Windows 7 64bit along side XP on Bootcamp

[shopkeeper]

I already have XP 32 Bit installed under bootcamp on my iMac.

The 32 bit operating system has some memory limitations which I am running into when building very large 3D models.

Is there a way to install Windows 7 64 bit along with the 32bit XP I have already installed under bootcamp.

I want to try not to install Windows 7 exclusively since its important that I have some overlap before I completely stop using XP.

I searched the forums and internet but didn't quite find a guide to do this.

Thanks

[jakeguy99]

If you upgrade from XP to 7 with the installation disc it will save most of your windows XP files into a folder so you can still use them. I hope that helps.

[charlesbronsen]

I was in the same boat as you. What I did was back up XP with winclone and installed a fresh copy of win7 and have not went back to XP. This way I could always go back to XP if need be. This probably is no help to you but good luck either way.

[Grannyville7989]

I suppose you could try doing a dual boot situation on your Boot Camp partition so that when you fire up Windows, it will ask if you want to boot Windows XP or Windows 7.

What is the overlap that you need before you stop using Windows XP?

[balamw]

I don't believe that XP and 7 can share a partition for the same reason that you can't upgrade from XP to 7.

You'd have to go with one of the many triple boot guides. e.g. http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=697008

B

[Grannyville7989]

Ah, I think you're right. I think Windows 7 doesn't use the Boot.ini file that Windows XP has.

[Grannyville7989]

Well, there's always installing Windows 7 as the native OS and then put Windows XP into a virtual machine for any software that isn't fully compatible with 7.

[Tarek]

Open Disk Utility and choose the Macintosh HD, then create another partition alongside Boot Camp and format it as NTFS. That way you will have three partitions, a primary (Macintosh HD), and two secondaries (Windows XP and Windows 7).

[Dr McKay]

If you get Windows 7 Professional onwards, it has Windows XP mode for all those pieces of software that refuse to run on Win7.

[shopkeeper]

Originally Posted by jakeguy99

If you upgrade from XP to 7 with the installation disc it will save most of your windows XP files into a folder so you can still use them. I hope that helps.

Originally Posted by charlesbronsen

I was in the same boat as you. What I did was back up XP with winclone and installed a fresh copy of win7 and have not went back to XP. This way I could always go back to XP if need be. This probably is no help to you but good luck either way.

Originally Posted by Benjy91

If you get Windows 7 Professional onwards, it has Windows XP mode for all those pieces of software that refuse to run on Win7.

Thanks. I need to keep working with the numerous programs I have installed on XP over the last few years, so can't really risk relying exclusively on Windows 7 in case I run into problems and then spending time ironing them out when I could be working. Plus I just don't trust any kind of emulation as Benjy91 mentions to not course conflicts.

[shopkeeper]

Originally Posted by Tarek

Open Disk Utility and choose the Macintosh HD, then create another partition alongside Boot Camp and format it as NTFS. That way you will have three partitions, a primary (Macintosh HD), and two secondaries (Windows XP and Windows 7).

Could you please provide some more information? What are the steps after these you mention? Thanks

[balamw]

Originally Posted by shopkeeper

Could you please provide some more information? What are the steps after these you mention? Thanks

Read the triple boot thread I linked.

It's fairly straightforward if you are installing from scratch, a bit less so if like you you have an existing install.

What you want to get to is a place where you have 1 HFS+ partition for OS X and two NTFS partitions for XP/7. The usual method (as I linked) has you partitioning using Boot Camp Assistant and installing XP, but leave some space after XP. 7 is then installed to the free space.

Another approach that was brought up reacently has you installing 7 first, then deleting a superfluous partition 7 creates and then installing XP.

In your case I'd try this.

BACKUP YOUR SYSTEM COMPLETELY USING THE TOOLS YOU LIKE (e.g. CCC+Winclone).
Use Disk Utility to shrink the Mac OS HFS+ partition first.
Create a new FAT32 partition in the free space you created, label it WINDOWS7.
Boot from the Windows 7 disc (insert disc and reboot holding Alt/Option)
Replace the WINDOWS7 FAT32 partition with a new NTFS one using the W7 installer
Install W7 in the new NTFS partition created.
Everytime you reboot holding Alt/Option you should see two Windows choices.

If that doesn't work try removing both Windows partition and restore XP to the first partition after Mac OS leaving space after it. Then repeat steps to install 7 into the empty space at the end of the HDD.

NOTE: Boot Camp Assistant will no longer work with three partitions. You will have to do things manually in Disk Utility.

B

[shopkeeper]

Thanks for all your help. I am backing up everything today and will give the last method you mention a try tomorrow.

If you get a chance could you elaborate on what you meant by:

"NOTE: Boot Camp Assistant will no longer work with three partitions. You will have to do things manually in Disk Utility"

Does this mean I will have to install the drivers manually once Windows 7 is installed?

Originally Posted by balamw

Read the triple boot thread I linked.

It's fairly straightforward if you are installing from scratch, a bit less so if like you you have an existing install.

What you want to get to is a place where you have 1 HFS+ partition for OS X and two NTFS partitions for XP/7. The usual method (as I linked) has you partitioning using Boot Camp Assistant and installing XP, but leave some space after XP. 7 is then installed to the free space.

Another approach that was brought up reacently has you installing 7 first, then deleting a superfluous partition 7 creates and then installing XP.

In your case I'd try this.

BACKUP YOUR SYSTEM COMPLETELY USING THE TOOLS YOU LIKE (e.g. CCC+Winclone).
Use Disk Utility to shrink the Mac OS HFS+ partition first.
Create a new FAT32 partition in the free space you created, label it WINDOWS7.
Boot from the Windows 7 disc (insert disc and reboot holding Alt/Option)
Replace the WINDOWS7 FAT32 partition with a new NTFS one using the W7 installer
Install W7 in the new NTFS partition created.
Everytime you reboot holding Alt/Option you should see two Windows choices.

If that doesn't work try removing both Windows partition and restore XP to the first partition after Mac OS leaving space after it. Then repeat steps to install 7 into the empty space at the end of the HDD.

NOTE: Boot Camp Assistant will no longer work with three partitions. You will have to do things manually in Disk Utility.

B

[balamw]

Originally Posted by shopkeeper

Does this mean I will have to install the drivers manually once Windows 7 is installed?

No, Boot Camp Assistant is the OS X bound tool that Apple uses to hold your hand through the process. It partitions the HDD, verifies that your install CD is on the "supported" list, sets the default boot to the Windows partition and then boots from the CD.

It can also reverse the process and remove Windows from your system, unless you have mucked with the partition table directly as you are about to. This is the only aspect that breaks.

B

[shopkeeper]

Took me a little longer to backup and organise my files.

Just one more thing before I give this a go. Will I need to have Snow Leopard running as my OSX operating system to be able to install Windows 7 64 bit and are there any restrictions giving my current setup I need to be aware of.

Sorry about all the questions. This is not something I have endeavoured to undertake before!

[balamw]

Originally Posted by shopkeeper

Just one more thing before I give this a go. Will I need to have Snow Leopard running as my OSX operating system to be able to install Windows 7 64 bit and are there any restrictions giving my current setup I need to be aware of.

No you don't actually need to be running Snow Leopard, but you are well advised to install the Boot Camp 3.x drivers from Snow Leopard instead of trying to make the Vista drivers from the 2.x driver set from Leopard work. Note: Some people even run only Windows and it still works.

Since you're doing things manually in Disk Utility rather than Boot Camp Assistant you should not run into any other issues.

You may still wish to install rEFIt to customize the boot process a bit. http://refit.sf.net

B

[shopkeeper]

Originally Posted by balamw

BACKUP YOUR SYSTEM COMPLETELY USING THE TOOLS YOU LIKE (e.g. CCC+Winclone).
Use Disk Utility to shrink the Mac OS HFS+ partition first.
Create a new FAT32 partition in the free space you created, label it WINDOWS7.

B

Taken me a few days longer to make sure all my files were backed up on both osx and xp.

When in Disc Utility, I click on the hard drive and then select Partition. Then click on the Macintosh HD partition and resize it (63.92gb is as small as it will allow me) but clicking apply gives me the following error message:

"Error with partition: Filesystem resize support required, such as HFS+ with Journaling enabled"

The iMac harddrive at the moment has a 95gb Mac OS Extended (journaled) partition with 61gb available space. The Bootcamp parition is 500gb with 450 gb of free space.

Any suggestions please?

[balamw]

Can you boot from your OS X install disc and try running Disk Utility from there?

You can try to verify and repair your HFS+ partition there too.

Just seems like it's not recognizing the journaling.

B

[shopkeeper]

Originally Posted by balamw

Can you boot from your OS X install disc and try running Disk Utility from there?

You can try to verify and repair your HFS+ partition there too.

Just seems like it's not recognizing the journaling.

B

Yes, I think you are right about that. After I made my previous post I used Disc Utility from the OSX install disc and resized the partition but was not able to format the space that remained to Fat32 or, atleast I could not figure out how to.

So I went back into XP. Split the bootcamp partition into 2 but couldn't format the remaining free space in XP, so booted into Disc Utility and did so from there instead. When I then tried to boot XP I got the following error message :

"Windows could not start because the following files are corrupt: <windows root>\system 32\hal.dll. Please reinstall a copy of the above file"

In OSX I then installed reFit in an attempt to try and run XP with its assitsance but reFit wouldn't show up when restarting or when holding down the alt/option key when rebooting. Rebooted a few times as is adviced on the reFit help page but still no joy.

Tried to use WinClone to restore the cloned XP partition but recieved a message that the destination partition was now too small! So Booted back into Disc Utility and deleted the partition after Bootcamp and was able to have XP running again without restoring it.

Its 1am here now so I think i'll call it a day and give it another stab tomorrow after work.

Any help or advice in the mean time much appreciated!

[shopkeeper]

A little update. For some reason reFit has started working. Maybe it required more than a couple reboots to get it going

Anyway, i'm able to select between OSX and XP with reFit when the compuer starts. I have also noticed that I can reboot my iMac with the C key held down to start a Windows 7 instalation when the Windows 7 DVD is inserted. It asks me where I want to install Windows 7 and I can select the unused and empty partition I made after the bootcamp partition.

Would this be an okay way to proceed? I am wondering if installing Windows 7 into that partition will prevent XP from starting again or will reFit make it bootable?

[balamw]

Originally Posted by shopkeeper

Would this be an okay way to proceed?

Should be fine. Only one way to find out though. Try it.

B

[shopkeeper]

Originally Posted by balamw

Should be fine. Only one way to find out though. Try it.

B

Tried it, but it didn't work

Installed Windows 7 on the last partition. Windows 7 boots succesfully and also allows me to select an 'Older version of Windows' to boot from within its own menu. But when I try to boot XP, I get the error message:

"Windows could not start because the following files are corrupt: <windows root>\system 32\ntoskrnl.exe Please reinstall a copy of the above file"

I remember reading XP would only boot if its on the last partition of the hard drive so I moved it using a partion utility and then reinstalled Windows 7 on the middle partition.

When I then try to boot again from within the Windows 7 boot menu to XP, XP begins but then theres an error message quickly flashed that I can't read in time and the iMac restarts.

Also, reFit doesn't pick up both windows partitions in its menu. I can only boot from XP from within the WIndows 7 boot menu.

In OSX, I restored the backup of XP I made with WinClone, but it just replaced the Windows 7 Installation instead.

Any suggestions please. I now at a lost after trying varying options.

[balamw]

Originally Posted by shopkeeper

Also, reFit doesn't pick up both windows partitions in its menu. I can only boot from XP from within the WIndows 7 boot menu.

If this actually works, I'd stick with that configuration for a while. I realize you'd like to have a single bootloader, but that may be difficult to get to now.

Maybe someone who has actually made it work can chime in, 'cause I'm just guessing from experience at this point.

B

[shopkeeper]

Originally Posted by shopkeeper

Also, reFit doesn't pick up both windows partitions in its menu. I can only boot from XP from within the WIndows 7 boot menu.

I should have restated here that XP only begins to boot; The XP bootscreen with the low res animated progress bar and XP logo show but then an error message quickly pops up and the iMAc reboots.

[Dabbi]

So any luck shopkeeper? I'm Trying to do this for my boss on a iMac 10.5.8

But in my case I want to install Windows 7 32 Bit between OS X and XP 32 Bit and have a Triple boot option.

Now because i have XP installed via boot camp and it's 50/50 OS X/ Win XP, I do NOT want to mess with the boot camp partition. I should also mention that XP is the most important part of the partitions (because that's what is used at work) OS X is never used at all.

So my dilemma is that if i take "Tarek"s advice and Re-size the Macintosh HD and Create a new Partition for Win 7 so it will look like: 1st Macintosh HD, 2nd New Partition, 3rd Windows XP

Install rEFIT on OS X for Boot Menu purposes. (Boot a couple of times so i can see it working)

Boot using Win 7 DVD and format the unallocated partition to NTFS > Install Win 7 > Install Drivers (i have boot camp 3.0 burned on a DVD because I don't have Snow Leopard) > Set XP Active from Disk Management > Reboot

Will I be able to Triple boot Using rEFIT??? And Will Windows 7 act as a separate partition or will it conflict with XP??? (considering i haven't touched to boot camp partition)