01-08-2008, 09:53 PM

Hi,

I've got a new macbook pro, it came with Tiger and the Leopard upgrade DVD. I'm still on Tiger as I'm a Pro Tools user but would like to install bootcamp and Windows XP.
I had a Leopard OS on my machine for a while (on the internal disk in a separate partition) but when I ran Bootcamp it refused to start as my OS disk isn't one single paritition, it can't handle that for some reason.

My plan:
Do a backup of my Tiger OS partition (using disk utility from install CD), copy the .dmg file to my external disk.
Copy all the data from my "data" partition over to my external disk too.
Run the Leopard installer again, use the disk utility to wipe my internal disk completely and then install Leopard on one new big partition.
Once running, I should then be able to run bootcamp and get Windows on there on its own partition.
I'll then recreate my "data" partition that I had before and pull all my data back off my external disk.
I'd then also create a new empty partition called "OS Tiger" and run a restore of my Tiger OS that I backed up in the beginning.
I should then have a macbook pro with Leopard, Tiger and Windows XP all installed in their own partitions.
I can use Tiger for Pro Tools, Windows for my Windows apps and probably just leave Leopard on there to have a bit of a look and ready to go when Pro Tools becomes Leopard compatible.

Will this work?
The main bit I'm worried about is when I try to run the restore of my "OS Tiger.dmg" backup file on to the empty partition after Leopard and Windows are sorted. I've never used that feature and don't know if it'll be OK. I don't want to get stuck with my Tiger OS (that has my mail etc on it) in a disk image that I can't use.

Cheers,

Simon

01-09-2008, 01:41 AM

WAIT....... if you already have two partitions why do you need to format. Simply pop-in windows CD and start the installation pointing to the second partition. No need of formatting unless your second partition is too small for windows.

Thereafter install a freeware called rEFIt. It will allow you to boot into mac or windows. It will show the menu as you can see in my profile picture.

01-09-2008, 02:52 PM

So I can just put in my Windows CD, boot up my Macbook, hold down C so it boots off the CD and it'll boot into the Windows installer OK?

What does Bootcamp do then other than prepare a partition at the start and load the Mac hardware drivers at the end? Anything?

I'll try manually creating a new partition for Windows using the disk utility and then running the Windows install. how should I format the new partition? I'd prefer to use NTFS over FAT32, it's much faster (I'm aware of the read/write issues). Can I just create a new partition in Disk Utility but leave it un-fortmatted and let the Windows install do the formatting?

01-09-2008, 08:07 PM

Yes. Just insert windows CD and press C when you hear the startup chime. Mac will boot into windows. There windows will provide you an option to format the drive. Two advises here. Be extra cautious in selecting the correct partition else you'll end up formatting Mac partition. second do a complete format with ntfs. I have faced problems with quick format. So select complete format. Takes longer but worth the effort.

How familiar are you with the Mac Terminal commands. If you have comfort on the commands, I would advise you to use 'diskutil resizeVolume' command to resize the partitions.

01-09-2008, 08:11 PM

bootcamp allows Xp to read from EMI bios format since XP doesnt support it, where as vista does.

01-10-2008, 05:23 PM

Thanks guys, I'll try all this over the weekend. I'm an experienced Windows person (a network architect actually) but new to Mac so I'll check that terminal command and have a look at the help before giving it a go. I'm keen to learn the terminal stuff as soon as I can.

So is rEFIt the app I can use after installing Windows to do the EMI bios format reading instead of bootcamp?

01-10-2008, 08:33 PM

rEFIt doesn't provide support for installation of any operating system. It's just a bootloader. When you startup, if the windows CD is in the laptop it will show the cd as one of the bootable option and you can boot from cd and thereafter continue with the installation.

01-11-2008, 12:14 AM

basically rEFIT just make booting to othr options easier instead of hitting the option key or C keys and such. helpful if you have things ike triple boots and such installed.

01-13-2008, 07:17 PM

Did the whole thing over the weekend, worked beautifully. Thanks everyone.

04-21-2009, 07:23 AM

could i ask something related to partition?
right now i have two partition, but my window part seems to be abnormal. so i try to format window partition.

the question is. May I insert window cd and press c as u said earlier then continue like a normal notebook. I ask this because last time I have to restore window partition into single mac drive before continue installing window otherwise installation will fail - -.