Hypothetical triple boot XP, Vista ,OS 10.5.1

acdcfan · #1 August 21st, 2008, 02:25 PM

Hi all

This is my first post in search for answers

If I was going to ask for any help in here regarding above hypothetical subject, would I be breaking forum rules?

Hypothetically I have dual boot machine, XP and Vista on two separate SATA II hard drives. I am, hypothetically speaking, going to slot in 3rd 500Gb hard drive to install Mac OS 10.5.1. So far, hypothetically speaking, I managed to find instructions on how to install Kalyway on separate partition on the same hard drive but nothing on separate hard drive.
I am being paranoid of destroying boot loader, but I can not tell for certain which boot loader I am using when booting into Vista and which boot loader when booting into XP or they are two totally different ones. Basically when I turn my machine on, after a few seconds I get promoted to choose which OS I want to go to. That's what I want to get if I was, hypothetically speaking, going to install Mac OS 10.5.1.

What are your thoughts on disconnecting 2 hard drives with XP and Vista, installing OS X, reconnecting hard drives back and then what? What would happen then?Mind you I have EasyBCD installed on both hard drives

So far I have installed SATA controller and new hard drive. Both are seen in device manager and disk management. I have left new hard drive unformatted for the time being. It did my head in for about 2 hours. After initial hardware install I couldn't see hard drive in BIOS or any of disk management. Searched high and low to find out the cause but it turned out I didn't plugged the controller properly. How silly.....All is good

Any help would be appreciated....

Thank you

Terry60 · #2 August 21st, 2008, 04:07 PM

Hi acdcfan, welcome to NST.
There is a sticky concerning OS X which you should read.
When you dual boot Vista and XP, it's Vista's bootmgr (using the BCD) which is in control and when you request XP, it will chain to XP's NTLDR (using boot.ini). You can also chain from Vista to grub for booting linux, and in theory to Apple's bootloader for OS X (see the above mentioned sticky).
If you want a better understanding of how the dual-boot process works to get things straight in your mind before you do anything, I can recommend you read http://www.multibooters.co.uk/multiboot.html

Computer Guru · #3 August 21st, 2008, 04:08 PM

You should be good to go w/ the hypothetical you posted above - though EasyBCD wasn't made with warez'd copies of OS X in mind, the same steps that let it work with authentic OS X installs should work OK in such a case.

acdcfan · #4 August 22nd, 2008, 12:19 AM

Originally Posted by Terry60

Hi acdcfan, welcome to NST.
There is a sticky concerning OS X which you should read.
When you dual boot Vista and XP, it's Vista's bootmgr (using the BCD) which is in control and when you request XP, it will chain to XP's NTLDR (using boot.ini). You can also chain from Vista to grub for booting linux, and in theory to Apple's bootloader for OS X (see the above mentioned sticky).
If you want a better understanding of how the dual-boot process works to get things straight in your mind before you do anything, I can recommend you read http://www.multibooters.co.uk/multiboot.html

Thank you Terry60....
I will read it today. I am so paranoid of destroying vistas boot loader.

Addendum:

Originally Posted by Computer Guru

You should be good to go w/ the hypothetical you posted above - though EasyBCD wasn't made with warez'd copies of OS X in mind, the same steps that let it work with authentic OS X installs should work OK in such a case.

I don't think it is warezd copy of OS X because it isi X86 version of it, but then agan I coudl be worng.

Makaveli213 · #5 August 22nd, 2008, 02:19 AM

It has to be a warez copy. OS X is not meant to run on x86 archicture by default.

acdcfan · #6 August 22nd, 2008, 01:19 PM

Originally Posted by Makaveli213

It has to be a warez copy. OS X is not meant to run on x86 archicture by default.

Thank you for pointing it out....

Addendum:

Originally Posted by Terry60

Hi acdcfan, welcome to NST.
There is a sticky concerning OS X which you should read.
When you dual boot Vista and XP, it's Vista's bootmgr (using the BCD) which is in control and when you request XP, it will chain to XP's NTLDR (using boot.ini). You can also chain from Vista to grub for booting linux, and in theory to Apple's bootloader for OS X (see the above mentioned sticky).
If you want a better understanding of how the dual-boot process works to get things straight in your mind before you do anything, I can recommend you read http://www.multibooters.co.uk/multiboot.html

I went to this link Mac OS X - NeoSmart Technologies Wiki provided, by following your first link Terry60 and there it said this " Dev Preview kit with the official OS X x86 DVD ".... What is Dev Preview Kit?

And then goes on to say this......
" Once OS X has finished installing, the Darwin bootloader should load up OS X for the first time. It should give you an "Other" option to boot into Windows Vista."

Is above statement correct? If it is, then it is smooth sailing al the way.... It goes on further by saying repair Vistas boot loader which makes sense but what is happening to Darwin bootloader? Does it, by repairing it, include an option to boot into OSX from Vistas bootlaoder or......?. To me it seems it does...

Terry60 · #7 August 22nd, 2008, 01:34 PM

Sorry I'm not a Mac user, so I won't attempt to advise you on that subject (you know a lot more than me). Someone else with knowledge of OS X will be along soon, I'm sure.

acdcfan · #8 August 22nd, 2008, 02:36 PM

Originally Posted by Terry60

. Someone else with knowledge of OS X will be along soon, I'm sure.

I am sure too

Computer Guru · #9 August 22nd, 2008, 05:52 PM

Apple distributed a legal copy of OS X for generic x86 PCs back when macintels where first being introduced for developers to use. That is the only copy of OS X made to run on non-Mac hardware to date.

The instructions in the wiki are pretty clear. After repairing the Vista bootloader, you add an entry for OS X w/ EasyBCD; which will then let you boot into OS X via the Vista bootmenu.

acdcfan · #10 August 23rd, 2008, 02:18 AM

Originally Posted by Computer Guru

Apple distributed a legal copy of OS X for generic x86 PCs back when macintels where first being introduced for developers to use. That is the only copy of OS X made to run on non-Mac hardware to date.

The instructions in the wiki are pretty clear. After repairing the Vista bootloader, you add an entry for OS X w/ EasyBCD; which will then let you boot into OS X via the Vista bootmenu.

According to that it should be smooth sailing then...... After I gather my courage I will post results in here for others to read

acdcfan · #11 August 24th, 2008, 03:43 PM

AS you can see at my post above I went to this link Mac OS X - NeoSmart Technologies Wiki and found this statement
"Once OS X has finished installing, the Darwin bootloader should load up OS X for the first time. It should give you an "Other" option to boot into Windows Vista."

A question comes to mind....
At what point you will get " It should give you an "Other" option to boot into Windows Vista."

please advice

thanks

Makaveli213 · #12 August 24th, 2008, 06:29 PM

Hello,

That is not the case for every OS X install. That is because that was written for a legit version of OS X. Since you do not have that you do not have that option cause of the fact that the people hacked the OS X installer to include drivers and other things to make it work on a General PC. Which it is not intended to which i stated with my very first post.

So by them hacking the installer you lost the ability to get that option. So you would have to use EasyBCD which was already stated that there is a known issue with Terry's first post.

So by you getting a ill advised and hacked version you have taken it upon yourself to forfit the option to get correct support on this. There are several versions of OS X out there to be used to isntall on a PC and you got a bad one. There is nothing more we can do to help you out cause of the fact you do not have a legit version.

Topic Closed.

Cheers,
Mak