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[Guide] The Fool-Proof Vista & XP / Mac OS X Dual-Boot Guide


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devilhood - I get the same problem as loki936, so I use the darwin boot loader.

 

Have you tried using boot camp as the dual booting program instead of the darwin boot loader? Does it work and if it does, can you post a tutorial (since it's prettier than darwin and allows a "preferred" OS to be loaded automatically)?

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The chain0 method does not work with the Vista Boot Manager, at least with Hackintosh machines. Sure, the boot menu is created fine but it fails to load OS X. You should put a warning in the beginning of your thread so people don't waste their time with this.

 

Using Darwin sucks because you have to press F8 every time and there is no way to set the default to Vista. Vista is still the main OS for many Hackintosh users and osx86 is merely experimental, so booting Vista by default is a must.

 

I think I will try grub or lilo now.

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Knocks: You are completely mistaken, because you do not have to use F8 when Darwin is set to default, you just edit the plist to include a time-out feature, as stated in my guide.

It is working perfectly on my Dell E1705 Laptop, ASUS P5W64-WS Pro, Gigabyte GA_965P_DS3 and Gigabyte 8IK110 boards just fine.

 

Also, I already put a clear warning regarding the Vista Boot Loader method.

 

I honestly couldn't care less if Vista isn't set to default :)

Edited by devilhood
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What works on your E1705, the Vista loader or darwin?

 

Darwin works perfectly every time, though I haven't tried the Vista Boot Loader method on every one of my machines, but on my E1705 it did not work.

 

There is an issue regarding the JaS disc itself I believe, because there have been many cases where real macs and other distributions have worked just fine with the Vista Boot Loader.

 

It would be nice if I could get an answer from a guru regarding the exact issue why the chain0 method seems to be very temperamental. As it's always been like that since the earlier OS X hacks.

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devilhood, I've struggled with EasyBCD users experiencing the chain0 failure off and on for almost a year now, it's definitely related to how the installation disc is compiled.

 

Basically, I've only had people experience this if they used JaS. BUT not everyone with JaS experiences this.

I haven't had a single complaint from Myz users or users of the VMware -> Hard Drive installation process that was the original method of getting OS X on a PC.

 

I think it has something to do with the hardware that JaS is installed on, maybe it's the AMD, or the SSE2 issue, I don't know.

 

I hope this helps, I'm not into Mac-debugging all that, just reporting what others have complained about to me.

 

Oh, and also, you'd have to look at the source code for chain0 to find out why it doesn't work always. It should be available, it's a part of Darwin, isn't it?

Then again, since Darwin's been discontinued I don't know if the source is still available or not...

Edited by Computer Guru
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Computer Guru: glad to see you on board. :) I'm definitely a fan of EasyBCD and hope eventually it will help us maximize the utility of the Vista loader, especially for all the people who are struggling with it now. I can add that this is probably not an AMD or SSE2 issue. The chain0 method does not work on my Inspiron E1505 (Core 2 Duo, JaS installation).

 

devilhood: does the Vista loader method work on ANY of your machines?

Edited by Knocks
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Thanks for the warm welcome, Knocks.. I haven't been at IM since the days of Windows-on-Mac --- I missed this place!! :wacko:

 

I was just telling DH about EasyBCD 1.6, I'm aiming to have it automate all diagnostics for the rebuilding of boot.ini (for XP and 2k dual-booting), BCD (for Vista & LH dual-boots), and hopefully find some way to automagically (and invisibly) deal with the HFS+ Partition Error.

 

I have no idea where to start as far as the HFS+ error, I'm open to any and all suggestions :whistle:

 

BTW, Knocks, the Vista loader method works great for me with Myz.

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Great guide devilhood,

 

Vista and OSX both boot from the Darwin bootloader. I also increased the Timeout <string> so I don't have to 'mash' the F8 key, just to choose between either OS.

I do have one small emergency now, though, that I'm hoping someone can give me some corrective advice on:

I was looking at different posts on the forum regarding making XP or Vista the default boot partition (from within the Darwin bootloader) instead of 10.4.8 - one of the posts suggested updating the MBR after adding the rdisk0s1 string to the Boot.plist file. It said to do a 'fdisk -u /dev/rdisk0' then save and reboot. Now all I get is that it goes black instead of going into the Darwin bootloader. I haven't been able to 'repair' the MBR with any CDs (10.4.8, XP, Vista, UBCD, etc.).

A N Y advice that can get my system bootable again would be welcome. Thnx!

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update:

Using the repair modes on both the OS X install disk & the Vista install disk, then using 4 different partition tools from my UBCD 8.1, I was not only able to restore my partitions so they're both bootable now, but Vista is now the default OS, which is what I was trying to accomplish in the first place.

*Caveat: During this process (and in my desperation), I did copy the chain0 file, as well as NTLDR and boot.ini over to the root of my C: drive. I believe what happened to restore me (most likely), is that while using the partition tools, I changed the active partition a couple times, to try to get the BIOS to re-recognize the MBR. While initially this dual boot configuration won't work with the first partition marked active, once both OSes are installed and running, it seems that the active partition can then be changed to allow the system to see the chain0 file.

* Big Note: I don't recommend anyone trying to copy this based on my notes, as this whole process was very confusing and stressful, so it's not like I had a firm recollection of every procedural step I was taking to try to restore balance and order to the force :-)

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Hey guys, you look very experienced with the dual booting problem.....i have a big one....i have a working os x jas 10.4.6 and parallel a working win XP (darwin bootloader) so far....i've got another 2,5" HDD, which i wanted to use to build up a new installation....therefore i dd'd a image of the mac os partition, dd'd it to the other disk and it worked....then i installed winxp, everything went fine....after that i installed winVista and got the HFS+ partition error....i read this thred several times, but don't know what to do! my id=af (changed that with a linux live cd) and still get that error...what can i do?? is it perhaps i didn't repair it with the install dvd of mac os?? please help me.....thanks a lot man

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i have a problem. i keep reading all the guides and i keep reading that Windows and mac osx is installed on one disk drive. i have windows xp pro on my 112 GB drive and Mac OS X on an 18 GB drive. hpw can i dual boot two seprate drives? any help please? :censored2:

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I am trying to dual boot xp and os x. My partition 1 is xp. Partition 2 is supposed to be os x (I already did the install). But, I have to boot from the install disk everytime to use darwin boot loader. Is there a solution to this??????

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i guess im missing something, but first i wanted to say good job with the guide, first one i could really follow, so im going on 2 days of installing osx i can only get ti to run if its on its own hd, i have a 300g with xp mce and i made 100g primary partion on the rest but after install of osx it boots to a blank screen and then for a few sec's and then restarts, and ive tried boot magic and that starts loading all the file on the screen and then restarts. so confused also im using 10.4.4 if that helps

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That's all you have installed? on your first drive? ok that's pretty simple then.

 

Boot off your OS X Installation Disc in single user mode. This can be done by pressing F8 at the disc's Darwin Prompt and typing -s.

At the single user prompt, type these commands exactly:

 

fdisk -e /dev/rdisk0

 

flag 1

 

update

 

write

 

quit

 

reboot

 

Done B)

 

I think I have about the same problem; I can't access mac os x without booting from dvd.

Also, in order to get on mac os x, I must press F8 before the darwin prompt shows up; otherwise, it leads me to installation again.

What more, darwin doesn't let me pick to boot my windows or mac...it just goes straight to booting mac...

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  • 2 weeks later...

Your method was not foolproof for me.

I followed the instructions to the letter.

 

And then I followed them again. And then again. Once I install, and it reboots, it just spits me back to the windows vista bootup.

 

Off to try another guide.

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