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

[NYC Coyote]

The same happens with me.

 

I'm using 2 partitions.....first being vista....second being leopard (running pc_efi_v5)

 

When I use anything on vista as the active partition (be it using chain0, tboot, or even using easybcd) it will go to the OS X partition, but then OS X goes back to the bootloader screen.

 

After a little investigation I found that it is indeed loading the darwin bootloader (I added a 10 second delay to the apple boot) but then as soon as the delay is over, right back to the vista bootloader.

 

As a temporary fix I made leopard the active partition, kept the 10 second delay. this way I can hit a key and choose either os. My only problem with that is its an extra step, and it defaults to leopard.

 

Anyone having any luck with this?

[NoSmokingBandit]

I just set my tiger partition active and use the darwin bootloader. Most of my hardware works in tiger so ill be using that more than windows anyway.

[Alberto Camarillo]

An easy way to dual boot Vista and os x is by Triple booting with Vista, OS X, and Linux. Linux(ubuntu) will install Grub and it then Recognizes Vista and OS X, if it dosen't recognize OS X then u may have to add it manually, to menu.lst, Other wise it should boot fine after that.

[askurat1]

I have got a problem when booting mac os x. It boots just fine when I have the dvd in but when I take out the dvd and restart my computer. It then loads bios screen and then all I get is a blinking underscore. mac os x doesn't boot up without the installation disk.I have read a ton of forums and have tried many methods but none seem to work.It acts like darwin boot loader isn't installed or something. Is there a file I need to edit?

I have run the postpatch and have done boot fix with no success. Is there a hardware issue? I have a hp pavillion dv6000 notebook.I am duel booting vista and leopard.But I am just trying to load leopard without the dvd.

Please Help!

 

Thanks in advance.

[toshiba_mac24]

I have been trying to dual my vista OS with the Kalyway OSX86 Disc. I went through the diskpart in Vista to set an active partition and it worked just fine, but when I got to the part of creating the HFS+ file system on my HD, it erased my vista partition and i had to choose a partition scheme of 2 partitions. I was wondering, how do I create a HFS+ partition without losing my vista partition, and after I installed OS X, how come it won't boot into the Apple logo?

 

[lilSoldier]

Toshiba_mac24, to create an HFS+ partition without deleting your Vista partition, use the diskpart to create a partition using:

select disk X

create partition primary id=af size=xxxxx(MB)

 

As for it not booting into the apple logo, I'm not quite sure what you mean, but if you mean it boots, but doesn't show a logo, instead show loads of text, just follow these instructions to fix it:

 

1. navigate to /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/ and copy com.apple.boot.plist to the desktop

2. Open the file with textedit, and below Kernel Flags, remove the -v bit.

3. Save the file, then drag it back into the folder you copied it from

4. type in your password, then go to diskutility and repair permissions.

You should now be able to boot with the logo!

[leorimolo]

I have a problem that I have no idea how to deal with, My Dell Inspiron will not boot the instalation DVD's but it will work flawlessly installed on an external hdd. Now my other computer where I installed to the external hdd has a sata port but will not be recognized in OSX. So how would I go about installing it on my second partition without ruining vista?

 

If anyone finds me a good way that wont mess up my vista instalation I will transfer them 10$ via paypal

[Fultotop]

I've setup my R60 to triple boot the procedure I used is here.

 

1. Installed OSX first, when using Disk Utility I partitioned the drive into 3 partititions, 1st partition Fat32, 2nd partition Mac OS Extended (Journaled), 3rd partition free space. Make sure the drive was set to boot using MBR. Installed Kallyway to the 2nd Partition, with the MBR bootloader set in customize. (Name the partitions so you know what they are).

 

2. Installed Ubuntu second, when creating the partititions I choose to create manually. I created a root partition and a swap partition in the free space that I left, then finished the install.

 

3. Installed Vista third, went into advanced when choosing the drive to install to and deleted the FAT32 partition and created a NTFS partition in the left over free space. (Don't delete the EFI partition right at the beginning of the drive)

 

4. Vista will only boot at this stage, so I installed EasyBCD to alter Windows Boot Loader. Added an new entry for OSX by selecting setting Mac & type Generic X86 PC and named it Apple OS X. The I added an entry for Ubuntu by selecting Linux & type Grub, ticked the box GRUB isn't installed.

 

5. I deleted the file nst_mac.nbr in the folder NST on Vista's Partition. Copied in chain0 into the same folder and renamed it to nst_mac.mbr

 

Finished, I was able to select any the the 3 operating system from Windows Boot Loader, also EFI boot loader should work fine with OSX.

 

All of them boot the selected operating system with no fuss.

[seti007]

Devilhood, first off you have written a terrific guide to help out noobs like me. I admire The simplicity and to the point directions. people like you are a real asset to the IM Community. I Can't Thank you enough. After hours of trying many other methods, I was able to implement dual boot on my E1705 notebook.

One question That I do have is how to change the boot order in Darwin. I would like to put windows vista as the default OS. Any Ideas? thanks & apologies if this question has been asked elsewhere.

[devilhood]

Thanks seti!

 

You cannot actually tell Darwin to boot the Windows choice by default. After the count-down finishes it will always choose Mac as your default OS.

 

If you want to use the Vista Boot Loader, just follow the instructions under "If you want retain Vista's Boot Loader instead of Darwin's Boot Loader:" and you will be set.

 

Please note that it doesn't always work with all system setups, but it is worth a try.

[G-monay]

I am following your instructions and I run into a problem when I try to crete the partition. I have a new Seagate 500 GB SATA drive, complete blank. So I type the command create partition.......When I hit enter, another window appears asking me if I want to format the drive. I select format and another window is displayed. This only gives me the option to format the drive in NTFS. I believe that is incorrect, right? Or should I allow it to format the drive?

 

I thought it had to be HFS+ compatiable. And I thought NTFS is a windows format. This is a brand new disk that I installed and I want to use exclusively for Mac OS X. This is version 10.4.10

 

What should I do here? Your assistance is appreciated. I've also attached the stats on my HP PC. I am advanced when it comes to messing around with PC's. And since this new HDD is blank, I don't care what I try as long as the HDD that has Vista is left alone. Thanks

 

 

[devilhood]

I never said anything about formatting the disk with Windows Format.

 

You need to use DISKPART (as written in the guide) or the GParted Live CD.

[AppleSlave]

I have a Vista partition and a OSX partition. I typed fdisk -e /dev/rdisk0 in the terminal at install after getting the HFS+ partition error message and essentially replaced the MBR. Vista is now saying it needs to repair the MBR - how can I go about booting to OSX/Vista still? All of my Vista files are still intact in that partition, but the MBR is screwed I think, since it was replaced with OSX's.

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[G-monay]

I did follow your exact directions: run diskpart, select disk, create partition.........When I hit enter after typing create partition primary size=350000 id=af and I got the three pictures I showed you above. So for some reason when I type in the command create partition it opens another formatting program on Vista. Any suggestions?????

[devilhood]

I have a Vista partition and a OSX partition. I typed fdisk -e /dev/rdisk0 in the terminal at install after getting the HFS+ partition error message and essentially replaced the MBR. Vista is now saying it needs to repair the MBR - how can I go about booting to OSX/Vista still? All of my Vista files are still intact in that partition, but the MBR is screwed I think, since it was replaced with OSX's.

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

Just make Vista active and use the Vista install disc to do a start-up repair.. it will fix the Vista loader and MBR for you without ruining your installation.

[Dupo24]

I think I accidentally setpid my Vista partition to AF. I cannot fix under Vista CD nor diskpart. What do I do? Is there a way to edit it back to 07 or is everything on that drive gone?

[devilhood]

I think I accidentally setpid my Vista partition to AF. I cannot fix under Vista CD nor diskpart. What do I do? Is there a way to edit it back to 07 or is everything on that drive gone?

 

fdisk will do it, then use your Vista Install disc to do a start-up repair.

[Dupo24]

I can't figure out how fdisk works on there. I tried to install it from a previous version of windows. I did the fixboot and fixmbr and nothing happened. I bought Active Partition recovery. I need some data, not all of it.

[devilhood]

My guide explains how to use fdisk very clearly.

fdisk can't be accessed from Windows, it is a Mac utility.

 

To make it easier, here's what you need to do.

 

Boot your Mac OS X Install Disc with the -s flag so it goes into Single User mode.

 

Type this:

 

fdisk -e /dev/rdisk0

Specifies the disc that you have Vista and OS X installed to

The specified location rdisk0 may of course be different if Vista or OS X was installed on a different drive, e.g. rdisk1, rdisk2

 

flag 1

Marks Vista as the active partition (or if you installed OS X 1st and Vista 2nd, change the flag to 2)

 

setpid 1

Change the partition identifier of the given partition table entry (the number corresponds with the Vista partition)

 

07

Sets NTFS as the correct PID so that you can boot or repair your Vista partition

 

quit

This will quit fdisk and take you back to the normal single user prompt

[Dupo24]

bingo, that helped. Thank you very much. I thought I had tried that, but I didn't.

[devilhood]

No problemo

[Frubbel]

I´ve done numerous searched and haven´t found an answer yet.

 

I´ve installed Vista ultimate & Kalyway 10.5.1 and trying to dual boot. If I go into EasyBCD i can't see my OsX partition? I can only select C:\ but that's my windows drive. With Diskpart in Vista I can see my drive

 

Is there an way to get EasyBCD with that drive? Both OS's are installed on a different drive.

 

(Hope this is the right place for the question and not too stupid, the guides are making me REALLY dizzzy)

[jesskieth]

I just updated the guide with a few little tid-bits.

 

 

hi guys i need some help here plzzz

 

i followed step by step and now i am at the screen where the disk utility is .........but i dont see any drives or the newly created for mac as active in the list on the left pane

any ideas what could be wrong and i have vista installed.... and now i cant even boot into vista it says system file missing.....

thanks to all...

MANAGED THIS PROBLEM

in bios i set the hard drive sata to be seen as ahci

this solves this problem

But now Os X instalation goes fine but right after it reboots i get a grey screen with aplle sayin " you need to restart your computer"

which i did but every time i do i get same error no matter what

thanxx

[ranova]

I am having problems booting into OSX now.

I followed this guide which is causing me to get "HFS+ Partition Errors" whenever I try to boot OSX from that menu and even after i set the OSX partition as active...

 

When I got my laptop, I installed vista first, then Kalyway OSX...

 

This is what was strange. I swear Windows and OSX disk utilities said my Vista Partition was active when I was using the Darwin boot loader. To further back this up, when I followed the steps for DISKPART in windows to set the vista partition to active, it didnt change anything, it still booted the darwin loader. It got messy when I did "fdisk -e /dev/rdisk0" and "flag 2" during the single user mode of OSX. It is supposed to set the OSX partition (which is 2) to active and allow it to boot darwin\OSX with no problems, but instead it gave me the HFS error.. I then followed the next step to "flag 1", but in my case, the vista partition is partition 3, so i entered "flag 3" and rebooted.

 

Now I see the vista boot menu, and it gives the winload.exe error, which is normal. I repaired it via vista install dvd and boots into windows just fine. I add the OSX entry using EasyBSD, and it shows up just fine. When I select that entry, I get the HFS+ partition error.

 

After that, I tried the "HFS+ Partition error Fix" within EasyBSD, it didnt help. So then I tried making partition 2 Active so it would boot OSX, but it gave the HFS+ error again. I checked the Partition ID (PID) and it is not 07, but it is AF..

 

I have noticed that there a blinking underscore at the top left of the screen before the vista boot loader, which was never there before I installed osx86... My theory is that it is trying to still load Darwin, but it cant so it goes to the next partition?

 

Oh theres a 200meg partition for tools and recovery, it is partition 1... Could that be a problem?

 

Here is a picture listing all my partitions and their details using DISKPART:

http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/8582/partitionssy1.jpg

 

Anyone have any Ideas what the heck is going on? It doesnt seem the bootloader is on partition 2 (OSX), but maybe was on partition 3 (Vista) before all of this?

[bennec83]

Hi,

 

No matter what i do this will not work, i have tryed your method, This method, and the method iAtkos suggests, i have tryed the iAtkos v1 and tryed it with all the updates and patches you can apply, i have tryed kalyways dvd's, nothing works.

 

I have emailed yourself, kalyway and iAtkos & posted in the forums, but no mention of pointing me in the right direction, i dont get what the problem is i have some of the best equipment available on the market and this will not work, i guess this just proves how limited MAC's are.

 

I was a MAC hater before i tryed this and as i said i have been trying this for about 3-4 weeks now and it still dont work. I actually wanted to stop myself hating them so much but its kinda back firing!!

 

No matter what method i try (ignoring the dual boot!!) i can prep a totally separate harddisk for the MAC install, unplug everything other then my DVD drive and the prepared Hard Disk for OSX, and no matter what DVD (iAtkos or Kalyway) when i run the setup (with -v) it just stops and tells me that "cannot find root device"

 

I dont get the problem, the drive is there, it is plugged in, it is formatted for OSX. it should work.

 

I know that this has something to do with my nForce board, but i have seem people on this forum with the Same EVGA board as me and they have it working. With regards to this, iAtkos, Kalyway and devilhood all mention that "you need to inject the nforce drivers into the DVD" but im sure that i have applyed each update in chronological order and tryed the install each time with the same effect.

 

From what i can see, the DVD's dont work, the updates dont work, and peoples described methods dont work. I have read every page i can find about this, i am not a lazy person and i do my research but i find that no-one is willing to help, this is kind of infuriating as i have followed every compliance in the forum rules, i have read everything i can find, i have not made rubbish posts asking repeating questions.

 

It is like banging my head off a brick wall.

 

 

My system config is below, can someone please help:

 

All hard disks are sata, DVD drive is IDE

 

Intel Core 2 Duo E6700, Socket 775, 2.66 GHz, 1066MHz FSB, 4MB Cache Link

EVGA 122-CK-NF68-A1 NF680i SLI, S775, PCI-E(x16) MoBo Link

BFG GeForce 8800 GTX 768MB Link

Corsair 2GB DDR2 XMS2 Dominator TwinX Link

Creative Soundblaster X-Fi Platinum Fatal1ty Champion Series Link

2 x 74 GB Western Digital WD740ADFD Raptor, SATA I, 10000 rpm, 16MB Cache (Striped RAID) (Vista Installed Here) Link

80 GB Western Digital WD800AAJS Caviar SE, SATA II, 7200 rpm, 8MB Cache (Not in an array - stand alone drives) Link