Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Dual Boot Vista and OSX86 the Easy Way

This is a complete guide to correctly dual boot Windows Vista and Leopard (OSX86). The Hardware I used was a Dell Optiplex GX620 SFF, but this should work for most computers.
This guide has taken me over 3 weeks to write and I have tried every possible logical combination of customized installs, trust me, unless you know for a fact that your computer handles this differently (i.e. vanilla kernals): do it my way.

Disclaimer: This Guide is for educational purposes only, I suggest you buy yourself an actual Mac. Also please do not post links to the Torrent’s as they will be removed.

Well, before we proceed with the guide, here is the stuff that you will need for a successful dual boot setup.
• Vista Already installed on your Primary Hard Disk.
• Kalyway 10.5.1 DVD. (Download this at the usual place)
Chameleon Bootloader
• Windows Vista Boot DVD (Just incase something goes wrong)
• Some computer knowledge (Power User)

Well now that you have everything ready, let’s get started then. Keep in mind that this will take quite a while so do yourself a favor and find something else to do while you wait. I will let you know approximately how long each step takes.

• Vista must be installed on your HDD and must be the ONLY Operating System on there. I will not discuss tri-booting.
• Right click on My Computer and Click on Manage. Select Disk Management. Now create a new volume for OSX by shrinking the existing vista volume (right-click>shrink). Right-click in the unoccupied space to create a new simple volume. I recommend somewhere around 40GB for typical use, and about 100GB for lots of media and programs.
• Now restart the machine and boot into the Leopard DVD that you burned using the Kalyway 10.5.1 DVD Image.
• Press F8 as the darwin countdown begins and type -v at the prompt and hit enter.
• You should see scrolling text on the screen now. If the scrolling text stops anywhere then this install may not work for you. Post where it stops or Google the error.
• After a while you should be looking at the Leopard Installer. Click the right arrow to continue. The loading bar will be present for about 90 seconds.
• Once the Loading Bar disappears Select Utilities -> Disk Utility.
• Select the new volume you created earlier and format it as MAC OSX Extended (Journaled). Now the volume will be ready to install Mac OSX
• Now get back to the Leopard Install Screen by closing disk utility. Choose the partition that you made in the beginning and follow the instructions on screen.
• DON’T CLICK INSTALL. Now we will need to change the installations boot type. Click customize and change the bootloader from GUID to MBR. Make sure GUID is now unchecked. Don’t check anything else.
• Now click install… wait about 10 seconds and skip the disk check.
• The installation process will take about 25 minutes. When you come back you will most likely be greeted with a welcome screen. Click OK and continue to set up your new Mac as you would like.
• When you have finished setting up your mac you may find that you need drivers for video, audio, network, etc. to find these please google what you need or search it at the insanelymac.com forum.
• Now we will need to install the new bootloader so that you can also run vista. Please install chameleon now.
• Now you should be able to boot into both Mac and vista when you turn on your computer.

If something goes wrong and you can't boot into vista and you need to get in anyway, open terminal and execute the following commands :
fdisk -e /dev/rdisk0
flag 1
quit
reboot

23 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi, do you happen to know whether this would also work with XP? cheers, Dave

Laser said...

Yes, this would work on windows XP also, I still recommend having a vista boot dvd because it has command prompt built in incase something goes wrong, you wouldnt need a product key for it or anything though.
Anyway, if you have XP, basically you do the same thing, but youll have to find another way to shrink your xp partition. Partition Magic would be a good program to use. Otherwise, if you are installing a fresh copy of xp, just change the partition scheme there.

Legion_ODD said...

what about windows 7?

Laser said...

@Legion_ODD:
It will absolutely work with windows 7, when it comes to Partitions and Boot Structure, all versions of windows thus far are the same... You could theoretically dual boot OSX86 with Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Ubuntu, and OSX all on the same machine and same hard drive.

Studynot said...

So you wouldn't need to do anything involving a Chain0 file to dual boot these? I've seen that in some places on the net...

What if you had the OSX partition on a different physical drive?

Laser said...

Chain0 is possible but not required, there are many different solutions for dual booting and the one that I found to work best is Chameleon.
If you had OSX on a different hard drive the installation experience would be the same over all except you would be selecting a different drive to partition/erase and install to. Chameleon should work for multiple drives anyway. Also keep in mind that a new hard drive changes your system specs and may not be compatible with osx...

Paul said...

So like.. I have a Dell Studio 15 (1555) with Windows 7 Professional. I'm trying to do this tutorial but I can't seem to manage to boot from the disc..

I have a DVD-ROM with the Kalyway iso burned onto there, is that correct?

When I did the boot options and did CD-DVD.. it has the black screen with the "_" blinking. I always skipped that and it booted Windows 7. So I just typed -v and hit enter like you said, but nothing showed up on the monitor(not sure if that's how it's supposed to happen).

And then it brang me to a screen to which I wanna boot to and it said Windows 7.. it did not do any scrolling text nor did it bring me to the Leopard installer.

Help?

Laser said...

Paul, did you press F8 before typing -v? Try that and get back to me.

Paul said...

Well you say F8 for the boot options right? Like to boot from either the Hard Drive or the CD/DVD drive right? Because the boot option key for my laptop is F12.

Thanks :)

Paul said...

Actually, I just did what you said, but this screen HAS come up before, I just forgot to mention it lol. After I press f8 during the darwin countdown and type -v at the prompt.. this comes up.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v282/SonicUSSJ/P1000454.jpg

No scrolling text or anything.

Laser said...

paul, is your dell studio a core 2 duo?

Paul said...

Yes it is. Core 2 Duo P8600.

Laser said...

Paul, if you have a core 2 duo, then you're better off following this new lifehacker guide, and it even installs a newer version then the one I posted here a while back.
http://lifehacker.com/5360150/install-snow-leopard-on-your-hackintosh-pc-no-hacking-required
it seems simple enough, and shouldnt cause you too many problems. Good Luck, and I'm curious to know if you get it working, so please post back here if you do (or if you dont) :)

Paul said...

Haha yeah I've seen that article too, I just didn't wanna do it because it involved using a Mac. I'll see what I can do, I kept your page bookmarked.

Thanks for the help anyway and good luck with everything :)

Unknown said...

Hello i'm french

i have a Dell GX620 Pentium 4 3Ghz and i would like install Snow leopard or Leopard 10.5.5.

Dual Boot with XP.

Thank for how to .

Where i can found the drivers for the gx620 (wich driver) ?

thank you

Laser said...

Nicolas,
At first glance it seems that you are using a system that is identical to, or at least very similar to my own, and so as long as you follow the instructions I posted above to the letter, everything should work out just fine. If you are worried because my guide directs you to install leopard 10.5.1, dont worry, there are plenty of guides on the internet that can upgrade you safely to 10.5.5 from 10.5.1.
Hope this helps,
Laser

Matt Shaw said...

Hi Laser,

Can I follow the same steps with a snow leopard dvd?

Laser said...

Matt, its possible that might work, but highly improbable. I've been unsuccessful in all of my attempts to install snow leopard on my Optiplex. Btw, sorry for the late comment... I didnt think anyone still read my blog lol

Unknown said...

my install hangs at importing files. just goes through the welcome screen and keyboard not recognized and just stops at import files stage. any help

Unknown said...

Hi, thanks for the guide. Using Kalyway 10.5.2 there is no option to change the boot loader from guid to mbr in the installation customization screen. It seems strange that the method would change much between version 10.5.1 and 10.5.2... do you know how I am supposed to do it on my version?

Thanks,
Max.

Laser said...

Max,
I dont remember much about Kalyway 10.5.2, but if my memory serves me right I think I just skipped that part when I used it. I dont think I was in a dual boot setup at the time though, so if it doesnt work using GUID in your dual boot it may be worth a shot trying it alone. Otherwise itd probably be best to download 10.5.1 and just update from there.

Unknown said...

I'm having trouble with this guide.

I have a optiplex GX620, i get it to install and work perfectly. However once its done installing and it restarts, it restarts my comp, and then it does nothing. It has it installed but it doesn't like know how to run it or something, idk.

In some rare cases I've gotten it to work, it just randomly boots up. Its booted up correctly randomly twice, and once I got it to boot up I quickly restarted my comp to see if it works correctly and both times it stopped working again.

I've reinstalled it many times and stil having problems. Any suggestions?

Also, even before I tried to hackintosh my dell, it always shows up "floppy diskette seek failure strike the f1 key to continue, f2 to run the setup utility" its always done this, idk if this matter at all but just saying.

The problem that happens is, when it restarts, and the "floppy diskette seek failure" happens, when I press f1 like I usually do, nothing happens. (normally it would start up windows vista)


please email me at trs9556@yahoo.com if you aren't to busy if you have a solution. I'll continue to check here but a faster solution would be email if you don't mind :)

Unknown said...

OK nvm LOL.

So idk how, but it randomly worked again, and instead of instantly restarting my computer to check if it works every time I decided to download chameleon.

that did the trick, it always boots into mac OS now.

I wasn't sure if chameleon worked, because I couldn't find it in applications or anything, but it obviously did because it boots every time into OS.

Thanks!

Now to find updates LOL