Easy and safe Dual boot Vista and OSX
I have found a great and easy way to accomplish dual boot with Vista on the Dell Inspiron 1525 without using the Vista DVD, and thus never destroying the original Vista bootloader, nor the recovery or media direct functionality. Here is what I did (taking bits and pieces from others and add a little of myself):
An inportant requirement that I had set was that I wanted to keep the original partitioning as Dell delivered as much as possible. This original partitioning is like this:
- DellUtility
- Recovery
- OS (Vista)
- MediaDirect
I wanted my OSX Partition between OS and MediaDirect.
When starting out playing around with OSX, I did this on an external harddisk. This has proven a very good choice as I have gone through quite a number of iterations and mistakes before I had an install that was completely to my liking.
Part 1. Install Mac OS on EXTERNAL HD
Use an external HD and use Disk Utility from your favorite distribution and create 2 (or more if you like) partitions of 15 GB, formatted for MacOS. You may opt to format a 3rd partition as MSDOS for copying files back and forth between Vista to OSX. This could also be done with a USB memory stick.
On the first partition install MacOS from your favorite distribution to create an always working OS X environment. I use Kalyway 10.5.2 as this does not need any tweaking, with working AirPort.
The second partition will be the install that will be transferred to you internal HD later. To create it, you have two choices:
a. if your install on partition 1 is to your liking, you may use Disk Utility to “restore” partition 1 to partition 2. Do not forget to rename partition 2 (using finder) afterwards otherwise they will have the same name.
b. in my case, I installed OS X again from a 10.5.6 distribution (in my case XxX, but could be iPC or iAtkos or whatever you prefer). Reason for this is that after the first reboot, I booted into my 10.5.2 and performed all needed tweaks on the 10.5.6 install including pre-login sleeptrick before booting my new 10.5.6.
Part 2. Prepare your internal Dell HardDisk
Using a GParted Live CD (I needed to select copy to RAM option to get it working) make the following changes:
a. Shrink partition “OS” to free up space for OSX. Be very aware that your “OS” partition is NOT moved (check the description at the bottom of the window) as this will ensure Vista will NOT boot. (Yes this happened to me…better read the info on the GParted….)
b. Grow the extended partition where MediaDirect resides to fill the space that was freed in the previous action
c. Create a new partition in the unallocated space, type of filesystem is not important, I used ext2 but we will change that later anyway.
Part 3. Transfer of OSX to Internal HD
Reboot into your first OSX partition.
Start Disk Utility
Use the Restore tab to copy your other (good) OSX partition to the just created partition on the Dell Internal HD
Copy the file /usr/standalone/i386/chain0 to your thumbdrive or 3rd partition. Just make sure you can access it from Vista later.
Optional but recommended: Rename either the partition on the external HD or on the Internal HD to be able to distinguish between them later.
Part 4. Modify Vista Bootloader
Boot into Vista
Open command prompt as administrator
Optionally type “bcdedit /enum active” to print out the active boot entries.
Type “bcdedit /create /d “Mac OS X” /application osloader”. you will get a response with a “GUID”, like {3af771a9-fe5b-11da-98b0-adee5d1fa074}. In the next staps I will refer to that as {GUID}, but you need to replace that with the number that was returned.
Type “bcdedit /set {GUID} PATH \chain0″
Type “bcdedit /set {GUID} device boot”
Type “bcdedit /displayorder {GUID} /addlast”
Close the command prompt
Copy the chain0 file to the root of C:
Unlike what I have read in several places, the OSX partition can be found in a logical partition of an extended partition if you have the latest (NETKAS) Chameleon bootloader (v1.0.12), The official latest release 1.0.11 cannot automatically detect OSX on a logical partition.
Part 5. Boot OSX from your internal HD
Remove your external HD
Reboot
In the Bootloader select “Mac OS X”
Bonus part 6: Use of the external HD instals
I choose to leave a clean 10.5.2 install plus the most important (kext)packs and descriptions as a failsafe.
The second partition I left as well as a testbed for future upgrades or testing new distributions.
The remainder of the drive I splitted into a TimeMachine Partition and an MSDOS (FAT32) partition for shared Vista and Mac Backup, mainly photos and homevideos (cannot have enough backups for those).
This is very complicated…..you can boot using the media direct button using similar technique,google it….use the media direct button for booting osx and the normal button for booting vista
It is not complicated, you can safely prepare your install on an external HD and when completely satisfied, restore that to your internal HD.
I am indeed planning on assigning the MediaDirect button to Leopard, but am also investigating the possibility to setup AppleTV on my Dell and boot that using the MediaDirect button.
apple tv? sounds kool..currently i have the mediadirect boot mac i will post links soon if ppl want it
Would appreciate the link. I used http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=102227&st=0 I could not find the code as decribed in that post with the 74h in it. After booting with Mediadirect button nothing happened except after a while I got an error that there was no boot device !!! I was scared big time as even in GParted, there was NO partition information anymore. Luckily I could boot using my “safe haven” on my external HD where I had also stored a backup of my MBR (first 512 bytes of /dev/rdisk0) which I resored using dd. So glad everything was restored again.
As said, my OSX is in a logical partition, but so id Media Direct by default.
Gotta try to get AppleTV working on OSX first. Does not work on Leopard, only on Tiger. So I probably have to start learning all over again installing Tiger on the 1525…..
Hi,
In Part 1 you say “I booted into my 10.5.2 and performed all needed tweaks on the 10.5.6 install including pre-login sleeptrick before booting my new 10.5.6.” Could you get into details of the tweaking. Cause I am ok with 10.5.2, but nothing higher.
Thank you.
”
sergey:
After any install, I have to make some changes, install kexts to get everything working properly.
What I did under option 1b is install a 10.5.6 distribution on my second partition. As I have learned with the 1440×900 screen I have, I need to make changes to the video kexts to get anything on the screen, see also this post: http://macyourpc.com/2009/03/20/full-core-imagequartz-extreme-support-on-1440×900-screens/
To do this, after the reboot at the end of the install, I do not boot into my newly installed 10.5.6, but to my “save haven” and install the necesary kexts for video but also for audio, Ethernet, SDHC speedstepping and powermanagement. I also set the prelogon SleepDisplay action.
I then reboot again, but now into the freshly installed and tweaked 10.5.6
Hope this was helpful. Otherwise dont hesitate to ask more detail.
http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=102227&hl=
this is to use the mediadirect button to boot osx and the powerbutton to boot vista
Nice to have dualboot.
What about installing something like parallels to boot vista/xp within hackintoshed MaxOS?
Until now installation fails on hackintoshs…
Any hope for the future?
I have Windows XP SP3 running in Virtual Box and its working fine.
IMHO virtualbox cannot boot from existing physical hd? You have to install win into a virtual drive, dont´ you?
Parallels boots xp directly from hdd on my original macbook.
i think it is faster having them separate.especially when the mac osx is not meant to run on this hardware…
I messed my system big time with that….
My Partition setup is:
disk0s1 DellUtility
disk0s2 RECOVERY
disk0s3 VISTA
Extended:
disk0s5 HACKINGTOSH
disk0s6 MEDIADIRECT
After running rmrbr 3 5, shutdown and starting with MD button I got the MD splash and nothing else. Trying to start with normal power button gave me a “No boot device” error. ARGHHH!
GParted liveCD showed no partions at all anymore!!!
Luckily I had installed OSX on an extenal HD as well and restored a backup of the MBR. dd-ing it back to /dev/rdisk0 suddenly revealed my old partitions. PHEW!
Any suggestion as to wether this was caused by the omission of 75 -> 74 (code was different, maybe I should have read on) or by the fact that OSX is on a logical partition iso a primary partition?
Just follow it to the the T and it should work…i used acronis to do the mbr thinngy though
If you’re like me, you bought this laptop just to install Mac OS X on. I never even booted (Vista) when I bought my Dell Inspiron 1525. I went directly to Disk Utility and formatted the entire disk for HFS+. I’ve noticed with the latest version of VMWare Fusion, Windows Vista is pretty damn snappy and I can use ‘em both at once (Mac + Windows).
I think writing an article that eliminates the external hard drive would be great and it’s really simple to do no matter which OS is installed first — even if you didn’t leave enough space to toss Vista somewhere. I’m going to write about my experience later.
What would be *really* nice is a guide for those brand new Inspiron 1525 owners who still have OEM Vista installed and the dell recovery partition exists. Unfortunately I toasted mine and formatted the disk without ever booting into Windows after I bought my laptop (I bought this with installing OS X in mind).
Funny you mention the OEM Vista I was actually going to write an article on that but haven’t had a chance to get my mits on one and I did the same with my laptop.
I would write it but am unaware if the extra partitions and the mbr will get all funky with the introduction of osx.
Richard, thats exactly what I wrote…
Installing OSX changes the MBT, so if you want to install OSX without changing the MBR, you need to install it on an external HD first and then transfer or “restore” it.
To be able to get into the recovery partition, you need to start the Vista bootloader or alternatively make that partition the boot partition e.g. by using Gparted LiveCD.
Another consideration: If you also want to keep the MediaDirect partition, you have no other choice than to install OSX on a logical partition which could cause problems with Darwin/Chameleon (if versions 1.0.11 or earlier are used)
Actually, I am now considering putting a new 320GB HD in my Dell and use it exclusively for OSX. The current HD can then be used in a mobile enclosure for when I need to go back to Vista for whatever reason.
Also I am planning to make a small partition for AppleTV. As that is Tiger based, I need to find some time to figure out how to install that first.
I, for one, would love to see a from-scratch tutorial on creating a multi-boot Inspiron 1525. For me, OS X, Windows and Linux on one machine would be a dream come true. Like others here, I blew away all of the original Dell partitions the first time I started in on the Hackbook project. Tonight I tried to install Linux in a new partition but ended up hosing my OS X installation that I had just stabilized earlier today.
So, I’m getting good practice stepping back through the hackintosh install again and just decided to leave multi-boot alone for now in favor of a single partition (465GB) all OS X.
Now that I see this article and the sweet new Chameleon boot manager, I’m once again thirsty for the triple threat.
Hi…..
I have tried to shrink my OS partition and get an error saying “An error occurred while applying the operations” I have tried to load GParted into RAM and also run from DVD.
Any ideas?
Thanks
Martin
All seems to be working now….
What it turned out to be was I had restored my OS from the Dell restore partition but had not done an initial log in to Vista.
Thanks
Martin
Spoke too soon!
I cannot boot into Vista, must have moved the OS partition. I’m going to give it another go.
OK…. Now I need some help please.
I have Vista installed but cannot boot into OS X on my external USB drive.
I have USB emulation enabled in the bios.
Any ideas?
Thanks
Martin
Getting p1ssed off now
Got a Chain Boot Error
Read plenty on the net about this error but I have no idea on how to sort it
Well I have totally stuffed my 1525.
Cannot restore vista, hard drive is not recognized.
Do not use Gpart unless you are prepared to shaft your system up in a big way.
I didn’t write this guide but can you boot from a disc and wipe everything? Whether it be any partition disk or utility disk?
I kind of wanted to keep my RECOVERY partition intact.
Managed to get Vista re-installed, not attempting to fix my partition information.
hey man, thnx 4 ur awesome post, but this way is too long and i wanna ask u about some thing
i downloaded i
pc 10.5.6, and i wanna dual boot with the pre-installed vista in my dell inspiron 1525
what about this?
1- resize c partition to have a decent space for my mac and making it hfs and set as active by using gparted live cd
2- set it up as u provided in guide, then download the latest chameleon to make adual boot
or using easybcd.
is this way will mess my vista and my recovery partition?
WhY, Sure you can resize your Vista partition (note that the concept of C:\ exists only in Windows, it sits on a specific partition) and create a new partition for MacOS.
There is no need to make it HFS, you can do that from the installation DVD using Disk Utility.
The latest Chameleon (with graphics) works like a charm. Note that the boot parameters file (com.apple.boot.plist) is in a new location now /Extra
hey guys, i have been searchin for the best way to dual boot
i found an interesting pro called EasyBCD
what u folks think about it?
This is the guide I used to dual boot and I know he mentions Easybcd a lot in it and you can use it.
http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=39253
Good luck to you.
Some time ago i find some steps to boot my native windows xp (it should work for vista) partition on vmware as bootcamp on my hackintosh, the steps are from a post from insanelymac, cant find the post right now , is pretty old.
i dont take any credit and im not responsible for any data lose.. try a your own risk.
Booting my native winxp parition on vmware work really great i have a dualcore and 3gb ram, also found a way to boot a native ubuntu partition as well… involves more steps and a working triple boot setup, if someone is interested i can post the steps, so basically can boot the 3 native partitions at time and have a nice OS nirvana
.
Sorry for my bad english.
I use Virtualbox as virtualization tool. It works pretty well and is free. I could not get the latest version working as it had enabled VT-x without a possibility to disable it. Version 2.1.4 has VT-x disabled by default and does work.
Vmware fusion and Parallels have and option that lets you run your physical HD Windows install (better know has Boot Camp) inside leopard in a easy way on a real Mac, when you try on a hackintosh the setup fails, the steps that i posted fix that on vmware, if you already have a dual boot setup you can open the same windows partition you alredy have installed without the need to reboot, sorry if dont explain myself.
Hi Osmac,
I summarize your explanation as below:
1) install 10.5.2 on partition 1
2) reboot to 10.5.2
3) install 10.5.6 on partition 2 (no tweaking)
4) reboot to 10.5.2
5) tweak 10.5.6 (partition 2)
My question on step 4 & 5:
If you boot into partition1 (Kalyway 10.5.2), after install 10.5.6 on partition 2, how did you use kext helper and perform all tweak to 10.5.6 ?
Is there any particular setting on the Kext Helper so all the kexts installed on 10.5.6 (partition 2) instead of Kalyway 10.5.2 (partition 1)?
I think by default, if we boot to 10.5.2 (partition 1), Kext Helper will install kexts also to the same partition.
Please let me know. Thanks
What about option to just install 10.5.6 on single partition of external drive ?
Can we do the same trick in the simple guideance to get the display on ?
“close the lid and open it again after signal “breathing” ”
yeah it would work in the same way as the guide.
Danny, in kexthelper you can specify the target I believe. Actually I did not use kexthelper but just copied the kexts to the System/Library/Extensions folder (the kextscache was not exisiting yet so neede to be build anyway and I repaired permissions on the 10.5.6. At the time of writing there was still an need for a sleepdisplay tweak, but (at least with XxX 10.5.6) this is no longer needed.
You do need 2 partitions/installations on your external drive as you need 1 to transfer the other to your internal HD which comes after step 5 in your summary of my explanantion.
If you plan to keep using the external HD as “home” for your OSX, then you do not need two partitions on it and I would recommend 10.5.6 of course. If you are just starting out on your hackingtosh ventures en need to experiment a lot (which I did in the beginning), a “safe haven” like a fresh/simple 10.5.2 with basic functionality can be very helpful.
In addition to the above:
I am no longer dual booting, I have bought a new 500GB HD, and installed OSX on it without any Vista. For the odd program for which I need Vista, I have a virtual machine under VirtualBox, a free virtualization tool.
Thanks Osmac and also to Genaro,
Your advise is highly appreciated. I started to learn OSX86 about one month ago and have succeeded to run iPC 10.5.6 on my PC. It’s now my first attemp on notebook. Fortunately I found this site. I decided to buy Dell1525 right away after I read articles on this site although previously I planned to have my second hackintosh PC. Dell 1525 seem a very perfect one to start with.
Regarding VirtualBox, So far Bootcamp and Paralel Desktop are the options I’m thinking of. But I read articles that Bootcamp won’t work on hackintosh. I consider VirtualBox is similar with Parallel Desktop. I might be wrong, but I think using Parallel Desktop option gonna take lot of memory to run and decrease the performance unless we have sufficient memory to support.
OK, I hope on Monday I will posting my success story installing iPC 10.5.6 on my new Dell1525 with dual boot Vista.
Good luck with that danny this maybe useful using a GUI enabled bootloader to allocate vista to power button and MD button to OSX
http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=162689&hl=
without having to use rmbr
I got working bootcamp on vmware read my post above.
Sorry my bad you mean installing windows from bootcamp, not that is not posible in hackintoshes.
@Osmac: You can edit the xml file of your virtual machine manually and set the HardwareExt node’s value to false instead of true. That’ll make your VM work.
Hey! wazzup.
Is there some method to install Win XP, Vista or 7, after installing OSx ? I have my disc with 2 partitions of 60gb, one using OSx, and the other without use. I want to install Windows, how could I? Do you have some links to share?
THANKS A LOT!