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Do you still have the old machine? Can you install Leopard on the external from the old machine and just try booting from it on your MBP?

B

the old machine is my mates MBP. Ive tried it but ive made a schoolboy error. ill keep you updated. :)
 
Multiple partitions, multiple types, simply (but not free)

Perhaps my experience will be helpful and relevant.
I wanted a three partition Boot Camp setup: one OS X partition, one NTFS data partition, and one Windows 7 partition. After trying some of the other comments, I found a very easy way to accomplish this:
0. If you need to start with "one partition" so Boot Camp will be happy, backup what you have, and use iPartition (see below) to delete any other partitions, and expand the Macintosh HD if necessary. I used WinClone to backup my Windows 7 partition...
1. Run Boot Camp assistant and install Windows 7 as per the installation and setup guide.
2. Purchase Coriolis System's iPartition software (about $36). Upon downloading it, you are directed to create a bootable CD. Boot with this CD, and use iPartition to resize the Macintosh HD and Bootcamp partitions to whatever size you want, and create a new partition for Data with whatever format you want (NTFS in my case). [You can set up as many partitions as you want, of whatever type you want. As others have warned about the pickiness of Windows 7, I put mine at the "end of the disk" to avoid problems.]
3. Reboot and run Verify Disk Permissions and Verify Disk, just to make sure everything is OK.

The Bootcamp and Data partitions show up as disks and can be read by OS X. For read/write access, you can purchase and install Paragon Software's NTFS for Mac on the Macintosh HD, and HPS+ for Windows in Windows. Then all disks are fully accessible to both operating systems.

I also suggest immediately making sure Time Machine has a fresh backup, and getting WinClone to make an image of the Windows partition, as a further backup. If there is any problem, you can delete the Windows partition, recreate it, and restore it from WinClone. [In my experiments before finding this solution, Restoring Windows from WinClone was so much easier than doing a re-installation of Windows!] As WinClone is no longer actively supported, I seek a capable replacement...
 
Install BootCamp with multiple partitions

I don’t manage to install window on the last partition. My Window XP SP2 Disk are not able to see my hard drive after I format it with three partition (the last on is a FAT32 partition for window).

Boot camp is doing some kind of MBR emulation to allow window to install on the GTP partition which are not done when I follow you instruction.
 
Boot camp is doing some kind of MBR emulation to allow window to install on the GTP partition which are not done when I follow you instruction.

rEFIt http://refit.sf.net comes with at tool called showpart which can show you the GPT partition table as well as the MBR "equivalent" without risk of damage. You should not have to install rEFIt to run showpart. We may be able to help you figure it out if you can post output from showpart.

B
 
I am not sure if there is anything I can do, but here is my situation.

Boot Camp will not install if my main hard drive which contains OSX has more than 1 partition on it. I have previously successfully installed boot camp before but recently have reformated and repartitioned my drive into multiple sections, One for the OSX and one for Multimedia, Movies Music and pics.

Bootcamp will not install on a partitioned drive, nor will it let you go back to a single drive from a multi-partitioned one without reformatting.

I've attached a pdf of my partitioning of a 2TB drive on my 27" iMac. The key thing is to partition with bootcamp initially but then use the disk utility for resizing and adding further partitions. In my case I have 5 partitions - one for Mac, one for Bootcamp/Windows, a shared data partition and two mac formatted data partitions. See attachment.
 

Attachments

  • Bootcamp & Multi-Partitiions.pdf
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Does not work for me on LION 10.7.3

I am not sure if there is anything I can do, but here is my situation.

Boot Camp will not install if my main hard drive which contains OSX has more than 1 partition on it. I have previously successfully installed boot camp before but recently have reformated and repartitioned my drive into multiple sections, One for the OSX and one for Multimedia, Movies Music and pics.
Bootcamp will not install on a partitioned drive, nor will it let you go back to a single drive from a multi-partitioned one without reformatting.

I've attached a pdf of my partitioning of a 2TB drive on my 27" iMac. The key thing is to partition with bootcamp initially but then use the disk utility for resizing and adding further partitions. In my case I have 5 partitions - one for Mac, one for Bootcamp/Windows, a shared data partition and two mac formatted data partitions. See attachment.

Does not work for me on LION 10.7.3
 
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Multiple partitions with Lion and Boot Camp

Hi all,

New Mac user and got extra partitions with Lion and Boot Camp thanks to this thread, in particular to JWiegley, nole361 and gsshiva. This is a full guide of what I did, much of which repeats some of what has already been written.

Summary

Extra partitions can be added but they have to be after the Bootcamp partition.

Preparation

1. Decide on the size of your OSX partition = A GB
2. Decide on the size of your Bootcamp partition = B GB
3. A Windows 7 ISO image
4. Prepare a Win7 USB install using Boot Camp Assistant (you'll need a 8GB drive for this - I actually used a Seagate external drive)
5. Prepare a Win7 USB install using the Microsoft Windows 7 USB install tool (this just requires a 4GB drive)

To confirm, you need two Win7 USB installs using the same ISO image. This was the only way I could overcome a Windows 7 installation problem - this might or might not also be the case for you. Also, bear in mind that there are reports of some USB flash drives not working - so try different ones if yours do not work.

Steps

1. Open Boot Camp Assistant (BCA), and get your Bootcamp Windows drivers if you have not already done so.
2. Insert the BCA created Win7 USB install (BCA will not let you proceed without it).
3. Select the third option to install Windows
4. Partition the hard disk as follows:
OSX: A+B
Bootcamp: The rest of the hard disk
5. Let BCA reboot Lion, and when it does, make sure you hold down the Option key to bring up the boot menu
6. Select and boot your OSX

7. Open Disk Utility
8. In the OSX partition, click on the '+' button to add a partition.
9. Resize this new partition to size B, rename it to 'BOOTCAMP' and format it as Fat32

At this point you should have three partitions:
OSX (A GB) | your BOOTCAMP (B GB) | BCA BOOTCAMP (rest of the hard disk)

10. Delete the third partition, namely the BOOTCAMP created by BCA
11. Remove the Win7 USB drive and replace it with the other one
11. Restart the computer
12. The Win7 installation should now proceed. Select your BOOTCAMP partition, format it to NTFS and install Windows 7

13. After Win7 has installed, boot back into OSX. Now you can open Disk Utility again and add extra HFS partitions in the empty space after your BOOTCAMP partition.

End of steps

As a last word, as gsshiva wrote, BOOTCAMP has to be the fourth partition in the Master Boot Record. The default Boot Camp disk organisation is:

1) EFI
2) OSX
3) Lion Recovery
4) Boot Camp

With the Lion Recovery Partition, this means that any extra partitions have to come after the Bootcamp partition. The reason for the two USBs is something I found by chance. I think BCA sets some kind of register in the USB to indicate where the Boot Camp location is, hence why you have to have the USB inserted before BCA lets you install Windows. So if you try to use the same USB install throughout, the WIn7 install throws a partition table error. Swapping the USB install means that the second Win7 install ignores BCA, happily installs and updates the MBR.

Hope this guide helps someone. Again, I could not have figured this out without the invaluable work of JWiegley, nole361 and gsshiva. Any mistakes in my guide though, are purely mine.
 
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