MultiBoot Win8 and ML - Extra Choice in Boot Screen

[hazemac]

I finished my Hack last night. Everything is working well so far. I will log more later on. Thank you TonyMacx86 community!!!

The biggest problem I had, honestly, was with installing Windows 8. I could not get Windows to install while in AHCI, nor into a Fat32 partition (it needed to already be NTFS). After changing it to IDE in BIOS, it installed beautifully. I changed it back to AHCI after installing, and made sure the only drive in my boot order included Chimera. Now, with instant menu turned on, Chimera greets me happily with every boot.

The issue, however, is now I have an extra, "dead" Windows Fat32 choice. It is residue leftover from when I created the partition in OSX.

Anyone know how I may be able to get rid of that choice without wiping the Windows drive, and starting over?

Thank you, once again, all of you.

 

[trevorr2004]

new guy around here... is there a specific guide you made reference to while trying to do this or any tips for a noob ... Thanks again

 

[hazemac]

Hi trevorr2004.

I am not an expert, by any means, so be sure to follow up anything I say with your own common sense and extra research, of course. I did a lot of online research for almost a year before I actually started my buy and build.

I found this on YouTube - http://youtu.be/RDBD7i3bG9M, which I found very helpful. He partitions his hard drives, whereas I have my operating systems on three separate drives. It works pretty much the same.

I figured out, I THINK, why I had trouble with Windows 8 was that when I formatted the Windows drive, I may have forgot the "Master Boot Record" step. Looking back, that's the only thing I can think of... unless Windows 8 simply does not like Fat32 partitions, which I doubt, but wouldn't put it past Microsoft.

I ran into a snag, also, installing Ubuntu Studio on a third drive. At the end of the installation process, it asks for you to choose a drive where the boot loader will be placed. Having interpreted the idea incorrectly, I thought, "Oh, I'll add it to Chimera", so I chose the Mac drive. This was BAD. I ended up corrupting Chimera. I had to completely wipe that drive, and start over with the Mountain Lion install.

In hindsight, this was a good thing, because it solved my original problem.

I now have three beautiful glowing icons waiting for my instructions every time I boot up.

The bottom line is that as long as you set up your OS "partitions" correctly, Chimera should have no trouble finding them, and adding them to the list on launch.

Though long-winded, I hope this helps.

Cheers.

 

[Going Bald]

The issue, however, is now I have an extra, "dead" Windows Fat32 choice. It is residue leftover from when I created the partition in OSX.

Anyone know how I may be able to get rid of that choice without wiping the Windows drive, and starting over?

Thank you, once again, all of you.

If you boot your Win8 install DVD and look at your drive at the screen where you are supposed to select a partition to install on, how many partitions do you have and what are they called?

If you take a blank drive, all free space and format/install Win8, the installer actually creates 4 partitions.
EFI - doesn't use
System - boot files
MSR
Local Disk C - operating system

The only 2 that will show up in Chimera are the System and Local Disk C - they will be called System Reserved and Windows NTFS, so select the System Reserved icon to boot Win8.

 

[hazemac]

Thank you for your response Going Bald. Appreciated. It's nice to know what happens on the back end.