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Guide: Multibooting UEFI on Separate Drives

I did remove the M.2 drive and then run the installer again, used diskpart to clean the Windows drive, create the EFI partition and then hit next on installing Windows on the Unallocated space, then it worked well. So, removing all addtional drives is actually mandatory. Tks @ThrasherOSX and @Montmac for your replies.
 
hey @Going Bald

read your guide. it looks ok for plain simple multi boot on a laptop.

what if multiboot using 1 or 2 disk drives (250gb) - osx 10.13.x , and win7/10 , and ubuntu,

and all 3 os will be using full disk/volume encryption ...

Is clover able to show the 3 os to choose at initial bootup clover screen?

main desktop is probably 10.11.x or 10.13.x and ubuntu, - ubuntu has great font rendering on low spec screens 1366x768.

win7/10 maybe give it a dedicated smaller volume for maintenance bios/firmware updates or use it in virtualbox to do the maintenance updates etc - your advice please?

osx be the only os on 1 disk drive? and on the same drive a seperate "home" volume that can be accessed between the 3 os.

ubuntu and win7/10 on a 2nd disk drive ?

any design tips /suggestions please.

thanks.
 
hey @Going Bald

read your guide. it looks ok for plain simple multi boot on a laptop.

what if multiboot using 1 or 2 disk drives (250gb) - osx 10.13.x , and win7/10 , and ubuntu,

and all 3 os will be using full disk/volume encryption ...

Is clover able to show the 3 os to choose at initial bootup clover screen?

main desktop is probably 10.11.x or 10.13.x and ubuntu, - ubuntu has great font rendering on low spec screens 1366x768.

win7/10 maybe give it a dedicated smaller volume for maintenance bios/firmware updates or use it in virtualbox to do the maintenance updates etc - your advice please?

osx be the only os on 1 disk drive? and on the same drive a seperate "home" volume that can be accessed between the 3 os.

ubuntu and win7/10 on a 2nd disk drive ?

any design tips /suggestions please.

thanks.
With the advent of APFS formatting, suggest if you are wanting to run Mojave that you make Mac OS only OS on a single drive. Install Win7/10 and Linux on a separate drive. Trying to force Mojave to install HFS+ and keeping it that way through all updates/upgrades is going to be a major PITA.
If you want full disk encryption you will need a drive for each OS. Not sure about volume encryption only - may run into problems with different volumes on same drive encrypted with different OS, but I can't say for sure as I have never done it.
 
With the advent of APFS formatting, suggest if you are wanting to run Mojave that you make Mac OS only OS on a single drive. Install Win7/10 and Linux on a separate drive. Trying to force Mojave to install HFS+ and keeping it that way through all updates/upgrades is going to be a major PITA.
If you want full disk encryption you will need a drive for each OS. Not sure about volume encryption only - may run into problems with different volumes on same drive encrypted with different OS, but I can't say for sure as I have never done it.

hi @Going Bald , thanks for the reply!

ok, going to look at multiple volume encryption for one disk with mac osx.

on 1 disk (about 250gb) would like to have 2 mac OS X , 1 for daily work, 1 for testing other mac os and updates like 10.14.x or 10.1x.x - or is it better to have this testing volume - for mac OS X - on the separate 2nd disk, which would have ubuntu and win7/10.

on same disk would like to have separate volume partition for /usr /home? similar to how some linux install guides recommend separate volumes or even disks for /home /usr and system etc.


@RehabMan - i tried your multi boot guide before but it was written a while ago and now i can't find it to read it, but it worked. do you you use multi-boot on your mackintosh? clover uefi? thanks!
 

hi @Going Bald , thanks for the reply!

ok, going to look at multiple volume encryption for one disk with mac osx.

on 1 disk (about 250gb) would like to have 2 mac OS X , 1 for daily work, 1 for testing other mac os and updates like 10.14.x or 10.1x.x - or is it better to have this testing volume - for mac OS X - on the separate 2nd disk, which would have ubuntu and win7/10.

on same disk would like to have separate volume partition for /usr /home? similar to how some linux install guides recommend separate volumes or even disks for /home /usr and system etc.


@RehabMan - i tried your multi boot guide before but it was written a while ago and now i can't find it to read it, but it worked. do you you use multi-boot on your mackintosh? clover uefi? thanks!
If you are trying this on your HP Probook 4230S, suggest you post in the Laptop forum instead of this desktop forum. Laptops have problems and tricks not seen or needed on desktops.
 

hi @Going Bald , thanks for the reply!

ok, going to look at multiple volume encryption for one disk with mac osx.

on 1 disk (about 250gb) would like to have 2 mac OS X , 1 for daily work, 1 for testing other mac os and updates like 10.14.x or 10.1x.x - or is it better to have this testing volume - for mac OS X - on the separate 2nd disk, which would have ubuntu and win7/10.

on same disk would like to have separate volume partition for /usr /home? similar to how some linux install guides recommend separate volumes or even disks for /home /usr and system etc.


@RehabMan - i tried your multi boot guide before but it was written a while ago and now i can't find it to read it, but it

yes, could you move my post to the laptop forum for multi boot. thanks.
 
yes, could you move my post to the laptop forum for multi boot. thanks.
There is no specific multiboot section in the laptop forum. What version Mac OS are you wanting help on? I can move you to the support forum for Sierra, HS or Mojave if you wish.
 
MultiBooting Win10, OS X and Ubuntu on separate drives is as simple a procedure as installing all 3 on the same drive and booting them with Clover ( See http://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/guide-multibooting-uefi.197352/ ).
What you need:

3 HDDs or SSDs or some combination of the two.
Your installation USBs:

View attachment 205199

some time and patience.

For this guide, there is no need to give detailed installation instructions for OS X - this guide already exists.
Due to the way I install the boot files for Linux, I need to install OS X before installing Ubuntu.
You can install either OS X or Win10 first. I chose to do Win10 first.

The only special thing you need to do for Win10 is create the EFI partition as the first partition on the drive and format the drive GPT partition tables. This is easiest to do with the OS X Disk Utility, but it can be done from an elevated command window at the Win10 installer screen with diskpart. If you do not know how to do it with diskpart I suggest you do it with OS X Disk Utility. Note that CSM must be enabled for the installation process.

For Win10:
Connect a drive, insert OS X Install USB, boot the system and at the POST hit the Function hotkey that allows you to select a boot device. Select the OS X Install USB. At the installation screen, select Utilities->Disk Utility and format the drive single partition GUID/Mac OS Extended (Journaled). When done, exit Disk Utility. Quit the OS X installer.
Remove the OS X Install USB and insert the Win10 USB, boot the system and at the POST hit the Function hotkey that allows you to select a boot device.
Windows shows up as USB: Win10Installer (or whatever you named the USB) and as UEFI USB: Win10Installer.
Select the UEFI USB: Win10Installer and boot the system.
At the installation screen, select Custom Install. At the next screen select the OS X partition and delete it - do not delete the EFI partition. With the resulting free space hi-lited, install Windows to the space. The installer will create and format the partitions for you. When finished, update and install your 3rd party apps and security suite. Reboot to BIOS/UEFI and disable CSM. Save&exit, continue boot to desktop. Shut down, disconnect the drive.

For OS X:
Follow the guide at http://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/u...pitan-on-any-supported-intel-based-pc.172672/

I went ahead and upgraded to Sierra PB2 while I had a new installation of El Capitan just to make sure there were no surprises with Sierra.

For Linux:

You should have created your USB for UEFI installation. If you did not, you need to go back and do this. I found Rufus to work well for this.
Normally, I would disconnect the OS X drive before installing another OS. This time, since I want to install the Linux boot loader to the UEFI folder on the OS X drive, I will leave it connected.
So, with the system shut down, connect the next drive, insert the Linux Install USB, boot the system and at the POST hit the Function hotkey that allows you to select a boot device. Select the Linux Install USB and boot the system.

At the Grub screen boot the Live Linux default and then at the desktop double-click on the install icon.
Select your language (continue).
If your system has a fast network connection, click the burger dots to install updates during the installation process (continue). For Installation type, select "Something else" (continue). You should see something like this:
View attachment 205204

sda is obviously your OS X drive, sdb is your drive for Linux. Select it, click on new partition table. This will wipe the drive to free space. Create your swap, root, home, usr partitions as you normally would for Linux.
When done, make sure you select to put the boot loader files in the sda EFI partition:
View attachment 205205

Click on Install Now and go get a cup of coffee, take a bathroom break, do something else while Linux installs.
When the installation is complete, you will need to reboot. At the post, go ahead and hit the Function key to select the Linux drive to boot to finish the installation and create your user. Remove the install USB. Update if you did not select to update during install, download any apps you want, set the system up and get it working for you as you wish it to. When done, shutdown. Connect the Windows drive.

With all 3 OSs installed and all 3 drives connected boot to the UEFI BIOS and make the OS X drive first in BBS boot order.
When Clover screen shows you will only see icons for OS X and Windows. We will fix this with a config.plist edit.
Choose the OS X icon and boot to desktop. You will need to download Xcode or your favorite plist editor for this next step.
Mount the EFI partition and navigate to the config.plist. Open the config.plist in Xcode and add this entry:

View attachment 205207
Save the config.plist, quit Xcode and reboot. You will see this:
View attachment 205208

and this:
View attachment 205209

And that, my children is just how simple it is.

View attachment 205210

There is just one slight annoying problem I have not solved yet in Sierra: OS X complains "The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer" "Initialize Ignore Eject" when it boots, complaining about the Linux drive. Previous free 3rd party apps that worked for earlier versions of OS X do not seem to work at all in Sierra yet - maybe the authors will update their apps when the Gold Master is releaased. You can get used to the complaint and just click eject when you boot OS X or find/create another solution.


thanks a lot,
what about the bios settings? should I leave it same as for the os x ? ( "other os" settings in the bios and so on ...)
 
thanks a lot,
what about the bios settings? should I leave it same as for the os x ? ( "other os" settings in the bios and so on ...)
Best to set the UEFI/BIOS for Mac OS and leave it that way.
 
I am attempting to install Win10 on a separate SSD in my system.

I followed the instructions exactly. But, after selecting the unallocated space in windows install and clicking continue, it stops with an error that tells me that it "cannot prepare the system for reboot" ... I cannot get past this point.
 
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