Help with multiple OSs

[TheGeneral696]

For my first build, I've decided to go with 2 hard drives, a Western Digital 3TB drive and a Seagate Momentus XT 750GB Hybrid drive.
My plan is to install Mountain Lion, Windows 8, and Ubuntu Linux on the hybrid drive and use the 3TB drive for storage of music, movies, and some apps/games. When installing ML, I'm planning on splitting it into 2 350GB partitions for ML and W8, and a 50GB partition for Ubuntu, and I believe they should all be able to access music and movies on the 3TB drive. However, I am still planning on keeping most apps/games on the hybrid drive to take advantage of the speed and most of the OSs don't really need to access each others apps.

So my questions are:

Should I still format the drive for Mac OS Extended, or will I have issues installing Windows and Linux?

Should I give more space to any of the OSs?

When booting up, what will I use to pick which OS to use?

How should I back it all up? Can I even do that? (I might try to just use the 3TB drive for backups of the other drive)

I appreciate your help, thanks.

 

[bthall]

So my questions are:

Should I still format the drive for Mac OS Extended, or will I have issues installing Windows and Linux?

Should I give more space to any of the OSs?

When booting up, what will I use to pick which OS to use?

How should I back it all up? Can I even do that? (I might try to just use the 3TB drive for backups of the other drive)

I appreciate your help, thanks.

First, if you haven't already, back up all of you data.

Second, you should format each partition to a format compatible with the OS (e.g, Mac OS Extended for ML, NTFS for Windows 7). If you want your data accessible to all OS's, you need to format your data partition(s) to a format that all three can read (OS X can read NTFS, but not vice versa - I'm not familiar with Linux so I can't speak to that).

Use a bootloader such as Chimera (which you can install from MultiBeast after your OS X install) to select your OS.

I have a ML/Windows 7 dual-boot system. I installed ML first (installing Chimera from MultiBeast so it would boot from the hard drive). I then installed Windows 7. Windows 7 will overwrite the master boot record so that Chimera will no longer run at boot up, so after the Windows 7 installation is complete, you've got to use your Unibeast installation USB stick to boot your machine into OS X, run Multibeast, and install Chimera again.

After reinstalling Chimera, at boot up, hit the spacebar before the timer bar expires, and you will see your available boot options (OS X, Windows, etc). Select the one you want and hit enter. If you don't hit the spacebar, Chimera will default into OS X after the timer expires.

Good Luck!
-bth

 

[StudioK]

You must format the drive GUID Partition table (using Apple Disk Utility in Unibeast installer). The OS X partition must be Mac OS Extended of course. Windows and Linux partitions you can format MS-Dos. Those will then be re-formatted by the installers (NTFS for Windows, EXT4 for linux).

There is some things to know about boot loaders. I believe Windows should be installed first (on the 2nd partion), then fully updated.

Install Mountain Lion second (onto the 1st partition). Multibeast will install the Chimera Boot loader to the front of the disk, erasing the Windows bootloader. This is not a problem because Chimera should detect and boot Windows.

Last, install Linux on the 3rd Partition. You must not do the default installation of Ubuntu, as it will write the GRUB bootloader to the front of the disk, erasing Chimera. Choose 'Something Else' from the installation options, and you will be given the option of placing the GRUB onto the Linux Ubuntu partiiton. Once installation complete, Chimera should give you a Linux option in the boot menu. When selected, Chimera will load the GRUB bootloader, which then boots Linux.

 

[TheGeneral696]

Thanks, so you recommend I use Chimera?

 

[StudioK]

Thanks, so you recommend I use Chimera?

Yes, use Chimera.

It is certainly convenient to use since it's included with MultiBeast which you'll be using after installing Mountain Lion with UniBeast.

Also, Chimera is capable of booting Windows and loading the Linux bootloader, GRUB.

Another thing to consider: There's an option in MultiBeast in the bootloader section called 'Instant Menus'. Check that box, because doing so will automatically present a boot menu screen when Chimera is running. This will show you an icon for each of your OS's. If you don't use instant menus, then Chimera, by default, will take you directly to Mac OS X.

 

[TheGeneral696]

Well for the Linux partition I'm planning on using it for a few different distros, including FreeBSD and openSUSE. Will those work too? Sorry for being a little off-topic on a hackintosh forum.

 

[StudioK]

Well for the Linux partition I'm planning on using it for a few different distros, including FreeBSD and openSUSE. Will those work too? Sorry for being a little off-topic on a hackintosh forum.

I am running Linux Mint 13 on my Linux partition. I have never used those other distros. I would expect that any of them would boot as long as GRUB is installed.

 

[BitterMelon]

Well for the Linux partition I'm planning on using it for a few different distros, including FreeBSD and openSUSE. Will those work too? Sorry for being a little off-topic on a hackintosh forum.

Yes. It's a PC after all.