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Triple Boot Mac OS X + XP + 7

I

itisme1760

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Oct 18, 2008
253
7
California
Hey guys,

I would like to triple boot my uMacbook Pro. I currently have Mac OSX and Windows XP SP3 installed on it. I would like to add another partition for Windows 7 (just want to try out 7 before making the real switch later on), but I found that when I try to run the boot camp assistant, it gave me no options to partition the drive further more, and only showed me to restore the drive back into one partition. How can I partition the already two partitioned drive into one more partition? Would I do this through disk utility? Or do I do it through Windows 7 installer?

Thanks.
 
itisme1760 said:
Hey guys,

I would like to triple boot my uMacbook Pro. I currently have Mac OSX and Windows XP SP3 installed on it. I would like to add another partition for Windows 7 (just want to try out 7 before making the real switch later on), but I found that when I try to run the boot camp assistant, it gave me no options to partition the drive further more, and only showed me to restore the drive back into one partition. How can I partition the already two partitioned drive into one more partition? Would I do this through disk utility? Or do I do it through Windows 7 installer?

Thanks.
Click to expand...

There is already a guide on this site, I believe, and all over the internet. Just try google-ing it.

Here ya go, did the leg work for ya. =P

http://tinyurl.com/dj4rvy
 
I've read most guides, they seem to only cover OS X + Windows + Linux

I think I am going to partition it via Disk Utility and do it from there.
 
itisme1760 said:
I've read most guides, they seem to only cover OS X + Windows + Linux

I think I am going to partition it via Disk Utility and do it from there.
Click to expand...

Its easy, install OS X, install XP, install Windows 7

It has to be in that order, you can use your existing OS X installation. Simply install XP using Bootcamp, then make another partition in Disk Utility for Windows 7 and then use bootcamp to run install DVD, restart and install Windows 7, then when you boot on your bootscreen you'll have 3 startup options :)
 
Boot from osx, from utilities menu choose disk Utility. Under volume scheme, choose three partitions and partition as you like. I did 3 equally sized.
1. Name: OSX Mac OS Journaled
2. Name: WIN7 MS-DOS
3. Name: XP MS-DOS

click partition

close disk utility. Install OSX to volume "OSX". After reboot into OSX, download rEFIT from refit.sourceforge.net and install to volume OSX.

Insert windows 7 disk and reboot from it. Install win7 onto "WIN7" volume. DO NOT INSTALL TO LAST PARTITION. XP NEEDS IT TO WORK!

Boot back into windows 7 and right click My Computer and click manage. Set partition your going to install XP on to be active.

Insert XP cd and reboot to it. Install XP onto last partition and all should triple boot now! :):):D:D

** rEFIT doesnt work properly until after 2 boots **
** if you get Hal.dll error during xp install make sure your on last partition and it's mark active from Windows 7 **


********************************************************************************************************************


This took me 3 days of searching and putting various guides together to get it to work properly, it has now worked faultlessly for about a month now, so I wish you luck !!!
********************************************************************************************************************
 
Sweet, thanks! I've also been battling with this for days now, continuosly running into one issue or another trying to get this to work. I'm going to give your method a shot later today and report back if it works.

Question: Any idea if these installations will also work with VMWare Fusion once they are set up?

I suppose I'll find out soon enough...


simscada said:
Boot from osx, from utilities menu choose disk Utility. Under volume scheme, choose three partitions and partition as you like. I did 3 equally sized.
1. Name: OSX Mac OS Journaled
2. Name: WIN7 MS-DOS
3. Name: XP MS-DOS

click partition

close disk utility. Install OSX to volume "OSX". After reboot into OSX, download rEFIT from refit.sourceforge.net and install to volume OSX.

Insert windows 7 disk and reboot from it. Install win7 onto "WIN7" volume. DO NOT INSTALL TO LAST PARTITION. XP NEEDS IT TO WORK!

Boot back into windows 7 and right click My Computer and click manage. Set partition your going to install XP on to be active.

Insert XP cd and reboot to it. Install XP onto last partition and all should triple boot now! :):):D:D

** rEFIT doesnt work properly until after 2 boots **
** if you get Hal.dll error during xp install make sure your on last partition and it's mark active from Windows 7 **


********************************************************************************************************************


This took me 3 days of searching and putting various guides together to get it to work properly, it has now worked faultlessly for about a month now, so I wish you luck !!!
********************************************************************************************************************
Click to expand...
 
Bumping this thread as I would like to know if this worked out for you bryanus?
Also, does it make a difference weather I use GUID partition table or MBR?
 
Last edited:
Sorry, it didn't work for me. I gave up finally, and installed Win7 on bootcamp, and run XP via Fusion.
 
Just wanted to say that simscada's method worked for me. Should perhaps mention also that I run OS X of one harddrive and Win 7 & XP of another partitioned with MBR, if that makes any difference.

@bryanus: I'm sorry to hear it didn't work out for you :(

@roadblock: Thanks for letting me know, that really helped me; I now got a quadro boot going.
 
Simcada's Formula WORKs...

Triple Boot Mac OS X + WINXP + WIN7PRO

Just wanted to add to this thread.
simscada method worked for me also.
Thanks ALOT for posting this method :) . You really need to follow the instructions exactly, in that order to get it to work.

I am a web UX designer, and I have to test on multiple browsers and operating systems, and you just saved me from having to get an additional machine to test web apps for Winxp and IE7.

Next I will be testing VMware and parallels on my Macbookpro to see if they can see/function for both operating systems (fingers crossed) within MAC OSX.

I'll keep you guys posted!

Side Note:
Just one thing to add on your method.
When installing Windows XP, you will need to reformat the windowsXP partition you created in the Mac OSX disk utility. When I chose the "Leave the partition intact" option during installation, and installed windows XP on the partition. The installation failed to properly install windows on that partition. I went back into the windowsxp installation, and reformatted the partition using fat32 (quick) and the installation worked with no problems.
 
Triple Boot Mac OS X, Windows 7, Ubuntu 10.10

Hi all,

I have finally hit a wall - here's what I have so far:

A ThinkPad Edge (i3, 4 GB RAM, 500 GB HDD) with Windows 7. 6 months ago I started my affair with Ubuntu 10.10 and had it running on a dual boot (partitioned into "/", "/home", "/boot", and swap). When I started my laptop the bootloader would come up and I could choose between Ubuntu and Windows 7.

Then I got greedy and tried to install Ubuntu to an external hard drive and bye-bye went the bootloader for some reason. After hours of research I finally saved it with Lilo, which I am running now, but it boots straight to Windows...not giving an option for Ubuntu.

SO question 1: How can I get back into Ubuntu? A different bootloader?

Now, on to the next dilemma: I am even greedier now and want to be able to boot OS X off of an external hard drive. I have gotten the external bootable with Snow Leopard but so far I can only boot it off of a Mac, not PC. (I've changed the boot order in BIOS so don't worry about that).

Question 2: How can I get my external hard drive to boot on my PC? Can this possibly be fixed with a new bootloader circa question 1?

Thank you! PLEASE HELP!!
 
Didn't work

I followed the instructions below and, for some strange reason, when Win7 is on the "Completing installation" part, it doesn't actually finish the installation. It just gets stuck. Does anyone know what's going on here how I can fix it? I'm trying to install Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit.

I have a MBP 13" spring of 2010 using a 128GB SSD.

Thanks!


simscada said:
Boot from osx, from utilities menu choose disk Utility. Under volume scheme, choose three partitions and partition as you like. I did 3 equally sized.
1. Name: OSX Mac OS Journaled
2. Name: WIN7 MS-DOS
3. Name: XP MS-DOS

click partition

close disk utility. Install OSX to volume "OSX". After reboot into OSX, download rEFIT from refit.sourceforge.net and install to volume OSX.

Insert windows 7 disk and reboot from it. Install win7 onto "WIN7" volume. DO NOT INSTALL TO LAST PARTITION. XP NEEDS IT TO WORK!

Boot back into windows 7 and right click My Computer and click manage. Set partition your going to install XP on to be active.

Insert XP cd and reboot to it. Install XP onto last partition and all should triple boot now! :):):D:D

** rEFIT doesnt work properly until after 2 boots **
** if you get Hal.dll error during xp install make sure your on last partition and it's mark active from Windows 7 **


********************************************************************************************************************


This took me 3 days of searching and putting various guides together to get it to work properly, it has now worked faultlessly for about a month now, so I wish you luck !!!
********************************************************************************************************************
Click to expand...
 
First of I hope you'll excuse my lack of memory, I have long since stopped dual booting windows.

However, I do remember one curious problem I used to have when installing windows 7. Whenever I chose to install it in my preferred language (can't recall if it was English UK or Swedish) something would go wrong and I would be unable to complete the installation. Choosing English US would however make it work, every time.

I don't know if that's at all applicable to you but I figured I might as well share, just in case.

Good Luck.

Edit: Can't believe someone raising this thread from the dead with a solution to a two year old problem actually got me to post as well. Doh.
 
You should try this method. It shows how to triple boot with window and ubuntu, but its the same principle. you could install any OS you want. If you have a boot camp partition, you get to keep it. And you dont need refit or any other boot menu managers:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O40UG1guLeo

Hope it helps anyone still reading this post
 
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