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New 4530s with Win, can I shrink and install osx ?

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mjb152

mjb152

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Motherboard
Gigabyte Z68X-UD3H-B3
CPU
i5
Graphics
HD3000
Mac
  1. 0
Classic Mac
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Mobile Phone
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I've just taken delivery of a new 4530s, and I need to have the Win7 installation left alone so I can dual boot the laptop.
At the moment there are 3 partitions, Win7, HP recovery and HP tools. The Win 7 partition is using 40Gb our of 615GB, so I wondered if I can just shrink that partition down to 120GB or so, then install OSX on the remaining free space ?
EaseUS will shrink the partition down, but will I be able to install OSX on the new partition afterwards ?
The laptop comes with no Win 7 install media, so I'm left with an image on a hard disk, and a bootable repair disk.
 
Middle of the road build
GA-Z68X-UD3H-B3 |  i5 2500K |  HD 3000
Laptop - HP probook 4530s
Other |  i7 2600K |  HD 3000
Hp Probook 4530s
Other |  i5 Other |  GT 740 (single slot)
You can do it without an external program, the WIN7 HD console can shrink the Win partition also. Just assign the new partition a drive letter and descriptor and you are ready to go (if the rest of your hardware is compatible). During the mac install right at the beginning you can chose the Mac disk utility to convert the newly created partition to the required mac extended (journaled) format.
 
Zorro mini :)
GA-Z68X-UD3H-B3 |  i7 2600K |  Radeon HD 6670
Problem is, that you're limited by the default setup of Windows. Windows is most likely installed on your hard drive in an MBR style partition. OSX wants GPT, and not MBR.

What I had to do is reformat the drive, repartition so it has GUID partition table (GPT), reinstall Windows onto one of those partitions, then install OSX. It is a pain, but if you just get it over and done with before you start putting stuff on the computer, it isn't that bad.

As far as getting Windows install media, I just followed this guide and got things going quickly.
What I had to do is download the ISO for Win7 from Microsoft. Yes, they'll let you legally download the disk image for the installer, for free. Once downloaded, I used a tool to remove the ei.cfg file from the ISO. This lets you reuse your original activation, if you choose to back it up. At this point you can burn the ISO to DVD, or if you have a 4 gig or larger flash drive, you can use Microsoft's WUDT tool to make the ISO bootable from your flash drive.

Also, you'll likely have issues with the 4K sectors, making it difficult to get the OSX bootloader running. It isn't that difficult, just need a spare flash drive to dump a couple files on that you have to copy over from within the OSX installer. Took me about 5 minutes to get that working once I knew what to do. If you're lucky, and don't have that problem, you'll be able to boot into OSX without any extra disks right after finishing installing OSX and running the HP Installer (the tool developed here for setting up the drivers). If you do run into problems, it'll autoboot into Windows unless you have an rboot disk, or the install disk, in the computer to let the version of chimera on that to let you pick OSX.

Overall, yes it would be cool if you could just resize Windows and drop OSX on, but chances of that happening are slim to none.
 
Just bought a new 4530s as well! I'm reading all I can to figure this dual boot process out but I do have a few questions.

I suppose it's inevitable that I will be forced to lose my windows 7 install that originally came on the laptop?

It sounds like from the post above that the GParted utility might be able to create a hybrid disc from within windows 7? Meaning we'd be able to preserve our windows 7 MBR , use GParted to create a GUID partition and then follow blueking guide to installing Snow Leapord or Lion to this newly created GUID partition. Sound possible?

Otherwise I guess the only other option is:

1: Follow blueking guide and during initial setup do a complete format and partition with GUID thus losing the initial windows 7 install.

2: Install Snow Leapord / Create MBR partition during or after SL install.

3: Obtain original windows 7 disc and re install windows 7 to the MBR partition mentioned above.

One side note, I suppose there is no getting around having to purchase/install Snow Leapord first just to be able to purchase and create the bootable Lion USB huh? If we don't own a Mac then I suppose that's our only option.

I apologize if these questions have been answered elsewhere.

Thanks guys!
 
You have to foolow the other steps you mentioned.

You are correct about needing SL.
 
Ok, then that is what I will do.

Thanks a lot for all the help you provide us, it is really appreciated.
 
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