Make OS 10.6 & Windows 7 Dual boot installer

Here is a good one for someone looking for something to rack their brain with.

I have made a USB SanDisk installer for OS 10.6.4, and a separate USB SanDisk Installer for Windows 7. How would I make this all happen on One (1) 64 GB USB SanDisk drive. I know I would need to use 2 separate partitions one for Snow Leopard and one for Windows 7. But do I do the Windows partition first or the OS 10.6.4 partition first. I am guessing using something like SuperDuper to make the OS 10 installer which I have done before with no problem, but now the issue of having a Dual Boot Installer to select either OS 10 or Windows during the boot process of the computer.

Anyone wanting to take a crack at this I would appreciate the feedback!

Thanks to all in advance for your time and effort

Dev

webdevii said:

Here is a good one for someone looking for something to rack their brain with.

I have made a USB SanDisk installer for OS 10.6.4, and a separate USB SanDisk Installer for Windows 7. How would I make this all happen on One (1) 64 GB USB SanDisk drive. I know I would need to use 2 separate partitions one for Snow Leopard and one for Windows 7. But do I do the Windows partition first or the OS 10.6.4 partition first. I am guessing using something like SuperDuper to make the OS 10 installer which I have done before with no problem, but now the issue of having a Dual Boot Installer to select either OS 10 or Windows during the boot process of the computer.

Click to expand...

Normally you can use the OPTION key while booting to get a list of bootable volumes. How this will work in your scenario, I cannot say. I'm actually waiting on a new thumb drive to come in later this week, and plan to have a fully-bootable copy of OS X running in one partition, and my SL install disc bootable off the second partition, if possible. It should be. In your case, try making the Windows partition your first one, OS X the second one, and let us know how it works out. If it doesn't, try flipping them.

lifeisabeach said:

Normally you can use the OPTION key while booting to get a list of bootable volumes. How this will work in your scenario, I cannot say. I'm actually waiting on a new thumb drive to come in later this week, and plan to have a fully-bootable copy of OS X running in one partition, and my SL install disc bootable off the second partition, if possible. It should be. In your case, try making the Windows partition your first one, OS X the second one, and let us know how it works out. If it doesn't, try flipping them.

Click to expand...

Thank you for your reply, I will screw with it, I have some idea's, Ultimately what I want is to have an installer for both OS's on one stick, since I am a home based business tech, I get involved with both Apple and PC. Therefore it would be nice to have one stick to do both. The reason for the Large stick is so I have have the software load for each OS included on the same stick.

My stick should be here next week sometime SanDisk Cruzer 64GB at the rosy price of $115.00 yep 2 bucks a gig.

I will definately post my findings/procedure for doing this here when I get it right.

Dev

webdevii said:

Thank you for your reply, I will screw with it, I have some idea's, Ultimately what I want is to have an installer for both OS's on one stick, since I am a home based business tech, I get involved with both Apple and PC. Therefore it would be nice to have one stick to do both. The reason for the Large stick is so I have have the software load for each OS included on the same stick.

My stick should be here next week sometime SanDisk Cruzer 64GB at the rosy price of $115.00 yep 2 bucks a gig.

I will definately post my findings/procedure for doing this here when I get it right.

Dev

Click to expand...

BTW I just got the Drive today, 64GB SanDisk Cruzer w/ Backup button which I am disabling.
Basicly I need to split the drive to have one Mac Journaled (Extended) and the other NTFS. How is that done.

Thank you all in advance to whom ever can provide..

Dev

webdevii said:

BTW I just got the Drive today, 64GB SanDisk Cruzer w/ Backup button which I am disabling.
Basicly I need to split the drive to have one Mac Journaled (Extended) and the other NTFS. How is that done.

Thank you all in advance to whom ever can provide..

Dev

Click to expand...

Well to format a drive in NTFS, you'll need a 3rd-party NTFS driver. There are basically 2: Paragon NTFS and Tuxera NTFS. Both have free trials, but Tuxera will continue to work past the trial period at greatly reduced write speeds for free.

You will need to split the drive in half with Disk Utility before formatting. With the driver installed, you will be able to format in NTFS from there.

Here's a guide on prepping a flash drive to use as a Windows 7 installer. It actually says to use FAT32, not NTFS.
Use a USB Key to Install Windows 7

And here's instructions for setting up a flash drive to use as an OS X installer:
Install OS X Snow Leopard from a USB flash drive | Maciverse

Now this is just weird. I got my Lexar JumpDrive today. When I formatted it, I lost over 5 GB in space, right off the top with nothing on it. If I split it into two partitions, I lose over 5 GB in EACH partition. What in the freaking hey???? Oh but it gets better. I boot into Windows, and it claims the drive is a card reader with no card in it. I can't format it. I can't do anything with it. *beats head on desk*

Did you format it as GUID or MBR? Sounds like you may have inadvertently used GUID?

chscag said:

Did you format it as GUID or MBR? Sounds like you may have inadvertently used GUID?

Click to expand...

I would need it as GUID to make it a bootable volume. I have an 16 GB drive formatted the same way as a bootable volume, and it doesn't have 5 GB sucked away into the void.

Well chscag… I stand corrected. My 16 GB drive did have 5+ gigs sucked out using GUID. Decided to wipe it try it to be sure, and yup. I never noticed it before. Well that's disappointing. No way I'm doing two partitions and throwing away another 5 GB of space. Ah well.

lifeisabeach said:

Well to format a drive in NTFS, you'll need a 3rd-party NTFS driver. There are basically 2: Paragon NTFS and Tuxera NTFS. Both have free trials, but Tuxera will continue to work past the trial period at greatly reduced write speeds for free.

You will need to split the drive in half with Disk Utility before formatting. With the driver installed, you will be able to format in NTFS from there.

Here's a guide on prepping a flash drive to use as a Windows 7 installer. It actually says to use FAT32, not NTFS.
Use a USB Key to Install Windows 7

And here's instructions for setting up a flash drive to use as an OS X installer:
Install OS X Snow Leopard from a USB flash drive | Maciverse

Click to expand...

Thank you very much for this info, you do realize I am doing this on One flash drive splitting the drive 1/2 NTFS and 1 MAC Journaled Extended.

Thank you very very much
Dev

lifeisabeach said:

Well chscag… I stand corrected. My 16 GB drive did have 5+ gigs sucked out using GUID. Decided to wipe it try it to be sure, and yup. I never noticed it before. Well that's disappointing. No way I'm doing two partitions and throwing away another 5 GB of space. Ah well.

Click to expand...

Apparently Disk Utility is mis-reporting all that space as being used. See thread below for reference, but I made an 8 GB partition on my thumb drive and fully restored a 7+ GB disk image to it despite DU claiming there was only 3 GB of free space. It seems Disk Utility has a bug in it, at least as of 10.6.8 anyway.
http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/os...tition-still-taking-up-space.html#post1270761

BTW webdevil… got my thumb drive fully up to speed. Booting full Snow Leopard 10.6.8 with a variety of included utilities on it on one partition, and 2nd partition with my original install disc imaged to it. Everything boots up great. But MAN is it slow!

lifeisabeach said:

Apparently Disk Utility is mis-reporting all that space as being used. See thread below for reference, but I made an 8 GB partition on my thumb drive and fully restored a 7+ GB disk image to it despite DU claiming there was only 3 GB of free space. It seems Disk Utility has a bug in it, at least as of 10.6.8 anyway.
http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/os...tition-still-taking-up-space.html#post1270761

BTW webdevil… got my thumb drive fully up to speed. Booting full Snow Leopard 10.6.8 with a variety of included utilities on it on one partition, and 2nd partition with my original install disc imaged to it. Everything boots up great. But MAN is it slow!

Click to expand...

Thats sounds great, however all I am looking to do is make an Installer, not a running system. Half of the drive would boot to the OS 10 install files and the other half would boot to the Windows 7 Install files. After all of the digging I have done I dont think it is possible.

Thank you and everyone else that contributed.

Regards
Dev

webdevii said:

Thats sounds great, however all I am looking to do is make an Installer, not a running system. Half of the drive would boot to the OS 10 install files and the other half would boot to the Windows 7 Install files. After all of the digging I have done I dont think it is possible.

Click to expand...

I realize what your goal is. I was letting you know that the OS X install disc can be imaged and booted from a USB stick. It's working fine for me, and in a split drive, 2nd partition. You should be able to get the Windows install booting the same way using the posted guides, though I won't be trying it myself. But it absolutely can be done with OS X.