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Multibooting Legacy & UEFI Operating Systems

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Hi

I may be misunderstanding how this all works so go easy (please!)

I have an HP Prodesk 400 G1 (Haswell, with Kepler GT730). I have two SSDs (identical) and want to be able to boot Windows10, MacOS Catalina, Ubuntu Linux (most likely or a flavour of Ubuntu) and an OS called AROS (Amiga-like). The issue here is that AROS will not UEFI boot.

Given Windows doesn't like to play nice and often tries to overwrite other OS EFI files, I was thinking to have on SSD with MBR/BIOS boot and install Windows (in Legacy mode) and AROS on that. Get that working and then remove the SSD before starting on the other SSD.

I confess I am a little confused how to do this next stage. Do I need to have a GPT formatted SSD, install Linux and then MacOS and install Clover Legacy? Do I need to leave legacy boot enabled in BIOS or just UEFI and it boots to the Clover in the UEFI partition and then legacy boots Windows/AROS but UEFI boots Ubuntu/MacOS or it should I just completely remove UEFI boot options and it boots everything Legacy?
 
Do you necessarily have to have the drives in the HP at all times? I would suggest a drive bay in a spare PCI slot if you have one like the Startech expansion slot bay.
This would allow you to install an OS on a SSD by itself and just shut down and swap drives when you want to run a different OS. A much cleaner option and cleans up all of the problems with multiple OS's on the same drive and also alleviates the boot problems of trying to boot all of them with Clover or OC.
 
Do you necessarily have to have the drives in the HP at all times? I would suggest a drive bay in a spare PCI slot if you have one like the Startech expansion slot bay.
This would allow you to install an OS on a SSD by itself and just shut down and swap drives when you want to run a different OS. A much cleaner option and cleans up all of the problems with multiple OS's on the same drive and also alleviates the boot problems of trying to boot all of them with Clover or OC.

Thanks, Startech no good for expansion slots as its a full height thing and SFF case has half height slots. I guess I could use the front 3.5" bay but I'm not keen on swapping HDDs as I intend to have the machine hidden away somewhat.... I'd thought by putting 2 OS on each SSD I might avoid some of the issues...
 
Thanks, Startech no good for expansion slots as its a full height thing and SFF case has half height slots. I guess I could use the front 3.5" bay but I'm not keen on swapping HDDs as I intend to have the machine hidden away somewhat.... I'd thought by putting 2 OS on each SSD I might avoid some of the issues...
Then you would do better to leave Win10 with a drive of its own and put the other 3 OS's on a single drive or, better, Mac OS and Ubuntu on a drive and install the AROS on an MBR/FAT32 default formatted drive by itself if you have room for a 3rd drive in your case. I would install/connect the Win10 drive and install Win10 UEFI mode, update it and get your users set up (I usually set up an admin account when installing and then a limited user account for daily use). Then install/connect the other drive and install Mac OS first with Clover and get it booting and running properly. Install Ubuntu second UEFI mode and get it set up, running and booting from Clover and then install your last OS either on the Mac/Linux drive or on a drive by itself.

BTW, it is better if you use your sig to enter all of your builds and your profile only for your main build.
 
Box only supports 3 SATA devices... One is the DVD drive so 2 SSDs is my limit.. Unless I pop a SATA card in I guess. I've never liked to use OS drives on anything other than Mobo SATA headers though... I guess I could use the DVD on an internal controller.
 
Box only supports 3 SATA devices... One is the DVD drive so 2 SSDs is my limit.. Unless I pop a SATA card in I guess. I've never liked to use OS drives on anything other than Mobo SATA headers though... I guess I could use the DVD on an internal controller.
Try it with Mac/AROS on one drive and share the Win10 with Linux. With Ubuntu that is fairly easy, just select "Install beside Windows" at the install screen and the Ubuntu installer will take it from there. Thinking about it, this is probably your optimum distribution of the OS's.
 
Try it with Mac/AROS on one drive and share the Win10 with Linux. With Ubuntu that is fairly easy, just select "Install beside Windows" at the install screen and the Ubuntu installer will take it from there. Thinking about it, this is probably your optimum distribution of the OS's.
Thanks (for ongoing replies).

AROS requires MBR so that wont work. I have managed to find a low pro SATA card so added 2 more ports so I can now put each OS on separate SSD, but IF I could not... Windows will either need to be MBR so it can share with AROS or Mac & Linux will need to share. For the latter, is it best to install Mac or Linux first?
 
For the latter, is it best to install Mac or Linux first?
It should not matter one way or the other as long as you have an EFI partition large enough to satisfy both installers. Suggest at least format/partition with the Mac Disk Utility first, then install in order desired.
 
Hi, back again. I was booting happily with Win10 & XP on an MBR disk and MacOS & Linux on UEFI/GPT disk with Clover just booting everything in UEFI mode (boot to Windows 10 and you get a menu for XP or 10) but for "reasons" I had to move Win10 to UEFI and that disk alone (so lost XP). Now re-installed XP on disk alone.

I can get Clover to name entries as I want (finally!!!!!!!!!) but I am completely unable to get XP to boot UNLESS I allow "scanning for entries" at which time Clover reports Legacy HD1 and Legacy HD4 (both of which boot XP!)

Ideally I would want to NOT scan entries and have a single entry for XP but absolutely unable to get one to work

I've tried using disk IDs, disk names, but when you use a "boot from this EFI file" for UEFI custom entries.. what the heck do I put for XP which obvs does not have any EFI file?

I've wasted a few hours googling and not found a solution, and hate to nag/beg for help but I am stuck! :(

Help me @Going Bald you're my only hope!!! :lol:
 
@Methanoid

Have you tried this solution?
 
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