dual booting win7/snow leopard on a mid-2009 mbp 15in

[papelboyh1]

thinking if this is possible

1. 1st native osx partition = will contain OSX
2. 2nd native osx partition = personal files
3. 3rd partition = windows 7 x64

partition 1 and 2 will be partition and formatted during osx install. partition 3 will be done during windows 7 install.

just wondering if this is possible and how do i setup multi-booting?

i tried bootcamp but it needs a single osx partition. I need a separate partition to save my personal files. so if i have to reinstall osx again, i dont have to move them elsewhere first.

thank you

 

[-tWv-]

AFAIK, you can install windows without bootcamp by just creating a partition with disk utility, hold the c key while rebooting, and install windows on the partition like you normally would. Just install the bootcamp drivers off your OSX disk when you have installed windows, and everything should work fine. You can use rEFIt in order to allow you to select which one to boot off of when you start up, instead of having to hold option every time.

Before you do this I would make sure everything is backed up just in case something goes wrong, but it should be ok

 

[vistadude]

This can be done by following these procedures http://forums.creativecow.net/thread/246/114

I don't know how to do this directly without installing XP first, but you can completely installing windows 7 over XP, which is what I did. This method will give you a 3rd data partition which is readable and writeable by both windows and OS X.

Edit: This method was made for Leopard, but it also works perfectly for snow leopard.