GUIDE - How to Multiboot Snow Leopard and Windows

[brownin]

I recently purchased this fantastic laptop and made it a quest to dual boot both operating systems. I'm not sure if anyone would be interested in this method but I thought I would be nice.

Basically, the steps are, partition the hardrive, install Mac Osx, then windows, then fix chimera.

You will need (from scratch)
Windows Installation DVD
Snow Leopard Installation DVD
Latest iBoot (available from tonymac downloads)
Latest Chimera (available from tonymac downloads)

Hardrive Partitions

You can customise whichever one you want, but I split it dead in half for my laptop just before I installed Snow Leopard retail.

Use the disk utility before you install Mac Osx (or after i suppose) to partition the hardrives as;

640GB Hardrive

1 - 320GB - Mac Osx Extended Journal - for snow leopard/lion
2 - 320GB - FAT32 - For windows (Call it windows so you know which one is which)


If your starting from scratch follow from step 1, if you have Mac OSX, follow it from step 2.

1 - Follow bkriggs beautiful guide to install Mac Osx, partition your hardrives before to make it easier. This guide can be found here http://tonymacx86.com/viewtopic.php?f=259&t=41547

2 - Once your Mac is fully working as you want it, put Chimera on the desktop, you will need this after you install windows.

3- Now its time to install windows, put the windows disk in and boot from disc.

4 - Select your windows partition, it will say it cant be installed to that partition, dont panic! Simply format the partition and then you will be able to install it.

5 - Let windows install, set it up when prompt, install all the drivers and such you want (internet, intel 3000 etc.) These drivers can all be accessible from HP's website. Remove the windows disc and put in iBoot

6 - Now we have to fix the bootloader, as the windows install replaced it, so you should notice that if you turn the laptop on, it just boots straight into windows.

7 - With iBoot in the cd drive, boot from CD and you'll be able to see your Mac and Windows hardrive. Boot into your Mac.

8 - Once your in Mac Osx, all your drivers and such may not work, dont panic! Install Chimera onto your Mac partition, remove iBoot from the CD drive and restart.

9 - Now when you boot, if everything went sucessfully, you'll automatically boot straight into your first partition (in this case Mac Osx). Simply press enter while its loading and select windows if you want to boot that operating system.

Hey Presto it all works!

Any problems, post here and I'll see what I can do to help.


Troubleshooting:

I had a few issues booting into Mac with iBoot after I installed Windows. I'm actually not quite sure how I eventually managed to boot Mac but I'm sure it was trial and error of changing parameters at boot.

If your having problems getting back into mac, try using the different boot modes that iBoot has available such as

-f
-x
-v (see where the problem is)
-PCIRootUID=1 (cant remember if this actually worked or not)



Thank you blueking, eleron, BigDonkey, and Inmike09.

 

[nimaoutlaw]

Hi brownin, thanks for sharing.

I've followed the steps and tried all 4 boot modes, the problem is when booting SL with iBoot a blank screen says unsupported card! and then it goes to apple icon loading and it just freezes forever. In -v mode it says something about failing buffer I suppose, I can go to it again and type what it says if you want to.

 

[brownin]

Hi brownin, thanks for sharing.

I've followed the steps and tried all 4 boot modes, the problem is when booting SL with iBoot a blank screen says unsupported card! and then it goes to apple icon loading and it just freezes forever. In -v mode it says something about failing buffer I suppose, I can go to it again and type what it says if you want to.

Hmm I was afraid that would happen.

Try making a unibeast installer usb stick and booting from that. Once you get into your Mac side, you can install chimera which will fix everything!