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Mar 2, 2011
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Motherboard
Gigabyte Z370 Aorus Gaming 5
CPU
i7-8700K
Graphics
RX 580
Mac
  1. iMac
Classic Mac
  1. Power Mac
Mobile Phone
  1. iOS
Hello all,

FIrst of all, I apologize if this is posted in the wrong area as I couldn't figure out where to put it, so let me know if I need to move this elsewhere. I set up my system as a dual-boot years ago (Mac OS 10.6 on one drive and Windows 7 on another) and have been using it without too many hiccups ever since. I am not well versed in the way things work under the hood and would appreciate any advice you can offer on my challenges. I managed to upgrade the Mac boot drive to 10.8 at some point using instructions from this site. I want to add a third boot drive for the latest Mac OS, but leave my 10.8 drive intact because it is running an older version of ProTools (10.3) and I still need to use it. I tried disconnecting drives, but I don't quite understand where Chameleon is installed and how it interacts with everything. And I realize this site is about Macs, but when I boot into Win7 and attempt to upgrade it to Win 10, it restarts at some point, but never continues the upgrade because Chameleon intercepts? I have a feeling it is related to where the boot partition is, but maybe I am confusing myself here. So here is my system:

Motherboard - Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R rev 2.0 with FH BIOS
CPU - i7 950 (LGA1366)
RAM - 12 GB (6 x 2GB)
Video - Nvidia GeForce GT 240
Hard Drive A - SSD 256GB Mac OS 10.8 drive
Hard Drive B - SSD 256GB Windows 7 drive
Hard Drive C - 2TB data and media drive
not sure where Chameleon is

Audio - Realtek ALC889
LAN - Realtek RTL8111E

Here is the portion of the boot file for the parameters that work for me:
<dict>
<key>EthernetBuiltIn</key>
<string>Yes</string>
<key>GenerateCStates</key>
<string>Yes</string>
<key>GeneratePStates</key>
<string>Yes</string>
<key>GraphicsEnabler</key>
<string>Yes</string>
<key>Kernel</key>
<string>mach_kernel</string>
<key>Kernel Flags</key>
<string>darkwake=0</string>
<key>Legacy Logo</key>
<string>Yes</string>
<key>Timeout</key>
<string>2</string>
<key>UseKernelCache</key>
<string>Yes</string>
<key>Graphics Mode</key>
<string>"1920x1080x32"</string>
</dict>

Mixing in ProTools is the main function for this computer. Here are my questions and I do appreciate any feedback or suggestions you can provide:
  1. Is there a benefit to switching to another bootloader as opposed to Chameleon? If so, which one and what are the benefits?
  2. How do I make the Win7 drive appear as a solitary drive during boot so that I can upgrade it? And then hopefully reset it back so I can go back to my bootloader config?
  3. What is the best way to add a 3rd boot drive for the latest MacOS. I thought the Mac drive had to be the first in the chain (SATA 0) if I recall. Or is that for the bootloader?
  4. How can I configure these drives so that taking any one out (disconnecting) doesn't affect the rest? Or is this ok for any drive except the bootloader drive perhaps?
  5. Is there a way to get rid of the message that comes up during boot about a 5 second delay? Considering this is using SSDs for boot drives, it does feel like it takes a while to load.
I appreciate all the advice you can offer.

Thanks,
Damien
 
Moved to Multi Booting.
Some of the 'sticky' guides in this forum may help.
 
Mixing in ProTools is the main function for this computer. Here are my questions and I do appreciate any feedback or suggestions you can provide:
  1. Is there a benefit to switching to another bootloader as opposed to Chameleon? If so, which one and what are the benefits?
  2. How do I make the Win7 drive appear as a solitary drive during boot so that I can upgrade it? And then hopefully reset it back so I can go back to my bootloader config?
  3. What is the best way to add a 3rd boot drive for the latest MacOS. I thought the Mac drive had to be the first in the chain (SATA 0) if I recall. Or is that for the bootloader?
  4. How can I configure these drives so that taking any one out (disconnecting) doesn't affect the rest? Or is this ok for any drive except the bootloader drive perhaps?
  5. Is there a way to get rid of the message that comes up during boot about a 5 second delay? Considering this is using SSDs for boot drives, it does feel like it takes a while to load.
I appreciate all the advice you can offer.

Thanks,
Damien
1. You can install Mac OS versions up to 10.10 using the Chameleon/Chimera boot loader. For 10.11 and later you need Clover for the boot loader as Chimera no longer works and this site changed over to Clover as the default boot loader. There are some benefits, such as patching a kext on-the-fly in the boot loader, so done once you never have to do it again when you update from 10.xx.0 to 10.xx.1 and later.
2. simply boot to BIOS and make the Win7 drive the foirst drive in HDD boot order for as long as it takes to update it.
3. install the drive, install Mac OS. If you install latest versions of Mac OS requiring Clover boot loader, make sure you install Legacy mode. This includes creating the UniBeast USB Legacy Mode also.
4.You may disconnect and remove any drive you wish, but when you do you need to boot to BIOS and reset your HDD boot order so the first drive in the list is one with a boot loader on it. Storage drives listed first will result in a failed boot "Insert bootable media" error.
5. The time out is to allow you time to select another OS than the default to boot. If you have only Mac OS, changing the setting in org.chameleon.boot.plist

<key>Timeout</key>
<string>2</string>

to

<key>Instant Menu</key>
<string>Yes</string>

would boot directly to Mac OS, bypassing the selection screen, which I assume you do not want on a multi-boot build. You can change the time setting to 0 in the timeout string and it will wait (forever) for you to select an OS and hit enter. Setting it to 1 gives you the least time to select an OS before it automatically boots default.
 
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