Triple boot - 1.Tiger 2.SnowLeopard 3.WinXP

imagist · Nov 14, 2009, 06:58 AM

Is it possible to triple boot
1.Tiger
2.Snow Leopard
3.WinXP

I have a specialist multitrack audio recording program that I use a lot that will not run properly under SL the author is working on it but it may take some time.

I have a program that I want to use that will only run under SL - Fotomagico

and I want to boot to windows sometimes.

Is this possible and if so how please?
I have an early'ish Macbook.

And just to complicate matters more what I'd really like to do is migrate my existing Tiger and Bootcamp (as is) to a larger hard disk and install Snow Leopard on another partition for triple boot but I'm guessing that this is just not possible?

thanks for any suggestions.

wrldwzrd89 · Nov 14, 2009, 07:51 AM

This is doable, and in fact you MUST put one of the three OSes on an external drive... but that OS must not be Windows XP, if you're using Boot Camp. You can, quite safely, put Tiger on an external, for instance, and leave the computer's internal drive dual-partitioned for SL and WinXP. This is the configuration I'd recommend.

imagist · Nov 14, 2009, 09:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wrldwzrd89

This is doable, and in fact you MUST put one of the three OSes on an external drive... but that OS must not be Windows XP, if you're using Boot Camp. You can, quite safely, put Tiger on an external, for instance, and leave the computer's internal drive dual-partitioned for SL and WinXP. This is the configuration I'd recommend.

Great thanks for that, I'll try doing as you suggest in fact I already have Tiger on an external drive as I've already replaced the Macbook drive with a larger one and put Snow Leopard on the new internal and have put the original drive in an external enclosure so I'm part way there and was thinking I'd need to swap the drives back for Tiger - a rather cumbersome solution that takes about 20 minutes.

Although I need the firewire port for the hardware audio interface so I would probably need to use USB for the external drive, does this sound feasible and how much of a performance hit might you expect? I have 2Gb of RAM.
Of course I'll just try it and see how well it works and report back for any one else who might be interested.

The audio recording setup is up to 24 track and at 24 bit that's quite a bit of data wrangling etc. but it could be recorded to the internal drive so just the operating system and program would be running from the external.

Perhaps when the OS (Tiger) and the program are already up and running there's not much of a performance requirement from the external drive?

many thanks

wrldwzrd89 · Nov 14, 2009, 10:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by imagist

Great thanks for that, I'll try doing as you suggest in fact I already have Tiger on an external drive as I've already replaced the Macbook drive with a larger one and put Snow Leopard on the new internal and have put the original drive in an external enclosure so I'm part way there and was thinking I'd need to swap the drives back for Tiger - a rather cumbersome solution that takes about 20 minutes.

Although I need the firewire port for the hardware audio interface so I would probably need to use USB for the external drive, does this sound feasible and how much of a performance hit might you expect? I have 2Gb of RAM.
Of course I'll just try it and see how well it works and report back for any one else who might be interested.

The audio recording setup is up to 24 track and at 24 bit that's quite a bit of data wrangling etc. but it could be recorded to the internal drive so just the operating system and program would be running from the external.

Perhaps when the OS (Tiger) and the program are already up and running there's not much of a performance requirement from the external drive?

many thanks

USB shouldn't make a huge difference, if the comparison is to FW400. In fact, that setup should be just fine.

Consultant · Nov 14, 2009, 10:28 AM

Partition with bootcamp.

Partition your OS X partition and then use it to install another supported os. No need to do external.

imagist · Nov 14, 2009, 01:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Consultant

Partition with bootcamp.

Partition your OS X partition and then use it to install another supported os. No need to do external.

Interesting thanks -
I've partitioned with bootcamp to create a FAT32 partition to install windows on and then created a second partition (HFS-2) from my existing HFS-1 partition (with Snow Leopard on) using disk utility.

I'm then using Disk utility 'restore' with the 'erase destination' ticked to copy the Tiger disk (connected as an external disk) to the HFS-2 partition which I'm hoping will be a bootable exact copy of my Tiger setup and save me having to reinstall everything.
And then I'll re-install Windows from scratch (or try to get clever using Acronis True Image (Windows) to copy my Windows setup from one bootcamp FAT32 partition to the other but I suspect that might not work though I did recently use Acronis to migrate my Windows setup to a larger disk very smoothly)

Anyway do you think any or all of this will work?
It's taking a long time to copy at the moment!

imagist · Nov 14, 2009, 03:17 PM

Hmm! a bit more investigation and it looks like I may need to use Carbon Copy Cloner or Superduper to get a bootable copy, not sure.
Disk Utilities restore has taken more than two hours for 72GB and it's about 90% done.

imagist · Nov 14, 2009, 05:58 PM

Disk Utilities restore has worked and I can boot to Tiger or Snow Leopard and everything seems to work OK. It automatically boots to SL and pressing ALT gives the choice.

But it's beyond the capabilities of Acronis to copy the Bootcamp FAT32 partition with my Macbook as a firewire target drive and the Tiger disk on USB - it crashes!
So looks like I will have to re-install Windows under SL.

thanks for the information.

imagist · Nov 15, 2009, 06:05 AM

I discovered that with the Bootcamp utility although it had created the FAT32 partition ready for Windows (I did not actually install Windows) it would not co-operate with installing Windows after another partition had been created for Tiger. So it's back to the start as I now can't do anything with the FAT32 partition (even delete it). Winclone will not work as the auto 32GB partition created by Tiger is very slightly larger than the auto 32GB partition created with Snow Leopard and Winclone needs a same size partition or greater and cannot cope with one even slightly smaller.

So I'm Carbon Copy Cloning my SL partition and will completely repartition and format the whole drive and start again from scratch.

Nov 14, 2009, 06:58 AM	#1
imagist macrumors newbie Join Date: Nov 2009	Triple boot - 1.Tiger 2.SnowLeopard 3.WinXP Is it possible to triple boot 1.Tiger 2.Snow Leopard 3.WinXP I have a specialist multitrack audio recording program that I use a lot that will not run properly under SL the author is working on it but it may take some time. I have a program that I want to use that will only run under SL - Fotomagico and I want to boot to windows sometimes. Is this possible and if so how please? I have an early'ish Macbook. And just to complicate matters more what I'd really like to do is migrate my existing Tiger and Bootcamp (as is) to a larger hard disk and install Snow Leopard on another partition for triple boot but I'm guessing that this is just not possible? thanks for any suggestions.

Nov 14, 2009, 07:51 AM	#2
wrldwzrd89 macrumors 601 Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: Solon, OH	This is doable, and in fact you MUST put one of the three OSes on an external drive... but that OS must not be Windows XP, if you're using Boot Camp. You can, quite safely, put Tiger on an external, for instance, and leave the computer's internal drive dual-partitioned for SL and WinXP. This is the configuration I'd recommend. __________________ iMac Intel, 1TB HDD upgrade, 10.6.2; iMac G5, 300GB HDD, 10.4.11/10.5.8; iPod touch, 3.1.3

Nov 14, 2009, 10:28 AM	#5
Consultant macrumors 601 Join Date: Jun 2007	Partition with bootcamp. Partition your OS X partition and then use it to install another supported os. No need to do external. __________________ Apple User Art \| Celebs with Macs \| Mac: Power Users \| Tech Humor

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Nov 14, 2009, 03:17 PM	#7
imagist Thread Starter macrumors newbie Join Date: Nov 2009	Hmm! a bit more investigation and it looks like I may need to use Carbon Copy Cloner or Superduper to get a bootable copy, not sure. Disk Utilities restore has taken more than two hours for 72GB and it's about 90% done.

Nov 14, 2009, 05:58 PM	#8
imagist Thread Starter macrumors newbie Join Date: Nov 2009	Disk Utilities restore has worked and I can boot to Tiger or Snow Leopard and everything seems to work OK. It automatically boots to SL and pressing ALT gives the choice. But it's beyond the capabilities of Acronis to copy the Bootcamp FAT32 partition with my Macbook as a firewire target drive and the Tiger disk on USB - it crashes! So looks like I will have to re-install Windows under SL. thanks for the information.

Nov 15, 2009, 06:05 AM	#9
imagist Thread Starter macrumors newbie Join Date: Nov 2009	I discovered that with the Bootcamp utility although it had created the FAT32 partition ready for Windows (I did not actually install Windows) it would not co-operate with installing Windows after another partition had been created for Tiger. So it's back to the start as I now can't do anything with the FAT32 partition (even delete it). Winclone will not work as the auto 32GB partition created by Tiger is very slightly larger than the auto 32GB partition created with Snow Leopard and Winclone needs a same size partition or greater and cannot cope with one even slightly smaller. So I'm Carbon Copy Cloning my SL partition and will completely repartition and format the whole drive and start again from scratch.