OSX and Windows 7 Dual Boot

[pmcgarr]

Anybody want to share their experience installing and booting OSX and Windows 7 in a dual boot, single drive, setup? I'm experienced in partitioning, etc. My first try was not sucessful, but I didn't really give it a chance. I had OSX running, but I couldn't get the dual boot sorted out and I ruined my Windows installation a couple times...gave up.

Just looking to see if threre are any people out there that can steer me a little.

 

[renthor]

Not having a Mac myself, I can't offer you first hand experience, but lifehacker (an awesome resource) has this to offer.

Dual Boot: Install Windows 7 Beta on Your Mac with Boot Camp

Though maybe someone here who has a Mac and has successfully done this can offer more adequate advice.

 

[hethoofd]

I think he's talking the other way around: putting OS X on a PC. Correct me if I'm wrong

I have a triple boot at the moment: Vista, Win7 and OS X. I just used a bootloader from the DVD and it picked up all my other operating systems... that's about it actually

 

[limneos]

Hello pmcgarr

I have dual boot W7 and OSX 10.5.6.

All you need to do is first , install W7. Then, create a new partition for your osx within W7 , format it as fat32 or ntfs and set to to be "active".

Then run the osx installation and before you start the install, go to Utilities and "disk utility" , select the partition you created from W7 and format it as Journaled (don't delete it!).

Then, install as you would normally, selecting this partition as your installation target. (don't forget to customize your OSX installation with the necessary drivers for you system.)

After installation is complete, you will need to repair your W7 boot loader, cause you probably won't be able to boot W7.
Insert the W7 installation DVD, at the first installation screen select your language etc, and at the second screen select "repair computer".
This will bring the W7 boot loader back, so you can boot W7.

Now you won't be able to load osx!
So boot in Windows 7, and unhide your hidden 200MB partition:

1. In disk management, assign a drive letter for your 200MB hidden partition.

2.Download EasyBCD and add a new boot entry, select MacOS, Generic X86, Add, Save. That's it.

You can now have dual boot with W7 and OSX

 

[damoh]

i installed mac onto a seperate HDD and then choose which drive to boot at startup. Never had much luck with bootloaders lol

 

[pmcgarr]

Hello pmcgarr

I have dual boot W7 and OSX 10.5.6.

All you need to do is first , install W7. Then, create a new partition for your osx within W7 , format it as fat32 or ntfs and set to to be "active".

Then run the osx installation and before you start the install, go to Utilities and "disk utility" , select the partition you created from W7 and format it as Journaled (don't delete it!).

Then, install as you would normally, selecting this partition as your installation target. (don't forget to customize your OSX installation with the necessary drivers for you system.)

After installation is complete, you will need to repair your W7 boot loader, cause you probably won't be able to boot W7.
Insert the W7 installation DVD, at the first installation screen select your language etc, and at the second screen select "repair computer".
This will bring the W7 boot loader back, so you can boot W7.

Now you won't be able to load osx!
So boot in Windows 7, and unhide your hidden 200MB partition:

1. In disk management, assign a drive letter for your 200MB hidden partition.

2.Download EasyBCD and add a new boot entry, select MacOS, Generic X86, Add, Save. That's it.

You can now have dual boot with W7 and OSX

That is EXACTLY what I needed. Thank you so much.

 

[shanghei]

Hello pmcgarr

I have dual boot W7 and OSX 10.5.6.

All you need to do is first , install W7. Then, create a new partition for your osx within W7 , format it as fat32 or ntfs and set to to be "active".

Then run the osx installation and before you start the install, go to Utilities and "disk utility" , select the partition you created from W7 and format it as Journaled (don't delete it!).

Then, install as you would normally, selecting this partition as your installation target. (don't forget to customize your OSX installation with the necessary drivers for you system.)

After installation is complete, you will need to repair your W7 boot loader, cause you probably won't be able to boot W7.
Insert the W7 installation DVD, at the first installation screen select your language etc, and at the second screen select "repair computer".
This will bring the W7 boot loader back, so you can boot W7.

Now you won't be able to load osx!
So boot in Windows 7, and unhide your hidden 200MB partition:

1. In disk management, assign a drive letter for your 200MB hidden partition.

2.Download EasyBCD and add a new boot entry, select MacOS, Generic X86, Add, Save. That's it.

You can now have dual boot with W7 and OSX

I registered just to thank you!

Spent days trying to get Windows 7 to dual boot with OSX and found this and it worked like a charm!! THANK YOU

 

[limneos]

Hello Shangei and welcome to Seven Forums.

I'm glad I could be of some help.

Feel free to join us and ask for anything you might need help with.

Cheers

 

[StuntmanMike]

Hello pmcgarr

I have dual boot W7 and OSX 10.5.6.

All you need to do is first , install W7. Then, create a new partition for your osx within W7 , format it as fat32 or ntfs and set to to be "active".

Then run the osx installation and before you start the install, go to Utilities and "disk utility" , select the partition you created from W7 and format it as Journaled (don't delete it!).

Then, install as you would normally, selecting this partition as your installation target. (don't forget to customize your OSX installation with the necessary drivers for you system.)

After installation is complete, you will need to repair your W7 boot loader, cause you probably won't be able to boot W7.
Insert the W7 installation DVD, at the first installation screen select your language etc, and at the second screen select "repair computer".
This will bring the W7 boot loader back, so you can boot W7.

Now you won't be able to load osx!
So boot in Windows 7, and unhide your hidden 200MB partition:

1. In disk management, assign a drive letter for your 200MB hidden partition.

2.Download EasyBCD and add a new boot entry, select MacOS, Generic X86, Add, Save. That's it.

You can now have dual boot with W7 and OSX

I'm having just a bit of an issue, I format the partition that I want to used for OSX to fat32 and make it active, When I get into the OSX installation, I select the partition and format it for Mac OS Extended (Journaled). But when I do that it seems to change the format of the other 2 partitions on the drive but doesn't change anything on the partition selected. I may be doing somethign wrong, but I just don't see it. Any advice would be apreciated.

 

[limneos]

You might be doing something wrong.

Are you sure you're not deleting the partition in osx installation?
Try to label the partition from within Win7 so you can recognize it later in OSX install. You should only alter that partition. Additionally, you might be changing the partitio type...you should leave it as it is (GUID, I think) or in any case, don't change anything under OSX format, just format as journaled.

If you're still having problems, please tell us which osx version are you installing

 

[StuntmanMike]

So I finally got OSX to install properly and work, but now I can't assign a drive letter to the 200MB partition in windows. the OS X install turned that partition into a GPT Protective Partition and windows isn't allowing me to do anything with that partition. Any advice?

 

[limneos]

So I finally got OSX to install properly and work, but now I can't assign a drive letter to the 200MB partition in windows. the OS X install turned that partition into a GPT Protective Partition and windows isn't allowing me to do anything with that partition. Any advice?

Open an elevated command prompt and type:


Diskpart {enter}

Diskpart> list disk {enter}

Diskpart> select disk 0 {enter} (change "0" with your disk drive)

Diskpart> list partition {enter} (find your 200mb partition in the list)

Diskpart> select partition 1 {enter} (change "1" with your 200mb partition)

diskpart> convert MBR

diskpart> exit

Please post back results.

Hope it helps

 

[StuntmanMike]

the convert mbr command returns a Virtual Disk Service Error.

"Virtual Disk Service Error:
The specified disk is not convertible. CDROMs an DVDs are examples of disks that are not convertible."

 

[guyhersh]

Hello pmcgarr

I have dual boot W7 and OSX 10.5.6.

All you need to do is first , install W7. Then, create a new partition for your osx within W7 , format it as fat32 or ntfs and set to to be "active".

Then run the osx installation and before you start the install, go to Utilities and "disk utility" , select the partition you created from W7 and format it as Journaled (don't delete it!).

Then, install as you would normally, selecting this partition as your installation target. (don't forget to customize your OSX installation with the necessary drivers for you system.)

After installation is complete, you will need to repair your W7 boot loader, cause you probably won't be able to boot W7.
Insert the W7 installation DVD, at the first installation screen select your language etc, and at the second screen select "repair computer".
This will bring the W7 boot loader back, so you can boot W7.

Now you won't be able to load osx!
So boot in Windows 7, and unhide your hidden 200MB partition:

1. In disk management, assign a drive letter for your 200MB hidden partition.

2.Download EasyBCD and add a new boot entry, select MacOS, Generic X86, Add, Save. That's it.

You can now have dual boot with W7 and OSX

I currently have Windows 7 build 7057 and OSX 10.5.6 (iDeneb) installed on my eeePC, but I currently only can boot into OSX.

I tried going through what you said above, but when I choose Startup Repair, it tried for 1-2 minutes, but ends up failing. I also tried repairing the bootloader manually using:

bootrec.exe /fixmbr
E:\boot\bootsect.exe /nt60 all /force
del C:\boot\bcd
bootrec.exe /rebuildbcd

But it says: "this volume does not contain a recognized file system", even though it does detect the Windows directory on that partition.

Any ideas? Is it a problem with the 7057 startup repair?

 

[tbz]

Open an elevated command prompt and type:


Diskpart {enter}

Diskpart> list disk {enter}

Diskpart> select disk 0 {enter} (change "0" with your disk drive)

Diskpart> list partition {enter} (find your 200mb partition in the list)

Diskpart> select partition 1 {enter} (change "1" with your 200mb partition)

diskpart> convert MBR

diskpart> exit

Please post back results.

Hope it helps

I tried doing this and it is giving me the same VDS error that people been getting above.

and without the ability to see the partition i can not removed the pagefile or even change it's size. Would it be safe for me to change for "all drives" and see how that goes?

actually I will backup my computer and give it a shot. I guess.



edit
actually i don't think that would make sense because i would have to make it 0 for that drive so i would have to delete it right?
i don't know if that would be okay with my laptop haha

 

[1318]

Any other success story when trying to dual boot win7 and OSX?
I saw some question still not answered..

 

[kintomaniac]

how to make a partition active?

i tried this
in disk part i typed
list disk
select disk 0
list part
then selected the partition by typing
select part 5
active
but i get this error
Virtual Disk Service Error:
the specified type is not valid for this operation;

and wat is the 200mb partition?

 

[vindows]

Well i can't find any 200MB partition.
My OSX installation was complete, so i repaired it with Win 7 DVD. Once I did that I used EasyBCD to add MAC OS X to the boot rec, once i did that and tried to boot with MAC OS X i get this error.
http://www.sevenforums.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=21471&stc=1&d=1249481101

 

[zigzag3143]

vindows

If you read the text after File_xxxxx.mbr. suspect you hosed the master boot record when installing one of the OS's.

Ken

 

[vindows]

vindows

If you read the text after File_xxxxx.mbr. suspect you hosed the master boot record when installing one of the OS's.

Ken

I had Win 7 already installed.
So now theres Mac OS X installed too but can't boot with it. Help me to boot it..