Triple Booting - OSX, XP, Vista ?

[sgwood]

Hi all,

I have a MacBook Pro and would like have a Triple Booting Setup
with the following layout: OSX, XP, Vista

I am a software developer so I need to test and run two windows
versions. The Triple Boot solutions outlined at:
http://www.ethicalhack.org/howto/triple_boot_howto.html
and
http://wiki.onmac.net/index.php/Triple_Boot_via_BootCamp

are both interesting but only mention Linux as the third OS.
I believe a limitation to the 3rd OS Windows is the lack
of EFI support in windows and that Bootcamp only
supports one MBR partition, although according to the
Bootcamp site one can install one windows copy
per hard disk volume.
"but you can install only one Windows partition on any of your computer volumes."
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=303572#faq0

I am also very interested to know if someone has
sucuessfully got a dual boot solution i.e. only XP and Vista
up and running as I am also willing to simply drop OSX.

I know that there are VM solutions i.e. Parallels Workstation
but i would like to run all OSs natively.

I have of course searched this forum and the net for an answer
without any luck.

gratefully for any tips.

thanx;)

[bdj21ya]

Sorry I won't be much help with the triply partition idea, but I thought you might at least be interested in knowing that you can have more than one internal volume on the MacBook Pro. Here's a link (http://www.mcetech.com/optibay/) to MCE Technology's web site. The company offers the second internal HDD's installed in place of the optical drive. The solution also comes with an external optical drive (15" MBP) or a bay for your current drive (17" MBP).

If you think about it, this makes a lot more sense, because most people do not use optical drives all that frequently, and especially not while on the go.

Another option would be to just use an external HDD for one of the OS's, since I think there is now a way to get external drives working.

[kkrull]

I am also very interested to know if someone has sucuessfully got a dual boot solution i.e. only XP and Vista up and running as I am also willing to simply drop OSX.


There are lots of ways to solve your problem.

You can follow the triple boot instructions and then simply change your linux partition to ntfs or fat32. Then you have two partitions to install windows onto. The trick with bootcamp is to not repartition from outside of OSX, else you get out of sync. I would highly recommend rEFIt.

If you really wanted to live dangerously you can install multiple Windows instances into one partition. I am quad booting now with XP, Vista, Linux and OSX. Probably not standard enough for development work. I have multiple Vista instances on the one NTFS partition as well but only one is working due to a protected registry issue.

If you wanted to try multiple windows on one partition the trick to this is to install any XP version first. Then install another XP copy from windows so that you can change the system path in the advanced options (c:\newpath). Too bad vista doesn't allow for changing it as easily. Now you have a good (non c:\windows) install but you need to move the c:\program files and c:\documents and settings. Boot into a PE environment like Bart's PE and copy the c:\program files and c:\documents and settings to another place. You can put them in c:\program files\XP32\ or c:\newpath\program files\ . Do the same for documents and settings. Then boot into c:\newpath and modify the registry entries to match the new location. Use a search and replace registry utility. (If you are really clever you can create these folders in the right place from an unattended script).

You can do this as many times, for as many XP32 or XP64 installs as you like. After the first you don't need to boot into PE, because each previous directory will work. Just boot into another working environment, copy the documents and settings, and copy program files and then reboot into the most recent install and rename the registry settings from within the new install. You will want to change the boot.ini names so you can keep track of which is which.

If you only want one version of Vista, you could live with putting it in the c:\windows directory and your previously installed XP instances will still work. You just need to reference them from the new BCD as legacy after Vista installs.

[sgwood]

Thanks for your replies.

Unfortunately i couldn't get the 2nd Windows copy on the machine.
I could install it but after the 2nd windows installation it couldn't find
the CD. The error was something like "no system disk" or something similar.

Instead I have had to drop osx and install only Windows.
Hopefully in the next release of Bootcamp it will
allow for more than one legacy or MBR partition.


I followed this thread to install only windows:

Running Windows Solely?
http://forum.onmac.net/showthread.php?t=1467&highlight=boot+windows+format


You can follow the triple boot instructions and then simply change your linux partition to ntfs or fat32. Then you have two partitions to install windows onto. The trick with bootcamp is to not repartition from outside of OSX, else you get out of sync. I would highly recommend rEFIt.


kkrull, could you describe in more detail the sequence here?:o

e.g.

How-to:
OSX, XP Pro, XP Home System

1) Standard Triple Boot Installation including Linux installation
http://wiki.onmac.net/index.php/Triple_Boot_via_BootCamp

Then one will have an OSX, Linux, XP system.

2) Then bootup from the 2nd windows cd e.g. XP Pro and format the linux partition with for example FAT32??

3) ??