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Best Practice Partition Structure for Booting Windows, Mac, Linux and more without partition limit!

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I am wondering what the ideal partition structure is for booting Windows, Mac, and Linux, plus extra partitions for backup without hitting a partition limit. I know there is a wrong way to do it where when attempting to add too many partitions, I will be told that I cannot add any more.

Background: Over a year ago when I initially setup my hackintosh I had an existing Windows 7 install plus a recovery partition. When I added a partition for Mac and then tried to add another for Linux, I received a lengthy explanation that what I was doing wouldn't be possible due to a max limit of partitions for the drive. (I had to give up on the Linux install sadly cause I didn't want to nuke my recovery partition nor did I have the space to shuffle things around.)

Although I forget the nomenclature, I know its possible to make sub-partitions and have it all fit and play nice together. Since I'm getting a new hard drive in the mail I'd like to try again. Please help.

Would someone please recommend me an ideal partition structure to utilize Windows 7, RECOVERY partition, Mac, Linux, plus whatever else I would decide to use in the future, without conflict? Please learn me the best practice. :D

Current partitions:
WINDOWS
RECOVERY
DELL-UTILITY
MAC

Extra FYI: I'm using a Dell Latitude E6510 and I'm about install a new Crucial MX100 SSD.
 
I am wondering what the ideal partition structure is for booting Windows, Mac, and Linux, plus extra partitions for backup without hitting a partition limit. I know there is a wrong way to do it where when attempting to add too many partitions, I will be told that I cannot add any more.

Background: Over a year ago when I initially setup my hackintosh I had an existing Windows 7 install plus a recovery partition. When I added a partition for Mac and then tried to add another for Linux, I received a lengthy explanation that what I was doing wouldn't be possible due to a max limit of partitions for the drive. (I had to give up on the Linux install sadly cause I didn't want to nuke my recovery partition nor did I have the space to shuffle things around.)

Although I forget the nomenclature, I know its possible to make sub-partitions and have it all fit and play nice together. Since I'm getting a new hard drive in the mail I'd like to try again. Please help.

Would someone please recommend me an ideal partition structure to utilize Windows 7, RECOVERY partition, Mac, Linux, plus whatever else I would decide to use in the future, without conflict? Please learn me the best practice. :D

Current partitions:
WINDOWS
RECOVERY
DELL-UTILITY
MAC

Extra FYI: I'm using a Dell Latitude E6510 and I'm about install a new Crucial MX100 SSD.

You will get better help posting in the laptop forum than here in the desktop forum. There are restrictions laptops have that desktops do not.

FWIW, with Windows on MBR format you can only have 4 primary partitions - the rest must be defined as extended partitions. In most cases, extended partitions are not bootable.
 
Extended partitions. Thank you. I hope I can get Windows and Mac to boot from extended partitions so that I can add linux later. It seems it will be trial and error.

Would anyone recommend me a tool for making extended partitions on a new drive? I did all this over a year ago and I don't remember the tools I was using to make the extended partitions.
 
Extended partitions. Thank you. I hope I can get Windows and Mac to boot from extended partitions so that I can add linux later. It seems it will be trial and error.

Would anyone recommend me a tool for making extended partitions on a new drive? I did all this over a year ago and I don't remember the tools I was using to make the extended partitions.

You misunderstand - Windows and OS X must be on Primary partitions. Anything over a total of 4 partitions Windows will not see as primary - only extended.

Examine your current drive structure - where is the recovery partition?
 
Hey GB. Thanks for getting back to me. This took me a bit because I had to relearn some things and make a bootable Ubuntu stick to get this info. Here you go. Hand-copied from GParted.

Code:
/dev/sd1     fat16    DellUtility
/dev/sd2     ntfs      RECOVERY
/dev/sd3     ntfs      WINDOWS
/dev/sda4   extended
    /dev/sda6    hfs+     MAC-OSX
    /dev/sda5    fat32    READER

1. Sda6 and sda5 are contained within/under the sda4 extended partition.
2. MAC-OSX is bootable despite being an extended partition. However, I have to have a UNIBEAST USB stick plugged in or it gives me a "chain booting error" which I've never fixed. I don't actually boot from the USB stick (I boot from sda6), it just needs to remain plugged in and somehow this makes it work. o_O
3. The READER partition, which I had forgotten about, is a Dell Laptop feature to boot just to basics and check email without going into windows or using a lot of battery power. Supposedly. I've never used it but I kept it around just in case.
4. The DellUtility is a utility for doing a diagnostic memory check (and some other stuff too I'm sure). Support asks you to do it if you ever call with a hardware problem.


To reiterate: The reason I posted here is ideally I would like to be able to boot Windows, Mac, Linux, and still have a functioning recovery mode and DellUtility if possible. Maybe I'm asking for too much. But if there is a way to do it I thought I'd ask the experts here.

Thanks.
 
Hey GB. Thanks for getting back to me. This took me a bit because I had to relearn some things and make a bootable Ubuntu stick to get this info. Here you go. Hand-copied from GParted.

Code:
/dev/sd1     fat16    DellUtility
/dev/sd2     ntfs      RECOVERY
/dev/sd3     ntfs      WINDOWS
/dev/sda4   extended
    /dev/sda6    hfs+     MAC-OSX
    /dev/sda5    fat32    READER

1. Sda6 and sda5 are contained within/under the sda4 extended partition.
2. MAC-OSX is bootable despite being an extended partition. However, I have to have a UNIBEAST USB stick plugged in or it gives me a "chain booting error" which I've never fixed. I don't actually boot from the USB stick (I boot from sda6), it just needs to remain plugged in and somehow this makes it work. o_O
3. The READER partition, which I had forgotten about, is a Dell Laptop feature to boot just to basics and check email without going into windows or using a lot of battery power. Supposedly. I've never used it but I kept it around just in case.
4. The DellUtility is a utility for doing a diagnostic memory check (and some other stuff too I'm sure). Support asks you to do it if you ever call with a hardware problem.


To reiterate: The reason I posted here is ideally I would like to be able to boot Windows, Mac, Linux, and still have a functioning recovery mode and DellUtility if possible. Maybe I'm asking for too much. But if there is a way to do it I thought I'd ask the experts here.

Thanks.

You don't list any partition sizes, so don't know how much room you have. You need at keast a 256Gb or, better yet, 500Gb drive to triple boot IMHO, especially if using a SSD. Don't know how much you can shrink the Windows partition to get another primary partition to install linux on.

I think your best bet is the laptop forum - there are plenty of triple booters there that can help you, but be prepared to reformat the drive / get a larger drive to format.
 
It's a 512gb SSD. But I don't consider that relevant. The amount of space I need is my concern and I don't believe it has any bearing on best practice with booting.

Let's not get overly focused on my own hardware. I posted this thread because I want to know the best practice to achieving more boot partitions than 4, laptop or no laptop. Extended partitions seems to be the way to go. If anyone knows of another method to provide boot options that exceed 4, I'd love to know it.
 
It's a 512gb SSD. But I don't consider that relevant. The amount of space I need is my concern and I don't believe it has any bearing on best practice with booting.

Let's not get overly focused on my own hardware. I posted this thread because I want to know the best practice to achieving more boot partitions than 4, laptop or no laptop. Extended partitions seems to be the way to go. If anyone knows of another method to provide boot options that exceed 4, I'd love to know it.

Best practice would be to use Clover UEFI and pure GPT partitioning.
 
I made an attempt at this and it went smoothly at first.

I formatted my drive and added GPT. I installed Windows and Ubuntu and things were going swell. I then added a Mac Journaled partition and cloned my 10.8.4 installation over and suddenly Windows wouldn't boot. http://www.tonymacx86.com/multi-boo...ot-after-adding-mac-partition.html#post878346

For the purposes of best practice I am still wondering how I could have done this better. Obviously I would love to know how to fix my existing installation, but if I had to wipe and start again how could I do this in a way that would not molest my existing installations?

I'm a little unclear where Clover would come in. Would I make a partition just to hold clover so it can boot everything else? My Dell's native UEFI seemed to be adequate prior to the Windows install being broken.
 
I made an attempt at this and it went smoothly at first.

I formatted my drive and added GPT. I installed Windows and Ubuntu and things were going swell. I then added a Mac Journaled partition and cloned my 10.8.4 installation over and suddenly Windows wouldn't boot. http://www.tonymacx86.com/multi-boo...ot-after-adding-mac-partition.html#post878346

For the purposes of best practice I am still wondering how I could have done this better. Obviously I would love to know how to fix my existing installation, but if I had to wipe and start again how could I do this in a way that would not molest my existing installations?

Without more information about what exactly you're doing, no idea. You didn't even mention which bootloader you used, error messages encountered, what software you used to clone, etc.

I'm a little unclear where Clover would come in.

Clover is a bootloader. Clover can boot Windows (and Linux) in UEFI mode. Chameleon/Chimera cannot.
 
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