Cyber Akuma Posted April 7, 2008 Share Posted April 7, 2008 Hi, this is my first post here. I am new to attempting to install MACOSX on a normal pc. Ok, I always wanted to learn how to use MACOSX, a friend suggested I try installing it on my laptop, its a Toshiba Satellite A215-S7413. Currently my laptop dual-boots Vista and Ubuntu using the GRUB bootloader. I tried reading some osx86 install guides he sent me, but most of these seem to be based on installing them on either a new system or one with an exsisting Windows install. Plus I have many questions that these don't seem to answer. Also, since my drive is fully partitioned (although only about 20% or so of the space is used) I would need to use a tool such as Partition Magic to shrink the NTFS partition to make space for whatever file system MACOSX uses. Finally, when I originally upgraded the 120GB harddrive in the laptop to 250, when I copied over the Vista partition it would not boot, it wasnt until I did a full drive copy that I realized Toshiba had created a special 1gb hidden system partition that apparnetly my Vista install needed ot boot. (Since Vista came with the system, I can't re-install it without using the "restore" disks that would basically completely reformat the drive, something I would like to avoid). The problems I have are: I don't know how risky it would be to attempt to shrink an exsisting partition. How much space to reserve for MACOSX How to configure the bootloader to work with Vista, Ubuntu, and MACOSX. If I need to use MACOSX's bootloader or GRUB. Since I am learning Linux as well, I woulden't know how ot fix GRUB if this procedure messes it up. If MACOSX will be able to access my NTFS partition. If I could just be able to go out and buy a copy of MACOSX and use it or if I need some type of specially hacked image. And how I should seperate my partitions to avoid for example storing a copy of a video I watch on all three os's partitions and what oses can read which other's partitions. (I would assume that Ubuntu and MACOSX can probably both read NTFS, so I should make that my largest and store all my data on that partition) Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/97890-starting-out-in-a-non-standard-way/ Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigPimpin Posted April 7, 2008 Share Posted April 7, 2008 OSX needs a minimum of 6 GB but that will leave you with virtually no room to spare. I'd go for 10 minimum. You'll be better off with 40 or 80 GB in the long run. Disk space on a laptop is scarce, I know. You can resize an NTFS partition without fear. As long as you DON'T use Partition Magic. It used to be a reliable program but it has had major problems ever since Symantec bought it. I'd use something else. Acronis, Paragon HD Tools... basically anything except Partition Magic. OSX can read NTFS partitions read-only. It's a hassle to get Windows, Linux and OSX to all use read-write disk partitions. The only type that really works that way on all 3 is vfat (FAT32) but it's limited to a few GB max file size. 2 or 4, I forget. You probably don't have enough HD space, but on my desktop machine I added an 80 GB partition formatted as "Mac HFS Extended" without journaling and Linux is able to write to it, as well as OSX. Your options for the bootloader are not as clear cut. Personally, I'd use Grub, but it can be tricky even for experienced users to get right. You can install it on a USB flash memory stick (if your machine can boot from a flash device) until you gain enough confidence to install it right into your main hard disk MBR, but there's a catch: Some Linux distros will install Grub there immediately so you have to be prepared for that. Luckily, grub creates a backup file that contains the original MBR for you, so it's very easy to put the disk back to the way it was originally. Then you muck with grub at the command-line to install it on the USB device. The tricky part is Grub does not natively recognize NTFS or HFS partitions and figuring out the workarounds (there are workarounds that are reliable) is flaky and you're almost guaranteed to not get it right the first time. You can type the exact same command into Grub and it will work one time and give you an error message the next. As long as you maintain a copy of the MBR - save it on a memory stick - you can get your original boot behavior back easily. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/97890-starting-out-in-a-non-standard-way/#findComment-699270 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave009 Posted April 7, 2008 Share Posted April 7, 2008 I don't know how risky it would be to attempt to shrink an exsisting partition. Initially partition off free space using GParted in Ubuntu, then if you have trouble installing OSX onto that partition [as I did], go back into Vista and create a new partition of type af. How much space to reserve for MACOSX You need a minimum of about 5 gigs for OSX, and anything greater will depend on your use for it. How to configure the bootloader to work with Vista, Ubuntu, and MACOSX. If I need to use MACOSX's bootloader or GRUB. Not sure about this, but I think GRUB will handle it, if not, try using EasyBCD. If MACOSX will be able to access my NTFS partition. I believe OSX will behave in a similar fashion as to Ubuntu, it should be able to read NTFS but not write, although applications exists that can change this. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/97890-starting-out-in-a-non-standard-way/#findComment-699271 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cyber Akuma Posted April 7, 2008 Author Share Posted April 7, 2008 Initially partition off free space using GParted in Ubuntu, then if you have trouble installing OSX onto that partition [as I did], go back into Vista and create a new partition of type af. Thing is, I don't have any free space, I will have to shrink my already exsisting NTFS Vista partition which takes up most of the drive, and woudl that 1GB hidden partition cause any problems? You need a minimum of about 5 gigs for OSX, and anything greater will depend on your use for it. Thanks Not sure about this, but I think GRUB will handle it, if not, try using EasyBCD. But would GRUB get damaged/corrupted/replaced if I install MACOSX? I mean, woudlent OSX try to install it's own bootloader? I believe OSX will behave in a similar fashion as to Ubuntu, it should be able to read NTFS but not write, although applications exists that can change this. Huh, I wasn't aware that Ubuntu couldent write to my NTFS partition. Are these apps that enable writing to a NTFS partition safe though? Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/97890-starting-out-in-a-non-standard-way/#findComment-699275 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave009 Posted April 7, 2008 Share Posted April 7, 2008 Is there free space on Vista's partition? ie, it's total size is 100 Gb, but you're only using, say, 40 GB? In that case, you could partition off 30 gigs safely from your Vista partition. Not sure what's on that 1 GB partition, it could change on any laptop. I have a Dell Inspiron 1520, with 3 hidden partitions, 1 for recovery, 1 for MediaDirect [Dell feature] and another that's needed for booting. So I wouldn't recommend deleting it unless you're absolutely sure you don't need it, because you could cause some major damage. I was only able to successfully instal OSX once, and yes, it did corrupt my GRUB loader. I think simply reinstalling Linux could fix it, which is overkill but it seems like the least work since restoring Linux isn't too bad for me now, not sure about you. There are ways to reinstall GRUB but you'd have to search google for it, I don't know it. If you're interested in writing to NTFS on Ubuntu, read over this tutorial: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=217009 Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/97890-starting-out-in-a-non-standard-way/#findComment-699295 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cyber Akuma Posted April 7, 2008 Author Share Posted April 7, 2008 Yes, there is a lot of free space that isn't used on the NTFS Vista partition, I was planning to see if I could use an app like Partition Magic to shrink it to create free unpartitioned space for my MACOSX install. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/97890-starting-out-in-a-non-standard-way/#findComment-699298 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave009 Posted April 7, 2008 Share Posted April 7, 2008 I'm almost positive Partition Magic is not compatible with Vista. Either use Vista's built-in disk management utility (Start -> Right Click on Computer, select Manage, and go to Disk Management) or use GParted in Ubuntu. I'd recommend GParted, since the Vista partition won't be in use then. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/97890-starting-out-in-a-non-standard-way/#findComment-699324 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cyber Akuma Posted April 7, 2008 Author Share Posted April 7, 2008 I know I had some type of partitoning software on it because I used it to clone my old drive to the new one, I just checked its Paragon Partition Manager 8.5. However, it didnt work. The Disk Managment services that come with Vista however did. I partitioned off about 20 gigs, that should be more than enough. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/97890-starting-out-in-a-non-standard-way/#findComment-699365 Share on other sites More sharing options...
glitchbit Posted April 7, 2008 Share Posted April 7, 2008 Best off getting another hard drive for your laptop. Hard drives are cheap and if it is important for school or work then you really do not want to screw up your main drive and put yourself through the stress and hours of getting things back to normal. I bought a larger hard drive for my laptop so that I could experiment with OSX and Linux and XP all together even though on a previous laptop which I used mostly for personal and some school and some work related things I installed OSX on it without screwing anything up just fine, but I am an abnormal Computer Tech . Also my current laptop I use heavily for and at work so I pretty much couldn't risk my not being able to boot into XP for 12 to 24 hours. Another thing if you have the hard drive space and additional hard drives (external) then by using a program like SuperDuper! resizing your MBR partition become just as easy as resizing GUID I would imagine. GUID should actually be easier because it would not require another hard drive or partition. Also I have never messed with GUID just because I do not want to mess with trying to get Windows and Linux to play nice with a GUID drive if they even can. I have messed with Partition Magic and Acronis with Vista and I do not remember any negative side effects. I might have had to use the Vista disk for it to recover the boot sector, but even that was painless to do.. if I even had to do that. I have done so much {censored} it is hard for me to say what all I have done and in what order I did them in and in what order things screwed up in lol. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/97890-starting-out-in-a-non-standard-way/#findComment-699369 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cyber Akuma Posted April 7, 2008 Author Share Posted April 7, 2008 Actually, this laptop is sorta an extra right now, sometimes I bring it when I leave the house but its hardly my main computer, downtime on my laptop woulden't effect me. Plus right now I am trying to find out how to do this, I plan to create a backup image of the drive before starting the OSX install, id much rather have all three OSes on the same drive than swap out drives. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/97890-starting-out-in-a-non-standard-way/#findComment-699394 Share on other sites More sharing options...
glitchbit Posted April 7, 2008 Share Posted April 7, 2008 Agreed, for awhile after I got OSX perfected on this laptop I did get all 3 OS's in a triple boot configuration.... I grew tired of doing that and started spending more and more time inside of OSX, because fortunately for me games do not matter. Also even if they did matter I would stay in OSX until I really wanted to play a hardcore videogame. I guess part of the challenge and newness draws me to OSX and my dislike for Vista has also contributed greatly to me looking at OSX. Also I really felt like Ubuntu has finally started showing some real promise over other distros for a long time I have not been onboard with Ubuntu and for good reason, there were much better distros. VMware has performance issues though in Ubuntu which is partly why I flipped over to OSX. (also no unity for ubuntu -.-). Another thing that I cannot hardly believe that was looked over in the GUI was the lack of sounds!!! I started realizing that sound effects were missing from the GUI. Once I realized that it just drove me nuts.... I want audiovisual feedback! I can promise you though if this was 10.1, 10.2 and maybe even 10.3 I would stick with XP or even Vista over those choices. OSX really started maturing in 10.3 and finalized in 10.4 imo. So we all need to cut Vista some slack they're not even getting to Vista.2 yet time wise. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/97890-starting-out-in-a-non-standard-way/#findComment-699399 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cyber Akuma Posted April 7, 2008 Author Share Posted April 7, 2008 Allright, right now im updating everything in Windows, performing disk matinence, defragmenting, etc. Once thats done I will do the same with Ubuntu then create a backup image of my harddrive so I can restore that in case I screw up my attempt at installing MACOSX. So, how would I get started now that I have 20 gigs of unpartitioned space? Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/97890-starting-out-in-a-non-standard-way/#findComment-699454 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cyber Akuma Posted April 8, 2008 Author Share Posted April 8, 2008 Ummm, anyone? Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/97890-starting-out-in-a-non-standard-way/#findComment-701132 Share on other sites More sharing options...
gonzo99_9 Posted April 8, 2008 Share Posted April 8, 2008 If you're interested in writing to NTFS on Ubuntu, read over this tutorial: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=217009 Sorry if this is off-topic, but as of Ubuntu 7.10 (or maybe even 7.04 - can't remember) writing to ntfs is supported via fuse. That tutorial is for earlier releases of ubuntu and may bork your system. The ntfs support in ubuntu is safe Cheers, gonzo Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/97890-starting-out-in-a-non-standard-way/#findComment-701366 Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigPimpin Posted April 8, 2008 Share Posted April 8, 2008 So, how would I get started now that I have 20 gigs of unpartitioned space? If you're also going to install Linux you should do that first because it will give you some disk tools that may come in handy during the OSX install later on. If you want to play with grub you'll want Linux on there first anyway. Then you can experiment and once grub can boot between Windows and Linux then you can tackle OSX. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/97890-starting-out-in-a-non-standard-way/#findComment-701477 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cyber Akuma Posted April 8, 2008 Author Share Posted April 8, 2008 I already have Ubuntu installed Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/97890-starting-out-in-a-non-standard-way/#findComment-701544 Share on other sites More sharing options...
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