Win8 install with 3 partitions the easy way.

[skavan]

After searching up and down, here's an easy way to get the job done:
(I have a new mbp retina with 750GB SSD)
1. Figure out the space you want for your Mac partition (A), your shared data partition (B) and your windows partition (C). In my Case A=250GB, B=150GB, C= 350GB.
2. Use BCA and partition the windows partition as C, leaving the MAC partition as A+B.
3. Boot back into OSX and split the Mac Partition into 2 using Disk Utility. The split should leave your Mac partition as A and your new MAC format partition as B.
4. Boot into Windows USB Stick and install into C.
5. Download trial of Paragon Hard Disk Manager 12 Professional Demo (English)
6. Use HDM to convert the Mac Partition (B) to NTFS.
7. Buy a NTFS driver (I used the paragon one) and install it on the OSX side.
8. Check its working and then install Bootcamp drivers (in WindowsSupport directory) on Win8 side.
9. Voila - you are done. A shared Data Partition (B) and fully working Mac side and Win side.

eom.

 

[iThinksimple]

without boot camp ?
is possible to install linux on third partition ?
btw thanks for the tip,

 

[alphysudaria143]

3 partitions is really awesome to hear.
Thanks for the tips dude

 

[murphychris]

This shouldn't work.

An drive with OS X installed, has three partitions already: EFI System, OS X, Recovery HD. You can use Boot Camp Assistant to resize the OS X partition, and create space for Windows on a 4th partition. When you do this, BCA adds entries for OS X, Recovery HD, Windows (BOOTCAMP), to the MBR. However MBR's can only contain four entries. It's not possible to have another entry with the provided tools. As soon as you add yet another volume, the hybrid MBR is replaced with a protective MBR and Windows is rendered unbootable.

But if it is working, I'd like to see the results from

sudo fdisk /dev/disk0
sudo gpt -r -v show disk0

These will show the entries in the MBR and the GPT.