) Petabyte (PB) -> Pebibyte (PiB) So, torrorrow tell your friend, 'Hey, I've upgraded my RAM. Now I have 32 Gibibyte DDR3 in my machine' ;-) In the Wikipedia are more of these new names. Get used to it, for me is it absolutely normal to use GiB now. To convert (not exactly) between them, use the factor 1,074. 931,5 GiB * 1,074 = 1000,431 GB 3. Calculating partitions If you have created and formatted a partition, you immediately noticed that it has not the full capacity, so I'm adding 128 MB extra. Because multiboot partitions have to be calculated very exactly, I have to get the values in Mebibyte. So the formula to caluclate a partition is GiB * 1024 + 128 Example: 150 * 1024 + 128 = 153.728 MiB = 150.12 GiB 4. Plan your partitioning table I'm only using Linux gparted to partition harddisks, it is very exact and it supports very well logical MBR partitions. I'm still using MBR and Legacy BIOS, it works without UEFI. If you want to use Windows XP, you can't use a GPT table. You also have up to three bootloaders, Clover, Windows and GRUB2. The order of installing operating systems is important. Here's the partition table of my system: .64 bbb .64 656 HFS+ 200.12 Win7 XP 200.76 204.928 NTFS 15.12 Windows 215.88 15.488 NTFS 150.12 Mavericks 366.00 245.888 HFS+ 80.12 SnowLeo 446.12 143.488 HFS+ 150.12 Leopard 596.24 245.888 HFS+ 80.12 Shared 676.36 82.048 HFS+ or ExFAT 220.12 WinData 896.48 225.408 NTFS 34.01 ZorinOS 931.49 34.832 EXT3 6 MB Unnused Important is than every MiB value is divideable by 8. I'm explaining the partitions now. .64 bbb .64 656 This is the partition ONLY for the Clover or Chamelon bootloader. A seperate partition for the bootloader is useful: If you are reinstalling you system, your bootloader isn't killed. It must be primary AND the first partition. 200.12 Win7 XP 200.76 204.928 NTFS This partition contains a Windows Vista, 7, 8 or 10. It's also possible to install a non-english version of Windows XP in here, there are no name conflicts. This partition must be primary because at least Windows XP won't install to logical partitions. 15.12 Windows 215.88 15.488 NTFS This partition is a for the Windows 7 Bootloader (EasyBCD) and the Windows swapfile (pagefile.sys). I'm moving it to another partition, so there is no big file if you want to defragment or backup your system. The swapfile should officially be about 1,5 times of your real memory. You can share it with Windows XP, but it has to be created first in XP. Windows 7 allows to overwrite existing swapfiles. Add some more space to the partition, you can install bootable ISO images with EasyBCD. It's also useful for Firefox caches, the many tiny files will fragment your harddisk. It also must be a primary partition. -> Now you have three primary partitions, numbers 1 to 3. Select the rest of your drive as one partition and set it as type 'Extended'. This is partition 4. Now you can create logical partitions, the first has number 5. 150.12 Mavericks 366.00 245.888 HFS+ The first MacOS Partition, in a logical partition of the extended partition. MBR madness ;-) But well, it works. 80.12 SnowLeo 446.12 143.488 HFS+ 150.12 Leopard 596.24 245.888 HFS+ My other two OS X versions. The partition table was changed later, so the Snow Leopard partition is just 80 GiB in size. 80.12 Shared 676.36 82.048 HFS+ or ExFAT This partition exists since my first OS X installations in 2006. It was ment to share data between my main and my recovery system. Now I'm using it for daily use, everything downloaded is first here, then moved to a better place. It's also possible to use this partition as Windows and MacOS sharing partition, since 10.6.5 you can use ExFAT, earlier versions need FAT32 or NTFS with NTFS-3G for Mac. 220.12 WinData 896.48 225.408 NTFS This partition is for Windows data files, I'm not using another one on this system - it only supports three HD's. Of course, it can be used for another OS X partition ;-) 34.01 ZorinOS 931.49 34.832 EXT3 ZorinOS is a Linux for switchers, usually it looks like Windows 7, but you can change it on-the-fly to Windows 2000, Win XP, OS X and other Linux variants. I need Linux only for gparted and filesystem exchanges, so theoretically I could use a Live DVD. But it's faster on HD. And it's possible to install Android-x86 in this partition. But it has to stay as EXT3, Android doesn't support EXT4. 6 MB Unnused A bit space will be free at the end, I will stay it this way because the partition calculations should be correct. The WD Align Utility tells me that all partitions are correctly aligned. ... Pause - don't post something yet! I have to check some things, will finish this later. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/312946-septaboot-and-more/ Share on other sites More sharing options...
PippoX0 Posted July 8, 2016 Share Posted July 8, 2016 Hi, I have a multiboot Hackintosh too ... I had a Pc with Xp and simply i create new partitions for OSX , resizing free space. Now i have xp (25gb),data 400gb, and OSX Tiger, Leopard, Snow Leo, Lion, Montain Lion , Mavericks, Yosemite , El Capitain and Sierra ; each one has 25 GB. On my legacy Pc i use Enoch boot loader which can run fine any OSX and Xp. I have no windows7 or Linux in partitions because i use them in VM See Ya Sent from iPhone/iPad Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/312946-septaboot-and-more/#findComment-2249050 Share on other sites More sharing options...
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