Install Windows 7 on a separate HDD

[jimbo75]

Hey,

I got my hackintosh for about a week now. Now i want to install Windows 7 on a separate HDD. I was reading many posts, but people always seem to want different things. So i ended up confused and not sure what i should do.

My plan is to install Windows 7 on a 1TB disk which i also want to use on my Lion OS. The windows partition should be just like 200GB and the rest should be usable in both OS's. I want to have access on this data-partition with Lion and Windows.

I have really no clue how to manage this. I guess normal Windows 7 install with NTFS format won't work.


I'd really appreciate some help in this! thank you in advance

 

[Going Bald]

Hey,

I got my hackintosh for about a week now. Now i want to install Windows 7 on a separate HDD. I was reading many posts, but people always seem to want different things. So i ended up confused and not sure what i should do.

My plan is to install Windows 7 on a 1TB disk which i also want to use on my Lion OS. The windows partition should be just like 200GB and the rest should be usable in both OS's. I want to have access on this data-partition with Lion and Windows.

I have really no clue how to manage this. I guess normal Windows 7 install with NTFS format won't work.


I'd really appreciate some help in this! thank you in advance

Do you have any use for drive encription? If not, then you can preformat the HDD using OS X disk utility. Format the drive with options->GUID, partition size how you want. Assuming your first partition is for Win7, then format it exfat. The rest of the drive, if you want both OS's to read/write to it, format either MSDOS FAT or exfat*.

Disconnect your OS X HDD and any other drives. With only the Win7-to-be drive connected, boot Win7 installer DVD. At the first screen select to make a new install. At the screen where it shows the disc manager screen, select the partion you want to install on, click on advanced button and then the format button. Then click on continue.
It will install. Update it, add security suite, etc. Shut down. Reconnect other HDDs, boot to BIOS and make the OS X HDD first in HDD boot order.

*3rd party apps are available to read/write NTFS from OS X or read/write HFS+ from Win7, so the rest of the drive could also be formatted with your choice of Mac Extended (journaled) or Windows NTFS.
I would consider these two the better apps. Other opinions may differ and YMMV.
http://www.paragon-software.com/home/ntfs-mac/
http://www.paragon-software.com/home/hfs-windows/

 

[jimbo75]

Thank you for the quick reply! It seems to be fairly easy i guess.

I am not really sure if i will ever use drive encryption. Is it much more effort then? (you don't have to explain the process).

What i am wondering is why do I have to format the Win7 partition in exFAT or FAT? I'd rather use NTFS for the Win7 partition, as i don't want to have access on the Win7 partition. Only on the shared data partition?

Does this * mean that i can use NTFS for Win7?

 

[Going Bald]

Thank you for the quick reply! It seems to be fairly easy i guess.

I am not really sure if i will ever use drive encryption. Is it much more effort then? (you don't have to explain the process).

What i am wondering is why do I have to format the Win7 partition in exFAT or FAT?

Drive encryption is for those who have major security concerns and is only available with the Business and Ultimate versions (maybe Pro version also - can't remember), so if you have Home Premium, don't worry about it.

As far as the formatting goes: format to fat or exfat because disk utility will not format NTFS. Also, the only other reasons for doing it this way is that it eliminates the System Reserved partition.

Installing Win7 on a separate HDD, you can also just let Win7 initialize the HDD and install without going thru all the preformatting. Just connect the HDD, put in the DVD and boot.

 

[haylun98]

I have done a Windows 7 install on separate HDD.

After installing OSX(Unibeast+Multibeast) I simply disconnect the power cable of the OSX drive and connect the second HDD to another SATA port.

Then Install Windows on second HDD in NTFS primary partition. Leave the remaining space unformatted. Run windows update repeatedly until no more updates show up. Then activate windows when everything was satisfied.

Reconnect the power of OSX HDD. Power up machine and enter BIOS to make sure HDD boots order is set to OSX HDD.

Boot to Windows via Chimera boot screen to test its OK. Restart and go back to OSX.

Run Disk Utility to add a FAT32 partition to the Windows HDD. So both OSes can read/write data to. However file size is limited to 2GB per file. For files exceed 2GB I put them in a NAS which uses EXT4 which is transparant to the OSes since they are connected using network protocols: SAMBA(Win) or AFP(OSX).

Alternatively you can format it to NTFS and purchase a third party NTFS driver such as the one by Paragon to enable OSX NTFS support.

Good luck.

 

[jimbo75]

thank you for the replies! @haylun98 your method seems pretty simple and like i would have done it. I will keep you updated if i succeed.

Oh. I think i am not going to use drive encryption. I guess this is only for companies which have to hide quite secret information or similar.


But are there also tools to read NTFS which don't have to purchased? Because the limit of 2GB's is quite annoying. I had to re-format my usb sticks a few times because of a .zip which was bigger than. But ok. I think i will survive it. There must be ways to keep files under 2GB

 

[haylun98]

Yes and No.

There is a free utility which can enable OSX built in NTFS support but it is unstable and it not recommended for casual use. The author advised to enable NTFS support on adhoc basis and disable immediately after use.

Also there is other free NTFS project like NTFS-3G. I remember using it in SL when OSX was still 32bit. The newer projects with 64bit support that I know of are no longer free.

I don't actually store much on system SSD/HDD any more. I moved almost all my static data to a Synology NAS, which has 5TB, to serve files to OSX/iOS/Windows 7 HTPC/Openelec HTPC. This NAS uses EXT4 format and so no 2GB size limit and its transparant to any OS. I am also using it for Time Machine backup and as VPN server.

For encrypted data storage I used Truecrypt on USB sticks.

 

[jimbo75]

Thank you for all the information. I think i'll go with exFAT seems to be quite nice for data storage. Maybe one day a NAS, but now it is not necessary at all for me

 

[Fender73]

I've been reading this forum and I've done all these things I've partitioned my ssd to fat and set it to GUID then I took out my osx hd I booted up to windows installed and it won't let me instal says it cant instal unless its NTFS I tried reformatting on the windows installer, but still doesn't instal I'm stuck here

 

[jamice4u]

I have two hard drives on my laptop and I have 4 os installed on my first hard drive and my second hard drive is used for storage space for the other os. I have Windows 7, Windows 8, Ubuntu 12.10 and mountain lion. I installed and got mountain lion working first. Afterward I installed windows 7 and then windows 8 and finally Ubuntu. Just make a ntfs partition for windows 7 with the remainder hard drive space that you have. Partition your storage space as ntfs parition. Afterward use Paragon ntfs 9.0.1 so you can fully access your secondary hard-drive.