2 or more bootable XP partitions on 1 MacBook possibe??

[amidoc]

Does anyone know, or have tried loading multiple partitions each with an instance of XP one each, so that one could boot into any of them?

1. I refuse to give up mac OS for everything except our company is building software that runs only on Windows.

2. I travel quite a bit, and must bring, sometimes 3 Windows laptops with me (plus my Powerbook) because we have different versions of our software that I demo and test. Each version must run on a separate instance of Windows.

3. Alternatively (maybe harder), but if I could just carry 2 or 3 2.5" external firewire drives each with it's own instance of XP and a different version of our software, I'd rather just plug them in and boot to them, like I can already do with OSX.

I have not yet purchased my MacBook, but very seriously considering, even if I can only have 1 XP instance.


Tony

[kuchdawg]

It is probable that you will be able to have another version of Windows, It might work now, but idk, there will be a better chance after the boot.efi file is Open Source, and worked on more. the only way to find out is to try. Remember that Windows does have its own bootloader, so if it can start one version of windows, it should alow you to select it after it starts booting.

[tcv]

I don't know either. But here are just a couple of thoughts:

1. You can install parallel XP installations in one partition. You just need to specify different directories when doing the second and third installs. You can have one as Windows, one as WINNT, etc. This modifies BOOT.INI and has nothing whatever to do with what you do to get your MacBook Pro to boot Windows. The Boot.ini is what will give you the option to choose one of the various installs of XP on the system.

2. I sincerely don't know whether you can add a third or more partitions to the hard disk, but it _seems to me_ that you could as long as you lay out the disk like in the HOWTO and tag any other partitions you want _AFTER_ the Mac Extended Partition. It would look like this:

EFI
Blank (for Windows XP 1)
Mac OS X
Blank (for Windows XP 2)
Blank (for Windows XP 3)
Etc.

This would mean that when booting Mac OS X, it would still boot from Disk 0/Part 2. Windows would still boot from Disk 0/Part 1. And then the Boot.ini on d0/p1 would point to d0/p1 or p3 or p4 depending upon which installation you want.

Someone else would have to verify this, but it seems to me it would work.

[forbes]

Why can't you use VMware for all these different software set ups? Does it rely on some specific hardware?

You wouldn't catch me carrying four laptops with me for the sake of buying a VMware workstation license. :eek:

[slantyyz]

Forbes is 100% correct. Unless you're using some obscure PCI hardware (unlikely if you're using notebooks), there's no reason why you shouldn't be using VMWare. It's inexpensive - 299 for workstation and free for the player. You can run multiple VMs on it simultaneously, and each VM gets its own IP address. I'm fuzzy on the OS licensing, but it will cost you a Windows tax on each VM you run. Still cheaper and lighter than 3 notebooks.

As long as you make sure you buy a Macbook with the maximum RAM and fastest hard drive (7200 rpm), you should be able to get the VMs running pretty fast. The only gotcha is that if the software you're developing is IO intensive (big hard drive writes) the VM will be a bit pokey. Having said that, anything that is IO intensive can kill a notebook's performance, VM or not.

If that's the case, a firewire or external SATA (you'll need to find a card that can do it) drive can solve your problem. Pray for driver compatibility and that VMWare can play nice with them - I know VMWare plays nice with USB devices, but I can't recall their firewire or external SATA support.

[kollik]

I think that the current boot.ini is hardcoded to a single install on the built-in HD,

I tried for example to install it on an external Firewire drive. I created the Mac OS X and FAT 32 partitions, booted from it and blessed the XOM file on tha disk.

Everything worked fine, but XP still got installed on my original partition on the internal drive.

Everything works, but when I try to start OS X it loads from the internal disk although the original boot.ini process starts on the external HD.

[amidoc]

Thanks for the help and feedback. I purchased a 2.16 macbook which had the 7200 HD. The video floating on the web on how to make the dual boot was invaluable.

Hurray, I have a dual boot computer. I just purchased VM Workstation. It goes through like it is going to install, but once it gets to just about the end, something happens, and it back out of the installation. Then I think there was a window that said something failed (sorry I didn't write this down exactly, I'm back in the OSX partition writing this). It installed correctly on my windows PC, so I know the file is not corrupt.

Does anyone have experience loading VM Workstation on a MacBook Pro running XP Pro? If so, how did your installation go? Is there anything I should be doing differently?

Thanks,
Tony