[Cadaver]

I have multiple hard drives in my Mac Pro; currently, I've got Windows XP (via Boot Camp) installed on a partition on a drive other than my boot drive. Has anyone tried installing multiple Windows volumes each on a different hard drive?

I'd like to play with Vista, but I need to keep my XP installation (and I don't want to use Parallels).

Has anyone tried doing this - multiple separate Windows installs, each on a different HD (I know it wont work all on the same HD)?

[pdagal]

I just did it. I originally had OSX and XP on my 1st drive. I partitioned the 2nd drive and installed Vista Ultimate on it. Now I have triple boot capabilities. When you press the Option key at boot to select the OS, you'll see two Windows listed-- the last one is the most recent (Vista).

[Cadaver]

Originally Posted by pdagal 

I just did it. I originally had OSX and XP on my 1st drive. I partitioned the 2nd drive and installed Vista Ultimate on it. Now I have triple boot capabilities. When you press the Option key at boot to select the OS, you'll see two Windows listed-- the last one is the most recent (Vista).

Thanks. I thought it would work.
How does Vista Ultimate run? Any trouble with the Mac hardware drivers?

[Cadaver]

Just in case anyone goes searching for this thread, I was also able to set up a "triple boot" system. One HD with OS X, one with Windows XP & Office 2003, and one with Vista & Office 2007. I see all three volumes when I hit the Option key at startup.

Vista runs quite well on a Mac Pro, by the way. Performance Rating of 5.8. That's better than any PC I've seen for sale in a computer store.

[shockme17]

I'd like to do this on my macbook with one hard drive. I've been trying to find a tutorial on how to do this.. Could someone please walk me through the steps? I suppose rEFIt isn't necessary since Bootcamp recognizes the other partitions automatically?

Thanks.

[ghporter]

Originally Posted by shockme17 

I'd like to do this on my macbook with one hard drive. I've been trying to find a tutorial on how to do this.. Could someone please walk me through the steps? I suppose rEFIt isn't necessary since Bootcamp recognizes the other partitions automatically?

Thanks.

The big problem is that Boot Camp will refuse to work on an already partitioned drive, and it will ONLY make ONE additional, Windows-capable partition. With a MacBook, you're stuck because there is only the one internal drive (and Boot Camp doesn't support external drives at all).

There are other methods of getting Windows on your Mac, but they are more cumbersome and complex than Boot Camp. For the moment, the best, simplest way to get Windows running on a Mac laptop is to choose ONE Windows product and go with that. Sorry.

[sidhusmart]

Judging by the previous reply, I am guessing that the triple boot won't work on Macbook Pro as well. Especially since I cannot add another hard drive except for an external one which BootCamp does not support. I just wanted to make sure I have the correct understanding.

So if I do want to install Vista now how do I go about deleting XP and installing Vista...any suggestions?

[shockme17]

I'm going to try splitting the windows partition with gparted, or another program. and then installing vista on the new partition. I think rEFIt should recognize the new installation..

[Jumbonium2007]

Im running Vista on my mini I get a 4.0 for computer rating.. it doesnt run too bad.. I installed it to play with it.. Now whats really messed up is I can boot the Kubuntu Live CD on this mini and everything works.. wireless sound all of it.. and it runs really fast

[arabinowitz]

Hi- I have a Mac Pro Quad Xeon 2.66 with 4 drives right. Currently my setup is:

Drive 1 (250 MB): Mac OSX
Drive 2 (500 MB): Win XP 64
Drive 3 (500 MB): My stuff
Drive 4 (500 MB): Room for Extra stuff

I am having some audio issues in XP 64, but I need that OS to take advantage of the RAM for my video software. But I'd like to add Win XP 32-Bit for better driver support and stability.

If I make Drive 1 a partition for Mac OSX and Win XP 32-bit, will both windows volumes be able to see and access Drive's 3 and 4?

Thanks.

[ghporter]

Welcome! Yes, ANY OS running on your MP will be able to see those drives. Depending on how you formatted the drives, you may or may not be able to read and write to them from OS X. OS X can read NTFS partitions, but can't write to them. But OS X CAN read AND write to FAT32 partitions, so if your drives 3 and 4 are formatted in FAT32 even OS X can see and access them. Of course, any flavor of Windows will have access to all of them - EXCEPT the OS X partition, because Windows doesn't natively even recognize that OS X's HFS+ file system exists, let alone read or write to it.

[tavin64]

Originally Posted by shockme17 

I'd like to do this on my macbook with one hard drive. I've been trying to find a tutorial on how to do this.. Could someone please walk me through the steps? I suppose rEFIt isn't necessary since Bootcamp recognizes the other partitions automatically?

Thanks.

Triple booting on a Macbook with 2 windows versions is very easy. No need for bootcamp, only use it to burn the drivers. All you need to do is redistribute your OSX drive into 2 more partitions. What you want to do is the following in terminal: I will be showing my terminal output so its easier to follow.
*Before you repartition the disk burn the bootcamp drivers* Very important
1. diskutil list (you will see an output like the following)
gustavo-sanchezs-computer:~ gus6464$ diskutil list
/dev/disk0
#: type name size identifier
0: GUID_partition_scheme *55.9 GB disk0
1: EFI 200.0 MB disk0s1
2: Apple_HFS Gus' HD 55.6 GB disk0s2

Now all we need to do is take your second partition and resize it to 3 different ones. I will be typing the command as if I want to take my OSX partition and make 2 new ones that are 15GB each. So I will have 2 separate windows partitions that are 15gb in size and a 30gb partition for OSX.

2. diskutil resizeVolume disk0s2 25G MS-DOS FAT32 Partition1 15G MS-DOS FAT32 Partition2 15G

Change the numbers 25G 15G 15G to what you want to resize your OSX partition and other 2 numbers to what you want your 2 windows partitions to be. After you run the command just reboot and boot with whatever windows you want to install and repeat for other version.

I would also suggest you download ntfs-3g for OSX so that you can read and write to your new windows partitions through OSX.

I forgot to mention that when you install windows just reformat the partitions from fat32 to ntfs. You had to format the partitions to fat32 in the first place because diskutil cannot do ntfs without you installing ntfs-3g first.

[jansan]

Originally Posted by tavin64 

Triple booting on a Macbook with 2 windows versions is very easy. No need for bootcamp, only use it to burn the drivers. All you need to do is redistribute your OSX drive into 2 more partitions. What you want to do is the following in terminal: I will be showing my terminal output so its easier to follow.
*Before you repartition the disk burn the bootcamp drivers* Very important
1. diskutil list (you will see an output like the following)
gustavo-sanchezs-computer:~ gus6464$ diskutil list
/dev/disk0
#: type name size identifier
0: GUID_partition_scheme *55.9 GB disk0
1: EFI 200.0 MB disk0s1
2: Apple_HFS Gus' HD 55.6 GB disk0s2

Now all we need to do is take your second partition and resize it to 3 different ones. I will be typing the command as if I want to take my OSX partition and make 2 new ones that are 15GB each. So I will have 2 separate windows partitions that are 15gb in size and a 30gb partition for OSX.

2. diskutil resizeVolume disk0s2 25G MS-DOS FAT32 Partition1 15G MS-DOS FAT32 Partition2 15G

Change the numbers 25G 15G 15G to what you want to resize your OSX partition and other 2 numbers to what you want your 2 windows partitions to be. After you run the command just reboot and boot with whatever windows you want to install and repeat for other version.

I would also suggest you download ntfs-3g for OSX so that you can read and write to your new windows partitions through OSX.

I forgot to mention that when you install windows just reformat the partitions from fat32 to ntfs. You had to format the partitions to fat32 in the first place because diskutil cannot do ntfs without you installing ntfs-3g first.

Hi tavin64,

I was aiming for exactly your setup, however after 2 days of hours of installing and reading, i am back at square one, a dualbooting osx and xp setup (with three partitions)

Followed your instructions, but sofar got various error messages when i install my second XP to partition 3 (typing this from XP partition4 that works fine).

Any tricks on how to make the second XP install boot ? I fear there is some bootcamp limitation that stops ti from loading.

Installation of XP on partition 4 goes without a hitch, and has been working without problems since i bought the macbook.
When i install XP on partition 3, the installation runs until XP wants to reboot and boots for the first time from the partition. then it crashes with saying lsass, password missing, ntldr missing etc.

I was assuming that with rEFIt booting into partition 4 (the last partition as designed by bootcamp) allowed me to boot into the XP bootloader where i could select partition 3 and 4 from XP bootmenu (boot.ini), however part4 works fine, part3 doesnt.

Is this because you are using xp64?

Any tips or the multimilliondollar-answer are greatly appreciated.

Jan

[tavin64]

Originally Posted by jansan 

Hi tavin64,

I was aiming for exactly your setup, however after 2 days of hours of installing and reading, i am back at square one, a dualbooting osx and xp setup (with three partitions)

Followed your instructions, but sofar got various error messages when i install my second XP to partition 3 (typing this from XP partition4 that works fine).

Any tricks on how to make the second XP install boot ? I fear there is some bootcamp limitation that stops ti from loading.

Installation of XP on partition 4 goes without a hitch, and has been working without problems since i bought the macbook.
When i install XP on partition 3, the installation runs until XP wants to reboot and boots for the first time from the partition. then it crashes with saying lsass, password missing, ntldr missing etc.

I was assuming that with rEFIt booting into partition 4 (the last partition as designed by bootcamp) allowed me to boot into the XP bootloader where i could select partition 3 and 4 from XP bootmenu (boot.ini), however part4 works fine, part3 doesnt.

Is this because you are using xp64?

Any tips or the multimilliondollar-answer are greatly appreciated.

Jan

Did you resync the partitions with refit after you installed the 2nd windows xp? After installing the second XP on your rEFIt menu at boot time you should pick the option for partitioning tool and see if your partitions need to be resync to MBR. You are getting cant find ntloader error because the partition isnt synced to your mbr/gpt while your other one is.

[jansan]

Originally Posted by tavin64 

Did you resync the partitions with refit after you installed the 2nd windows xp? After installing the second XP on your rEFIt menu at boot time you should pick the option for partitioning tool and see if your partitions need to be resync to MBR. You are getting cant find ntloader error because the partition isnt synced to your mbr/gpt while your other one is.

I had done the resyncing with refit, and after that got the loading of windows with some lsass.exe could not load password. it never boots.

So do you have two versions of xp working on part 4 and part 3? Just the sheer knowledge that this is doable and easy would already comfort me. I would try again from scratch.

Am very curious to know.
Thanks,
Jan

[tavin64]

Originally Posted by jansan 

I had done the resyncing with refit, and after that got the loading of windows with some lsass.exe could not load password. it never boots.

So do you have two versions of xp working on part 4 and part 3? Just the sheer knowledge that this is doable and easy would already comfort me. I would try again from scratch.

Am very curious to know.
Thanks,
Jan

I triple boot OSX, Windows XP, and Ubuntu. Part 3 has Ubuntu and Part 4 has XP.

[jansan]

Anybody with a double XP install that works ?

[MacSG]

Successfully configure 2 windows XP volume on 2 separate harddisk using bootcamp.

I have a
Mac Pro 2.66GHz,
4 Gb ram,
3 physical HD: 250Gb (Mac OS X), 320Gb (Windows XP), 160Gb (Windows XP).


I had the 160Gb Windows XP with Bootcamp. Due to the issue with gamp on this I decided to configure another to see if the problem is parallel direct x or bootcamp 1.3. Issue. (This might be a new thread post)

I first configure a 32Gb in 320Gb harddisk. Format to FAT and I face the problem of it cannot boot after the first Windows XP installation like what has been posted here.

I change the FAT into NTFS and do the Windows XP installation again. Good news now I have 2 seperate windows XP volume in the same Mac Pro. (The new Win XP volume : Company of Heroes can be played again.)

Try using NTFS for all your XP volume. It may be the FAT that cause it not to boot properly.