Dual Boot Help?

so i'm running 10.7 Lion on my probook 4530s and i really want to run windows, but i don't know how to go about it, and i definitely don't wanna do a fresh install. so how do i install windows whilst keeping my data intact?

the.fapist said:

so i'm running 10.7 Lion on my probook 4530s and i really want to run windows, but i don't know how to go about it, and i definitely don't wanna do a fresh install. so how do i install windows whilst keeping my data intact?

Click to expand...

1. how large is your hard drive - do you have a plan for how much space to allot for each OS?
2. Is your Win7 install for 64-bit?
3. Do you have a bootable USB drive you can use to boot to the chameleon boot screen and select the Lion icon and boot it to desktop? (or a bootable clone of Lion)

If any answer is no, go no further until you can answer yes to all.

If all are yes, then
1. use disk utility to shrink your OS X partition to make some free space the size of your Win7-to-be partition. Format it GUID MS DOS (FAT32). Shutdown
2. boot with Win7 install disc and select the partition you just created to install to. It will say it can't be installed there, but the format button will turn black - hit format and let it format the partition NTFS.
3. When it is finished formatting, hit the continue to install Win7. Reboot when it asks (*Note: you will not be able to see the chameleon screen - it will boot straight to Win7)
4. set up your user accounts
5. install your security suite and update your AV definitions. Reboot.
6. go here: http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/de ... px?id=5842 and validate your Win7 install so it will you to select a download
7. select the windows6.1-KB976932-X64.exe service pack1 download and install it. Reboot
8. Use the Microsft update to get any other updates you need. Shutdown.
9. Insert your USB drive and reboot, selecting your USB to boot to.
10. At the chimera boot screen select Lion and boot to desktop.
11. re-install chimera. eject the USB drive. Reboot

you should now have 2 icons at the chimera boot screen - OS X and Windows NTFS
Clean it up a little - boot Win7, open explorer, right click on the (c disk and select properties. On the General tab there is an icon at the top left of a hard drive with the Windows flag on it and a text box to the right of it. Click in the text box and type in a name for your Win7 install (this will be the name you see under the chimera boot screen icon). Click on apply and OK to close the window.

Enjoy your dual boot laptop.

How do we make the boot usb drive? Just install chimera or chameleon or whatever to the usb and then go? Or what?

blueking said:

How do we make the boot usb drive? Just install chimera or chameleon or whatever to the usb and then go? Or what?

Click to expand...

Is at least 4 posts on this forum on just that subject. The search function at the top of the screen is your friend.

From neilhart:

If you do not have a bootable USB Flash Installer drive, make one up. This is a 8GB USB Flash drive, with a single partition and Mac OS Extended (journaled) format, with a Carbon Copy Cloner clone of the xMove Lion Installer partition. Run Multibeast 3.8.0 EasyBeast with the USB Flash drive as the target. Test by booting to this USB drive (the Lion installer should come up).

The bootable USB installer device is used for installing Lion and for the (as an iBoot CD would be) restart boot after the Lion installation.

Thanks! i'll try this when i can.

@ Going Bald

I gave your guide for this post a try, but I am still stuck with installing Windows 7. I loaded the Win7 install disc, and formatted the partition I made in OSX, but windows still gives me the "can't install on GPT partitions message" and won't let me continue. I have a good 50GB partition for the Win7-64bit I'm trying to install.

Any suggestions?
(I attached a picture of the error message I got)

Is that Win7 32-bit or 64-bit? I can't confirm as I don't have a Win7 32-bit install disc, but I have read elsewhere you need 64-bit to install on GUID partiton tables.

In OS X disk utility, did you format the partition you intend to install Win7 on as GUID FAT32?

Never mind, I see you do have 64-bit Win7, I missed that.

I am trying to remember, I think I got that screen and clicked OK, and the format button on the screen below it turned black and I was able to click on it. The Win7 installed formatted the partition NTFS and went ahead and let me hit continue and install.

Thanks for your quick reply,

I was able to format the partition to NTFS in the Win7 install dvd, but after it was formatted, the install dvd still gave me that message and greyed out the Next button so I could not continue. I did format the partition previously on OSX as ms-dos format (FAT32).

I figured out the problem in another forum. It turns out that my GPT and MBR tables were not in sync with each other. So windows 7 thought that there was no MBR table and would not install.

So I installed ubuntu, and downloaded and ran gptsync, which fixed the GPT and MBR sync problem. So the next time I booted the Win7 disc and formatted the partition I wanted, I was able to install! I wasn't planning on a triple boot system, but turned out quite nicely.