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Triple Booting with Boot Camp?

R

Ryuukumori

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jan 18, 2008
467
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Just wanted to know if it is possible to use Boot Camp and triple boot OSX, Vista, and Kubuntu Linux. Is this possible?

Or is it possible to quad boot? Maybe Solaris? lol I am getting way ahead of myself with a lot of operating systems, but wouldn't it be amazing?
 
Yeah, it's possible. Remember, an Apple laptop is nothing more than a PC laptop with a TPM chip that enables it to run OS X.
 
Oh cool!

I wonder who has booted the most OS's on his or her MBP... maybe the record of 5?
 
AFAIK, Apple supports running Windows XP or Vista using Bootcamp.

Anyone who has created a dual or triple boot using Bootcamp, please explain how you did it.

A nice alternative is Parallels or VMWare. You can host as many virtual machines as you can store HD images on your HD.
 
Ryuukumori said:
Wait, you're trying to say that Apple only supports XP and Vista on Boot Camp?

Correct me if I'm wrong.
Click to expand...

No he means only one or the other. Like you can't technically use bootcamp twice. But you can still make a partition, split it in 2 using the xp install disk and then install xp and vista. The real problem is that theres a bug in Leopard that wont let you install XP unless you make a 32 gigabyte partition. So with Leopard right now I dont think its possible, but once they fix the bug, probably.
 
f1400 said:
But you can still make a partition, split it in 2 using the xp install disk and then install xp and vista.
Click to expand...
Have you done this?

Any issues?

f1400 said:
The real problem is that theres a bug in Leopard that wont let you install XP unless you make a 32 gigabyte partition. So with Leopard right now I dont think its possible, but once they fix the bug, probably.
Click to expand...
If I understand you correctly, there is a bug in Leopard that when you use Bootcamp, you cannot adjust the size of the Windows partition to a size other than 32GB. Is this correct?
 
f1400 said:
No he means only one or the other. Like you can't technically use bootcamp twice. But you can still make a partition, split it in 2 using the xp install disk and then install xp and vista. The real problem is that theres a bug in Leopard that wont let you install XP unless you make a 32 gigabyte partition. So with Leopard right now I dont think its possible, but once they fix the bug, probably.
Click to expand...

sushi said:
If I understand you correctly, there is a bug in Leopard that when you use Bootcamp, you cannot adjust the size of the Windows partition to a size other than 32GB. Is this correct?
Click to expand...

No... My XP BootCamp partition is 10 GB... the default is 32 GB, but you can change it to just about anything within reason and available space.
 
f1400 said:
No he means only one or the other. Like you can't technically use bootcamp twice. But you can still make a partition, split it in 2 using the xp install disk and then install xp and vista. The real problem is that theres a bug in Leopard that wont let you install XP unless you make a 32 gigabyte partition. So with Leopard right now I dont think its possible, but once they fix the bug, probably.
sushi said:
If I understand you correctly, there is a bug in Leopard that when you use Bootcamp, you cannot adjust the size of the Windows partition to a size other than 32GB. Is this correct?
DukeofAnkh said:
No... My XP BootCamp partition is 10 GB... the default is 32 GB, but you can change it to just about anything within reason and available space.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
DukeofAnkh I understand that with Bootcamp you can change the partition from the default of 32GB. I've done this numerous times with Tiger when setting up a Bootcamp partition.

However, f1400 stated there was a bug with Leopard concerning using Bootcamp to create a Windows XP partition. Since I have not tried to make a Bootcamp partition using Leopard, I wanted to verify that I understood him correctly that there was a bug using Bootcamp under Leopard that required a 32GB partition when installing Windows XP.

Hopefully f1400 will reply to verify what he meant to say one way or another.
 
sushi said:
DukeofAnkh I understand that with Bootcamp you can change the partition from the default of 32GB. I've done this numerous times with Tiger when setting up a Bootcamp partition.

However, f1400 stated there was a bug with Leopard concerning using Bootcamp to create a Windows XP partition. Since I have not tried to make a Bootcamp partition using Leopard, I wanted to verify that I understood him correctly that there was a bug using Bootcamp under Leopard that required a 32GB partition when installing Windows XP.

Hopefully f1400 will reply to verify what he meant to say one way or another.
Click to expand...

Yes, there is a bug that doesn't allow you to use or change to any size other than 32 gigabytes. I'm sure they'll probably fix it in 10.5.2 though. I got my XP on bootcamp working as a 32 gigabyte NTFS partition, and then I tried to install Linux on that same partition as well by giving it 10 gigs to itself, changing the XP partition's size. Linux worked fine, but I was never able to boot into XP again.

In tiger, you could probably make a bootcamp partition of whatever size you want, and then install XP and Vista too, I would imagine, without any problems. Once they fix the bug I'll probably split my partition in half and put Vista on it as well.
 
f1400 said:
Yes, there is a bug that doesn't allow you to use or change to any size other than 32 gigabytes. I'm sure they'll probably fix it in 10.5.2 though. I got my XP on bootcamp working as a 32 gigabyte NTFS partition, and then I tried to install Linux on that same partition as well by giving it 10 gigs to itself, changing the XP partition's size. Linux worked fine, but I was never able to boot into XP again.

In tiger, you could probably make a bootcamp partition of whatever size you want, and then install XP and Vista too, I would imagine, without any problems. Once they fix the bug I'll probably split my partition in half and put Vista on it as well.
Click to expand...

Maybe it's because my BootCamp partition is FAT32 and yours is NTFS. Otherwise it was created in Leopard (twice because I formatted my drive at one point) and it is 10 gig. I also resized it successfully at one point.

re: triple booting. I tried that too at one point and ran into a similar problem as you did. The conclusion I came to from browsing around various websites is that Windows is very particular about what partition map it uses and to boot properly Windows also has to be the "last" partition or something along those lines. I didn't really investigate further, though, since I didn't need Linux, I was just seeing if I could do it for fun.
 
Ah, guys! Thanks for all the help.

I am looking forward to 10.5.2 then... in the mean time, has anyone had success with triple booting?
 
I have a MacBook and running a 12Gb Windows XP Pro Boot Camp partition created with Leopard, and NO 32Gb limitation when creating it.
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Dino engine
 

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How can you guys handle such a small partition for Windows?

If I were to bootcamp Vista or XP, I would do a minimum of 50GB! At least for the main use of things... Mac OSX would still dominate (I would be having a 320 GB Internal Drive or greater though in the notebook).
 
Ryuukumori said:
How can you guys handle such a small partition for Windows?

If I were to bootcamp Vista or XP, I would do a minimum of 50GB! At least for the main use of things... Mac OSX would still dominate (I would be having a 320 GB Internal Drive or greater though in the notebook).
Click to expand...

I don't really use Windows, though. I've spent more time setting it up than doing anything else in it. It's there partly just in case and partly because there are a couple of apps I can't be bothered shelling out for the Mac versions of.
 
I only use Windows to use MSN Messeger video conference with my friends and relatives that are reluctants to use Skype, and for some websites that aren't properly designed to run on Mac OSX.
Anyway I have more than 5Gb available to install any other program that I may require in the future.
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medical marijuana strains
 
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tripple boot without Boot Camp

Hello!
I have followed the instruction here http://wiki.onmac.net/index.php/Triple_Boot_via_BootCamp
and installed three operating systems into my Macbook.
The operating systems are MacOS Tiger, Mandriva 2008 and WindowsXP.
All the three operating systems run smoothly on Macbook, except that some features are not functioning properly in Mandriva.(the build-in touch pad doesn't work properly.)
Now, I want to know whether it is possible to install the above three operating systems into the Macbook WITHOUT using BootCamp.(assuming that I am starting with a blank hard disk.)
Thanks!
 
luimichael said:
Hello!
I have followed the instruction here http://wiki.onmac.net/index.php/Triple_Boot_via_BootCamp
and installed three operating systems into my Macbook.
The operating systems are MacOS Tiger, Mandriva 2008 and WindowsXP.
All the three operating systems run smoothly on Macbook, except that some features are not functioning properly in Mandriva.(the build-in touch pad doesn't work properly.)
Now, I want to know whether it is possible to install the above three operating systems into the Macbook WITHOUT using BootCamp.(assuming that I am starting with a blank hard disk.)
Thanks!
Click to expand...

The short answer to your question is, I think, no. You might be able to get Linux running, but it's doubtful that you could make XP work. The reason is that XP does not have native support for efi. XP only supports BIOS to my knowledge. Anyone else with more knowhow might be able to tell you differently, though.
 
Ryuukumori said:
Oh cool!

I wonder who has booted the most OS's on his or her MBP... maybe the record of 5?
Click to expand...

MBP has ran:

OS X 10.4
Windows XP
Linux CD
Linux on USB thumbdrive
Another flavor of Linux using VMWare
OS X 10.5 (external drive)
OS X 10.5 server (external drive)

Thumbdrives and external usb drives are quite affordable now and can be used with all intel macs for booting without creating additional partitions.

=)
 
Consultant said:
MBP has ran:

OS X 10.4
Windows XP
Linux CD
Linux on USB thumbdrive
Another flavor of Linux using VMWare
OS X 10.5 (external drive)
OS X 10.5 server (external drive)

Thumbdrives and external usb drives are quite affordable now and can be used with all intel macs for booting without creating additional partitions.

=)
Click to expand...

Nice! I have Kubuntu on a CD R and able to use it off the disc. I should dual boot my old PC for it.
 
Triple boot for Mac OS + Windows XP + Linux is definitely possible.
I have Mac Tiger + Windows XP + Ubuntu in my Macbook.
And I have seen an essay about quad-boot with Mac OS + Vista + WindowsXP + Linux.
 
luimichael said:
Triple boot for Mac OS + Windows XP + Linux is definitely possible.
I have Mac Tiger + Windows XP + Ubuntu in my Macbook.
And I have seen an essay about quad-boot with Mac OS + Vista + WindowsXP + Linux.
Click to expand...

All you need to triple boot/ quad boot is to have the proper number of partitions / drives.

When you reboot mac, hold down option key to select which OS you want to boot from.
 
Consultant said:
All you need to triple boot/ quad boot is to have the proper number of partitions / drives.

When you reboot mac, hold down option key to select which OS you want to boot from.
Click to expand...

But what's the proper way to install them?
 
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