Windows 7: Dual Booting Win7 and Snow Leopard

Hello.

So I'm a computer engineering student and I would love to be able to dual-boot Windows 7 and Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) on my Dell computer. However, I'm worried things will go terribly wrong and I'll end up screwing my computer up. I'm no expert (yet) when it comes to installation of OS's, partitioning, etc., but I'm pretty sure I could figure most of it out... if I had a guide.

Does anyone have/has anyone made a step-by-step Windows 7/OS X dual-boot procedure that is relatively simple to understand?

* As a note: I will be installing Windows 7 from a CD in about a week when I delete my Vista partition (after backing up all of my files). I'm assuming I would have to order Snow Leopard (a single use license) in order to install it!

try this link:
[How To] Dual Booting Snow Leopard and Windows 7

So it's possible to do this without having my BIOS completely die and having to completely recreate my computer? My biggest fear is a dead computer lol

Also, I just purchase a single-use license from Apple for $30 in order to get a copy of the Mac OS right?

the $30 is the Snow Leopard, right? That should do the trick, though you will have to search Google for how to do a clean install with an upgrade copy.

Yes, it's for the upgrade.

How else could you do it? You can't just purchase a copy of Snow Leopard as an OS like you can Windows Vista/7 in the "box" edition... correct? Just the $30 upgrade disc for a single-use license.

The upgrade disc is designed solely to upgrade Leopard to Leopard SP1 (aka Snow Leopard). I don't think it will work for a clean install ... in fact, I think they specifically prevented it from working that way.

And always be careful when trying to install Mac OS on a PC. Most PCs require Mac OS to be hacked/patched in some way to run on a PC BIOS with non-Apple hardware. The Dell Inspiron Mini 9 (in the article referenced by Jonathan) is one of only a few PC models that supports Mac OS without requiring a hackjob.

Welcome to the Seven Forums!

Hmm perhaps this would be an appropriate place for my question, although I'm not sure how appropriate since I'm kind of doing the opposite. I've just installed Windows 7 Ultimate to a partition on one of the hard drives on my Mac.

I'm curious as to what BootCamp actually does to the hard drive or how the hard drive is treated if I were to take it out and use it to boot up on another computer. The reason I ask is because I plan to build a new computer in the future and would like to have that computer running on Windows 7. So...

My questions are:
1. If I format the entire hard drive to a SINGLE Windows partition with no Mac partition, would I simply be able to plug this hard drive into my new computer system that I plan to build and have it boot up into Windows 7 flawlessly? Or does formatting with BootCamp make it hold some kind of loyalty to only booting up only on Macs?

2. If doing the above would work, then I assume that if I have a hard drive already formatted as a single Windows partition (say a hard drive from one of my PCs running Windows XP) then would I simply be able to hook it up to the Mac and hold option to boot into it?

I'm just wondering what the real hardware limitations are here as I assume that all of the internal parts (hard drive, cpu, ram, etc.) should be compatible across PCs and Macs alike. The only limitations I can think of are the mouse and keyboard.

...it won't work then?

I realize that one of the FEW PCs it will work on is in that manual (and the BIOS has to be very specific and whatnot).

Can anyone distinctly tell me if it is possible to do...?

Well, I did a few Bing searches, and the only examples I can find of Mac OS running on your kind of computer, are using a hacked version of Mac OS. So no, it most likely is not possible to install the "retail" Snow Leopard on your computer. Sorry...

P.S. To be honest, I have tried to install Mac OS on my PC too (for development purposes). I had several weeks of torture with it, and finally gave up. The fact of the matter is that Mac OS was designed to run only on Apple hardware. The chances of installing Mac OS on a PC with no problems are next to zero.

Okay, thanks. I guess I'll end up buying a used low-end Mac then. That's alright.

Thanks for the help!