Dualbooting Mountain Lion and Windows 7 on a single SSD, and using an HDD for data

[fathermurphy]

I've been doing a lot of reading on the forums, but haven't been able to find anybody with the same situation as me. I used the CustoMac Mini 2012 guide to choose my components, so I know that everything's compatible. If you'd like to know the specifics just let me know.

Anyways, what I'd like to do is have all of my OS/app files on the SSD, and use the HDD for data (music, docs, etc.).

Another user posted these instructions, but they were for an HDD:

"Windows then OS X Method
Boot using Unibeast Mountain Lion USB and create 1 HFS+ partition and 1 exFAT partition using GUID partition map.
Boot using Windows 7 DVD, format exFAT partition as NTFS and install.
Boot using Unibeast Mountain Lion USB and install OS X onto HFS+ partition. Just follow the Unibeast guide.
Don't forget to run Multibeast and ensure Chimera is installed.
Boot from HD and Chimera should automatically see both the Windows and OS X partitions. "

So can I just follow those directions; the fact that I'm using an SSD won't matter? Then would it just be a matter of partitioning my HDD into separate filesystems that both OS X and Windows 7 can detect?

Thank you!

 

[Solidww]

Yes, you should be fine using an SSD instead of a HDD.

 

[akspecs]

This is no problem. One thing I will advise you of though, since you are likely to use a SSD anywhere from 60+ . . . 120+ gb... is that you disable/lower the page file size in winfail. It will be 1 to 1 with your RAM size, and if you're like me, you'll have 16gb of ram and barely any HD space for your OS on the windows partition.

Also, you have to make your initial partitioning correct when installing lion. Be sure to create the HFS+ partition for osx, and a fat partition for the partition you plan to have the other os on. Then - you will have to convert it from fat to ntfs during the winfail install. Don't do it via mac or some other utility. Otherwise the fact that you're on a GUID partitioning scheme will prevent you from installing windows.

Source: I personally run Lion, Win 7, and ArchLinux on a 120 gb SSD - ~36 gb for OSX, ~64 gb for Win, ~20 gb for ArchLinux with multiple hard drives for terabytes of data.

 

[fathermurphy]

Thanks a bunch guys! I can't wait until my case gets here!

 

[pjb515]

This is no problem. One thing I will advise you of though, since you are likely to use a SSD anywhere from 60+ . . . 120+ gb... is that you disable/lower the page file size in winfail. It will be 1 to 1 with your RAM size, and if you're like me, you'll have 16gb of ram and barely any HD space for your OS on the windows partition.

Also, you have to make your initial partitioning correct when installing lion. Be sure to create the HFS+ partition for osx, and a fat partition for the partition you plan to have the other os on. Then - you will have to convert it from fat to ntfs during the winfail install. Don't do it via mac or some other utility. Otherwise the fact that you're on a GUID partitioning scheme will prevent you from installing windows.

Source: I personally run Lion, Win 7, and ArchLinux on a 120 gb SSD - ~36 gb for OSX, ~64 gb for Win, ~20 gb for ArchLinux with multiple hard drives for terabytes of data.

Winfail, lol. Such animosity!

Also, to add my two cents, hibernation is enabled by default. It reserves a Ram-sized chunk of space. To disable it, run a command prompt with admin privileges and type in
powercfg -h off
Then hit enter. You won't see anything happen but the command will turn off hibernation and delete the hiberfil.sys file which would be located in the root of the C: drive.