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

[devilhood]

pufftissue, you obviously didn't follow everything to the letter, because I had already stated that the Vista bootscreen method does NOT work for everyone. Computer Guru was looking into the issue but I am uncertain as to what progress he has made.

 

Use the Darwin method instead as it is the most reliable.

 

If you are getting thrown back to Vista even with the Darwin method, it means you are not flagging your Mac OS X partition under fdisk correctly

[looper]

Just wanted to share my success story using your well presented guide. Had been using Acronis method for a long time but this is so much faster- I never really wanted to use Acronis in the first place but could never get any of the other methods to work until now.

 

Cheers

 

 

(I'll have to update my sig when I get a minute)

[looper]

hmm spoke too soon - when I tried to boot up the XP partition I got the error message "NTLDR is missing"

 

Any ideas?

 

Thanks

[Computer Guru]

That's what EasyBCD is for, pufftissue.

Once you've installed OS X and are back in Windows Vista, use EasyBCD to add OS X to the Vista bootloader.

 

Guide: http://neosmart.net/wiki/display/EBCD/Mac+OS+X

 

 

Oh, I replied without seeing the second page.

Looper: you need to set the Windows XP entry to the boot drive, not the XP drive with EasyBCD. Just go to the manage bootloader page, and change the entry to point to the drive with boot.ini and ntldr and bootmgr and the BOOT folder.

You may have to change boot.ini as well. More info: http://neosmart.net/wiki/display/EBCD/Windows+XP

 

DevilHood: Will email you about that

[looper]

Looper: you need to set the Windows XP entry to the boot drive, not the XP drive with EasyBCD. Just go to the manage bootloader page, and change the entry to point to the drive with boot.ini and ntldr and bootmgr and the BOOT folder.

You may have to change boot.ini as well. More info: http://neosmart.net/wiki/display/EBCD/Windows+XP

 

Thanks I will try this out this afternoon

[Computer Guru]

no problem, and good luck!

[fumanju]

just wanted to mentioned, I followed the steps for bcdedit...at the end, Vista boot loader goes back to the OS selection screen when I select OS X. not sure what I did wrong. I gave up trying and set OS X partition active...but then when I boot into Vista, it stops at both Darwin and Vista boot loaders.

 

For future reference, if you tried the bcdedit (Vista Boot Loader) way then has a change of mind, make sure to delete Mac OS X entry in START > RUN > 'msconfig' > boot tab, do this before making OS X partition active...I had to mess around a little bit to get everything to work the way I want it to

[looper]

Wow what an ordeal-

 

XP wouldn't install because Windows XP installer wanted to write MBR and other files to one of my other drives (not the drive XP was intended to live on), but couldn't write to it because the other drive was hfs+ formatted.

 

I guess this is because the other drive is the active partition? I also had a previous XP install on one of the other drives so it could have been trying to write to that drive.

 

I tried making the drives hidden -used f disk from the Hirens bootdisk - didn't work, windows installer still saw the other drive and wanted to write to it.

 

Anyways all I had to do was shut down the machine and unplug the SATA cables to the other drives. I used FDISK to successfully mark the (correct) drive active. Ran the XP installer again and it wrote the boot files to the proper drive (it had to since nothing else was connected). Not a pretty solution but it worked for me.

 

I am now using the instructions at the beginning of the thread so after I get OS X installed I'll try to boot into XP and see if it works (I'm optimistic!)

 

[devilhood]

You need to make sure that the Windows partition is the active one during any XP/Vista install.

Best results come from installing XP/Vista first and Mac OS X second, but I haven't experienced any problems myself doing it the other way round.

[looper]

Everything seems to be working great now thanks everyone

 

For me I don't think it was the order that I installed XP and OS X, I think the problem was the other disks in my machine that had active partitions with XP and OS X on them- I should have either hidden them or disconnected the drives beforehand like I ended up doing in the end. If there were no other drives in my machine I don't think I would have had any problems. I did learn alot though so I'm happy.

 

The OS X bootloader rocks! makes me realize how useless Acronis was...

[bluestar]

Hewlett-Packard - Pavilion Notebook with AMD Turion™ 64 X2 - Piano Black

 

This is the notebook I'm installing OSX on with dualbooting Vista. I come upon the install but it does not list any drives. Could it be, because the drive of the notebook is SATA? Last I heard drivers need to be installed before you use sata. Well if that's the case, is there any workaround for my case in getting it installed on a SATA?

[devilhood]

I just added a critical fix for seemingly inexplicable re-occuring HFS+ errors. See bottom of guide.

 

Hopefully this issue has been completely defeated now

 

Regards,

 

Pawel.

[Computer Guru]

 

That's it!

Just tested this in VMware Workstation, and it works great!

 

I'm adding this as we speak to EasyBCD 1.6.. Good work everyone!!

[devilhood]

 

That's it!

Just tested this in VMware Workstation, and it works great!

 

I'm adding this as we speak to EasyBCD 1.6.. Good work everyone!!

 

*breaks open bottle of wine vodka*

 

I was wondering why the problem was so intermittent with other users, but now that it happened to me, it gave me the opportunity to finally diagnose and fix it.

[Charles79]

I've installed OSX86 and am ready to install Vista next on the same drive. I want to keep Darwin Bootloader, but am afraid in the process of installing Vista, it will be written over by the Vista bootloader.

What should I do?

 

thanks,

[devilhood]

All the information is in the guide Charles79, but for you I'll do a quick run-down.

 

Install Vista on a seperate partition, after that let it boot up and make sure Vista is ok. Then make Mac OS X the active partition, check if it boots still, if you get a b0 or HFS+ error you'll need to restart with your OS X Installation disc, hit F8 when the Darwin prompt appears and boot into -s mode.

Type fdisk -e /dev/rdisk0 (change the rdisk number if need be), flag 1 (I'm assuming OS X is on your first partition), update, write, quit and reboot.

Check if the Mac boots now, if it does then you'll need to flag 2 so that you can boot back into Vista, once you do that you'll need to put the Vista install disc in and click on 'Install' then 'Repair' which will very quickly repair Vista's boot pocess. After that you can simply use diskpart to make OS X your active partition and everything will be fine, Darwin will detect Vista etc.

If the Mac Doesn't boot, then that means the Partition Identifier (PID) got screwed up. You'll need to still fix Vista first, so do the repair and make OS X active on diskpart, put the OS X boot disc in and boot into -s mode with it.

type fdisk -e /dev/rdisk0 (change the rdisk number if need be), setpid 1 (I'm assuming OS X is on your first partition), AF, quit, reboot.

 

All done

[jedavis1]

I have Vista and OS X 10.4.8 dual booting with Vista BCD as Vista as the Default. When I select OS X, it goes to the Darwin bootloader. I have a 5 second delay. If I don't hit a button and select the OS X drive, it will go back to the Vista bootloader. What I want to do is when I select OS X, I want it to boot into OS X. I know the darwin bootloader boots the active partition, is there a way to boot something other than the active with the darwin bootloader?

 

I haven't found anything helping with this issue.

 

Thanks,

 

Jon

[Charles79]

All the information is in the guide Charles79, but for you I'll do a quick run-down.

 

Install Vista on a seperate partition, after that let it boot up and make sure Vista is ok. Then make Mac OS X the active partition, check if it boots still, if you get a b0 or HFS+ error you'll need to restart with your OS X Installation disc, hit F8 when the Darwin prompt appears and boot into -s mode.

Type fdisk -e /dev/rdisk0 (change the rdisk number if need be), flag 1 (I'm assuming OS X is on your first partition), update, write, quit and reboot.

Check if the Mac boots now, if it does then you'll need to flag 2 so that you can boot back into Vista, once you do that you'll need to put the Vista install disc in and click on 'Install' then 'Repair' which will very quickly repair Vista's boot pocess. After that you can simply use diskpart to make OS X your active partition and everything will be fine, Darwin will detect Vista etc.

If the Mac Doesn't boot, then that means the Partition Identifier (PID) got screwed up. You'll need to still fix Vista first, so do the repair and make OS X active on diskpart, put the OS X boot disc in and boot into -s mode with it.

type fdisk -e /dev/rdisk0 (change the rdisk number if need be), setpid 1 (I'm assuming OS X is on your first partition), AF, quit, reboot.

 

All done

 

Actually, I can't even get past installing Vista on my OSX86 hard drive. I am not too familiar with partitioning at all. So I use Acronis Disk bootable disk and it shows that I have 85 GB ShagOS primary partition(my OSX86) and 147GB unallocated space. I am guessing that since Vista can't access/write MBR, it can't be installed on the unallocated space. Now my question is:

1. how do I install Vista and still keep Darkwin Bootloader intact?

2. Can I use Acronis True Image to make a backup image of my OSX86? Will it be able to recover it as a bootable partition?

 

thanks,

[devilhood]

It can't be installed on unallocated space because you need to actually create the partition first.

When the Vista disc loads you should be able to utilize the unallocated space to create NEW allocated space specifically for Vista.

I have already told you the method for installing Vista so I shouldn't really need to repeat that part.

It's impossible to leave the Mac OS X MBR alone, and it doesn't matter if it gets screwed up somewhere down the line because it is easily fixed.

Regarding Acronis, I do not use that software so therefore cannot guarantee it will back anything up successfully.

[Computer Guru]

DevilHood: You might want to remove the first-half of the "HFS+ Partition Error" guide.

It seems only the second-half actually fixes the problem, regardless of whether the first is carried out - at least that's what I've seen in my VM yesterday.

 

Anyone experience it differently?

[devilhood]

Well, the HFS+ problem does seem to occur in very strange ways, but I'll add a note saying to check the PID first.

[cbmkgd]

Can I use Acronis True Image to make a backup image of my OSX86? Will it be able to recover it as a bootable partition?

Yes to both questions; using it myself. Do zero out empty space before backing up: that way the image compression will be better.

There's also a free osx backup tool, "Hatchery" I think.

[tysonwil]

When I restart my computer, it automatically goes into OSX. I press F8 but there is no Darwin boot selector. How can I boot back into vista?

 

Would I use a Vista install disk? Also would a recovery disk that I made work as a vista install disk?

 

 

Thanks

[StriTikNaf]

Hello to all!

 

I finally got a new computer, and want to try and create a dual boot system.

I already have vista, and want to give a try on OSX 10.4.8

 

Before i start working on it, and having read already a lot of forums and advices, being this forum the best there is, what do you experters think of my configuration:

 

Board Intel DG9650OT with chipset P965/G965

Processor Intel Core2Duo 6320

2GB RAM PC2-5300 @ 667Mhz Kingston

HDD SEAGATE 250GB 7200RPM 8MB SATAII

SAMSUNG SH-S182M DVD-RW Drive

 

On your opinion, do you think my hardware is compatible with mac os x?

 

Think you vm.

 

Hope to ear from you soon, so that i can start working on my dual-boot computer

[Computer Guru]

EasyBCD 1.6 has been released - and amongst the dozens of enhancements is an "HFS+ Partition Error" fixer!

 

http://neosmart.net/blog/2007/easybcd-16-released/