Tri-Boot: Problems setting up Linux

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Hi all. I've been working this past week on trying to setup a triple boot on my MacBook. I ended up partitioning my hard drive using Boot Camp, and now I have Windows/Mac running. I've also installed rEFIt, which is the boot manager I read about in numerous articles, including one from LifeHacker. My problem now is, I'm trying to edit the Mac OSX partiton. It's currently at 550GB, and I'm trying to drop it to 500GB with the remainder going to Linux. Anytime I try to partition the drive using Disk Utility though, it fails because it can't read the partition map. Additionally, I tried installing Linux Mint via CD without having any free space, and it automatically wants to partition Windows, which I don't want, since it's currently at 199GB, which is less than I originally wanted for it. My current partition is something like:
|--------------OS X Lion---------------||-----Windows-------|

What are all my options at this point? If I failed to re-partition the drive through the Linux installer and Disk Utility, I'm thinking that I'll have to erase the disk, and manually re-partition everything? Thank you so much for any help, also. :) This has been bothering me the past week. :Shouting:
 

chscag

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You're probably looking at re-doing everything from a clean start. There are lots of good tutorials on how to setup OS X, Windows, and Linux using rEFIt. Let me see if I can dig up a few for you.....

This one from the Ubuntu forums: LINK

This is the best one from LifeHacker (boot camp not required): LINK

I strongly recommend making a clone of your hard drive first. Use either SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner. A Time Machine backup is also advised.
 
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Yeah, I saw the LifeHacker guide and was using it, though I had already used Boot Camp at that point. The good thing is, this is a new HD that I recently installed, so starting fresh won't hurt anything, since I've already backed things up on my external. (Had to do it manually, since I originally completely stripped it of its formatting and made it plug-and-play. Thus, if I were to have formatted it, it would've cleaned it.) Good to know I have to re-do it though. Thank you for your help. :) One other quick question - If I am running Lion right now, and I only have the Snow Leopard install disk, will I need to re-purchase it in order to upgrade it? Or will I be able to just log into my account for the App Store to download/install it? Is there any way to burn a disc of it, juts so I have a hard copy, or (what I assume) is that it would be illegal to do so? Thanks again for the help! :)
 

chscag

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One other quick question - If I am running Lion right now, and I only have the Snow Leopard install disk, will I need to re-purchase it in order to upgrade it? Or will I be able to just log into my account for the App Store to download/install it? Is there any way to burn a disc of it, juts so I have a hard copy, or (what I assume) is that it would be illegal to do so? Thanks again for the help!

You won't need to repurchase Lion. Just log on to the MAS with your Apple ID and you should be able to re-download Lion for free. However, before installing Lion, make a bootable copy to a DVD or a flash drive. Once Lion is installed it wipes out the installer and its files.

It's perfectly legal to make a bootable copy. Follow the instructions given here:

How to burn a Lion boot disk

Or here:

How to create a bootable Lion flash drive
 
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Out of curiosity, since the requirements for Linux are fairly minimal, why not use a virtual environment for it? Seems like it would be much easier. VirtualBox is a free virtualization app, owned by Oracle. I'd give that a try, so you don't have to keep rebooting between OSes.
 
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chscag - Thanks for your help and the links. :)

EvenStranger - I tried using it as a virtual machine previously, but I just want to have it be a stand-alone OS. It also cut back on the computer's resources, which why Linux is minimal, I just would like to have everything in its own partition. Believe me, I considered doing that again - having it as a virtual machine, and even cutting back the Windows partition to put Linux in there (the only option presented to me when I tried the install from the disc). I just didn't like those options though. It didn't give me what i was looking for. :)
 

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