Quad-Boot: MacOS/Vista/XP/Linux

[billbear]

i finally managed to setup quad booting(OS X, XP, Vista, Ubuntu) on my MacBook! I will post here later the steps.
It's so crowded to have 8 partitions on an 80G disk!

[billbear]

Hi i'm back.Here is how i did a quad booting on my MacBook:
Since windows can only see 4 primary partitions, i gave the 2nd,3rd,and 4th partition to windows: (the first partition is reserved for EFI) the 2nd one for vista, the 4th one for xp,and the 3rd one is a FAT which can be accessed by all four OSes. The 5th partition for OS X. And i need another HFS+ partition to be able to reinstall Tiger or upgrade to Leopard just from the dmg file, this is the 6th partition. The 7th partition: for ubuntu linux. The 8th partition: linux swap. The difficulty here, lies in installing XP. Somehow in this partition scheme, xp can only be installed on the "last" partition, (as windows don't even know there are a fifth partition, the "last" is the 4th) but when installing into the 4th partition it also installs its boot code to the 2nd partition thus ruins vista boot if vista has been installed on the 2nd partition. If installing vista after xp has been installed, vista takes control of the xp boot thus i have to make a second choice after selecting from rEFIt boot menu. So it seems the only way to convince xp to install boot code to the 4th partition and vista to not take control of xp booting is to have only one windows partition while installing xp, then make a partition image of xp, then repartition and install other OSes, then restore xp image. Fortunately you only have to do this once, after the four OSes have been installed, reinstalling any OS is simple, just do it, it will not affect any other OSes. I will explain why at the end of this post. Now the detailed steps i took to do a quad boot:

0.Prepare your Boot Camp driver CD. Backup your files.
1.Prepare your XP winclone image:
1.1 Boot from your Tiger install DVD, from the Utilities manu, choose Disk Utility. Under Volume Scheme, choose 3 partitions. Click the last partition, specify its format as "MS-DOS File System". Make sure the other two partitions are "Mac OS Extended(Journaled)", Click Partition. (Now all your data are destroyed)
1.2 Close Disk Utility. Install OS X to the first partition. Do a minimal install for you are about to discard it.
1.3 After reboot into OS X, download and install winclone from www.twocanoes.com
1.4 Insert XP install CD, reboot while holding the Option key. Choose to boot from CD. Install XP into the last partition.(marked C: ) You must format the partition as NTFS. (winclone cannot clone a FAT partition) Remember to hold the option key when reboot and boot from the Windows disk to continue install. After done, i gave the XP partition a volume name "XP".
1.5 Now you have a clean install of XP, no need to install the hardware driver at this point, just reboot into OS X, make a winclone image of your XP partition. Save the image on an external hard disk.
2.Reboot from your Tiger install DVD, run Disk Utility. This time choose 6 partitions. Partition as below:
0 EFI protected (which is invisible under Disk Utility)
1 Name:Vista Format: MS-DOS File System
2 Name:FAT Format: MS-DOS File System
3 Name:XP Format: MS-DOS File System
4 Name:OSX Format: Mac OS Extended(Journaled)
5 Name:HFS Format: Mac OS Extended(Journaled)
6 Format: Free Space
3.Install Tiger onto volume "OSX". After reboot into OS X, download rEFIt from refit.sourceforge.net ,install it to volume "OSX". Now you have a boot manager. Insert Vista install DVD and reboot from it.
4.Install Vista onto partition 2 named "Vista".(That is the first volume you can see under Tiger's Disk Utility) You must format it as NTFS at this point. Vista will install with no problems. (It will reboot several times) After done, i gave the vista partition a volume name "VISTA".
5.(Optional) Now you have a clean install of Vista, reboot into OS X, make a winclone image of your Vista partition for future use. Reboot into Vista and let Vista check the disk.(Do it now, don't give XP the chance to check the Vista partition or Vista can be hurt.)
6.Restore your XP winclone image to the volume "XP" (/dev/disk0s4). Reboot into XP and let XP check the disk.
7.Now reboot to Vista. If Vista fails to boot, use Vista DVD to repair it. You may need a USB keyboard to do this. (I don't know why but sometimes restoring XP's winclone image makes Vista unable to boot, fortunately vista DVD quickly repairs it)
8.Insert ubuntu install live CD,(i use ubuntu 7.04 64bit) reboot from it. Launch install from desktop.
At step 3, choose your keyboard layout as Macintosh.
At step 4, choose to manually partition the disk:
create a / partition and a swap partition at the end of the disk.(Swap must be larger than memory to be able to "hibernate". And one megabyte here is 1000*1000 bytes, not 1024*1024)
(Optional) You may notice there is a 134M free space(in fact 128M, 134=128*1.024*1.024) between /dev/sda5 and /dev/sda6, believe me, it's of no use. I create a 9th partition here for /boot to reclaim the space.
At step 7, before you go ahead with the install, click "advanced", and tell ubuntu to install GRUB to (hd0,2), the FAT partition. (Yes, this is the right place. Installing GRUB into the MBR will let GRUB manage the windows booting, you will have to go through 2 boot manager to boot windows or linux, which is not what we want. Besides MBR, it seems GRUB can only be installed into among the first 4 partitions to be bootable, and the FAT partition right now doesn't contain a boot code so it's safe to have GRUB live there)
Proceed with the install. Reboot and you will see 4 OSes from rEFIt menu.
9.Install boot camp drivers under xp and vista. Google and find ways to make airport and wireless mighty mouse work under ubuntu. Google and find ways to fix the screen resolution under ubuntu. Google and find ways to enable touchpad scrolling/tapping/right-clicking under ubuntu.
10.Done! Enjoy your quad booting monster.
Now XP and Vista can see 3 windows partitions, OS X can see 2 NTFS,1 FAT, and 2 HFS+ partitions. Linux can see all.
Now, i have tested, reinstalling any of the 4 OSes will not hurt any other OSes. Why? When installing XP, if the XP partition is empty, XP calls the Vista partition C: and installs boot code onto it thus destroys the Vista boot. But now XP partition has already have a XP boot code so the installer calls the XP partition C: and still installs XP boot code onto this partition even after it formats the partition, so it's safe. When installing Vista, if the vista partition doesn't contain a vista boot code, and vista finds the xp boot code, it will install vista boot code onto the xp partition and take control of xp booting thus you will have to choose twice to boot vista or xp.(The bad thing is that you need a usb keyboard to make the second choice) But now Vista installer finds a vista boot code already on the first partition, this will convince it to just leave the xp partition alone and still install its boot code to the right place, so it's safe. Reinstalling ubuntu is also safe, just don't install GRUB to the wrong place. But if you reinstall OS X, you must then install rEFIt again, that's an easy task.
But as i have mentioned, if you choose to reinstall windows by restoring a winclone image you've already made, then: Restoring vista partition is safe. Restoring XP partition can make vista unbootable but a repair can be done easily if you have the Vista DVD (and a usb keyboard! I still don't understand why this will happen. What has winclone done to the vista partition? Or vista notices the change you make to XP and refuses to boot?

[zarmanto]

That's some good stuff, billbear! In addition to besting most everyone else here in the shear complexity of your multiboot system, it looks like you may have also formed a better understanding of handling multiple installs of Windows, which I had been discussing in another thread, and you seem to have answered some questions about partitioning that someone else was asking about in yet another thread. Great work!

[billbear]

Now i have a better understanding of how XP installer determines which partition to be "C:". "C:" is the active windows partition. If there is no partition marked as active, it calls the first windows partition "C:" and flag it as "active". So, i have made some improvements. Don't need Winclone now.(Thus you can choose to format XP partition as FAT) Just flag XP partition as "active" in Vista before installing XP. I have never expect that doing a quad booting is so EASY once you find the right place for each OS and the right sequence of installing. I rewrote the HOW-TO:


1> Prepare your Boot Camp driver CD. Backup your files.
edit: Update your firmware, so that your keyboard will work in the legacy bootloaders.

2> Boot from your Tiger install DVD, from the Utilities manu, choose Disk Utility. Under Volume Scheme, choose 6 partitions. Specify a name and format for each partition as below:

0 EFI protected (which is invisible under Disk Utility)
1 Name:Vista Format: MS-DOS File System
2 Name:FAT Format: MS-DOS File System
3 Name:XP Format: MS-DOS File System
4 Name:OSX Format: Mac OS Extended(Journaled)
5 Name:HFS Format: Mac OS Extended(Journaled)
6 Format: Free Space (2 Linux partitions will be created here later)

Click Partition. (Now all your data are destroyed)

3> Close Disk Utility. Install OS X to volume "OSX". After reboot into OS X, download rEFIt from refit.sourceforge.net ,install it to volume "OSX".
edit: Not installing rEFIt is also ok. You can use grub to boot vista, xp, and ubuntu because built-in keyboard issue has been resolved by updating firmware.

4> Insert Vista install DVD and reboot from it. Install Vista onto partition 2 named "Vista". You must format it as NTFS at this point.

5> Under Vista, click the Start button, click Control Panel, click System and Maintenance, click Administrative Tools, and then double-click Computer Management.? In the Navigation pane, under Storage, click Disk Management. Right-click the XP partition, and then click Mark Partition as Active.

edit: There is also a command "fdisk" in MacOS Terminal that handles an MBR-partitioned disk. So for those who don't want to install vista and still want to have more than one partition under XP, do this before installing XP:
open a terminal under MacOS
sudo fdisk -e /dev/rdisk0
enter password and ignore the message "fdisk: could not open MBR file /usr/standalone/i386/boot0: No such file or directory"
type p to print MBR partition table
f 4 to flag partition 4 active
type q to save and quit


6> Insert XP install CD, reboot from it. You may need a USB keyboard at the prompt "Press any key to boot from CD" or you can power of and on and try your luck until the built-in keyboard functions. (Hitting keys immediately after rEFIt selection often works, and sometimes a USB mouse activates the built-in keyboard) If you boot Vista by mistake, you must repeat step 5. (rEFIt will flag Vista as active if you select it)
edit: Built-in keyboard now has no problem as we updated the firmware.

7> You will see the Vista partition marked "D:" and XP partition "C:". Now install XP to "C:". You must format it now or XP will not boot. At reboot, select the 2nd windows logo "boot from partition 4" to continue install. Installation finishes and you have a triple boot Mac.

8> Insert ubuntu install live CD,(i use ubuntu 7.04 64bit) reboot from it. Launch install from desktop.
edit: We can install ubuntu without burning CD:
Install VMware on XP. Create a VM that uses the whole physical disk. Use iso image as cd.
Boot VM, press F2 inside the VM to change bios settings. Make CD the first boot device. Install ubuntu.
(It's DANGEROUS if you fail to press F2 fast enough. It is bad that F2 can be fn-F2 in bootcamp driver's default settings. XP on the real hard disk will boot in the VM while this same XP is running in the real machine. Then VM dies. Reboot the real machine and the real XP corrupts. So, the safe way is to first create a vm without a hard disk, boot it and set the bios to first boot CD, then add the physical disk)
Shut down VM. Reboot the real machine. At the GRUB menu, select recovery mode. Type:
sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg
Accept all the default settings.
Reboot.

At step 3, choose your keyboard layout as Macintosh.
At step 4, choose to manually partition the disk:
create a / partition and a swap partition at the end of the disk.(Swap must be larger than memory to be able to "hibernate". And one megabyte here is 1000*1000 bytes, not 1024*1024)
(Optional) You may notice there is a 134M free space(in fact 128M, 134=128*1.024*1.024) between /dev/sda5 and /dev/sda6, believe me, it's of no use. I create a 9th partition here for /boot to reclaim the space.
At step 7, before you go ahead with the install, click "advanced", and tell ubuntu to install GRUB to (hd0,2), the FAT partition. (Yes, this is the right place. Installing GRUB into the MBR will let GRUB manage the windows booting, you will have to go through 2 boot manager to boot windows or linux, which is not what we want. Besides MBR, it seems GRUB can only be installed into among the first 4 partitions to be bootable, and the FAT partition right now doesn't contain a boot code so it's safe to have GRUB live there)
Proceed with the install. Reboot and you will see 4 OSes from rEFIt menu.
edit: If you don't want to use rEFIt, ( I am a little bit uncomfortable that rEFIt creates a directory at the root of my OS X ) install GRUB into the MBR. Hold "option" key upon boot to select "windows", then use GRUB menu to boot ubuntu, vista, or xp.

2008.7 update: the latest release of ubuntu (hardy heron) has a bug that may erase the mbr partition table on an intel mac.
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=766172
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=767677

9> Almost done! Now install hardware drivers in each OS.
edit: To make airport work under ubuntu you must install the madwifi driver.
To write to NTFS partitions under OS X, try Paragon's NTFS for Mac OS X 6.0: www.paragon-software.com/home/ntfs-mac

[billbear]

A benifit of having XP and Vista at the same time is that you can use Norton Ghost now. In the thread http://forum.onmac.net/showthread.php?t=1377 i used a virtual machine to backup XP partition in a typical BootCamp system.
Now we can backup and restore XP under Vista. Backup and restore Vista under XP. It just works fine.(I use Ghost32.exe, 11.0.1, an only 5MB executable file and it can recognize the GPT partition! All 9 partitions are listed. I will try ghost my linux partition)

And about Winclone, i don't recommend it in this partition scheme. Although in one NTFS situation it works fine, it is unreliable in this particular partition scheme. And i don't think winclone understands NTFS better than Windows.

[billbear]

And if you try to reinstall vista or xp remember to flag the partition as active first. (You can flag it simply by choosing to boot from it in rEFIt menu, even if it somehow fails to boot)
But i prefer restoring a ghost backup rather than doing a reinstall

[Smack]

This is great However i have a quick questions i have a new quad core xeon that has 4 hard drives in it could i fallow you instructions but instead of portioning the drives use a separate drive for each os

[ploof]

What does the 2nd partition do? The FAT partition. If i want OSX, Vista and XP is it possible to only have 3 partitions?

And is it at all possible to install and OS on an external hard drive?

Thanks,

Pierre-Luc
Macbook Pro 15"
2.16ghz
1gig of ram
100 gigs hard drive

[conchur]

Fantastic tutorial, works perfectly, thanks.

It's worth adding for newbies like myself that you hold down the alt key after the chime to get to the boot menu (e.g. select OS X or Windows during installation restarts, load rEFIt if installed), or the letter "c" to boot off a CD/DVD.

Also I've noticed that rEFIt seems to disable itself occasionally so you lose the boot up OS selection menu. To get it working again run the enable-always.sh script in /efi/refit (the rEFIt menu is available from the OS select menu as above even if it doesn't always come up automatically).

[billbear]

Originally Posted by Smack

This is great However i have a quick questions i have a new quad core xeon that has 4 hard drives in it could i fallow you instructions but instead of portioning the drives use a separate drive for each os

i think it's a completely different procedure, maybe easier, but i can give you no advice.