Mac mini triple booting assistance

RedDaemonFox

Amiga's enemy is my enemy!
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So, I would like to have my mini (newly upgraded to c2d) partitioned for snow leopard, xp and Ubuntu 12.04. Can somebody advise me in installation procedure because I'm having a heck of a time trying to get it to install XP in bootcamp, which expects 7 rather than XP. I don't have a way of installing 7 currently (no internal DVD :( ) so I would like to avoid putting more money into getting a SuperDrive...
 
Latest version of Bootcamp alloiws you to install Win7 from an iso image on a usb stick or over a network using your PC's drive..

TC :cool:
 
Latest version of Bootcamp allows you to install Win7 from an iso image on a usb stick or over a network using your PC's drive..

TC :cool:
 
I've done something similar before. If you want more than 2 OS's, bootcamp doesnt work so well. You need to manually install them.

The points I remember are :

You had to use the MBR scheme.

I used Windows XP, which always had to go on the LAST partition i.e 4.

Then Linux on the second to last partition.

Then Mac OS X On the first 2 (One System partition, one data partition) in my case.

I also used a third party boot manager (search sourceforge for ReFit).

You can do away with the boot manager by using the option or alt key at startup and then use the built in boot selector screen.

Im not sure with Windows 7 though, I believe the partition selection and use is a little more relaxed.

Happy to help more if I can :)
 
@TC
Bootcamp 4? I don't think its offered for Snow Leopard, but corretc if im wrong and where to download?

@Wonkey
I will have to try the advice. I already use rEFIt. I put Tiny7 on my Mac and it didn't work so well, I think the build broke something, so XP it is (sigh).
 
You could be right, i'm running Lion and used an iso on a usb stick

Soz mate

TC:cool:
 
What I was saying is that XP had to be on partition 4 for me as I used all 4 primary partitions. If you only use 3 then it would go on partition 3; point is that it had to be on the last primary partition. Im sure I have read that Win7 doesnt have the same restrictions. Its more about the install order.

With Win 7, I seem to remember it being in this order:

1. Win7
2. Mac OS
3. Linux

With WinXP, it was like so:

1. Win XP
2. Mac OS
3. Linux

When using XP, all but the last partition had to be marked and formatted as EXT3 or similar to start with; something that XP would not recognise, so that on the selection screen, XP shows your last parition as drive C. After that, you then used the first/second ones for Mac OSX, and then finally Linux on your remaining partition. Remember to use the correct Linux options so you run without /SWAP. While it is possible to use a swap partition, that would mean you having to setup logical/extended partitions; then it gets really weird and confusing !!

Also, when seting up the Windows drivers, I extracted exactly what I needed from the Bootcamp download and installed them manually. It gave me less problems and got it up and running much quicker; the full bootcamp driver setup tried to install loads of hardware that wasnt even present and actually slowed the thing down.

Actually, something has just sparked my memory; I had to install OSX on its own first in the normal way, then back up the entire partition to an external usb drive, then setup and partition as described above. That was because you cant install OSX to an MBR system, but you can restore it to one. This is all assuming you are using an official OSX install image. There are hacked versions out there that allow installation to an MBR system but best not talk about them on account of breaking any rules here on Amibay.

Finally, just as a point of interest, if you dont have an optical drive, how did you install Snow Leopard in the first place ?
 
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I have a combo drive (CD only, its a 2006 mini thats been hacked and upgraded to 2007 version) , but SL was installed by taking the DVD and putting it into a USB DVD, and from there restoring it onto an external USB partition. Then I reset PRAM, like I did for my powermac when reinstalling the OS so that USB is shown (on some older PPC macs you have to set nvram variables in OF, but all EFI machines do not need it) and selected the external drive partition. The big issue is that it only works for OS X, the CMOS extension for EFI doesnt work well. But listen, as I have a plan:

Try to slim a win7 install into a CD so I can run it
If success, use 7.
If failed, use my corporate XP copy (bought at a storage auction for $25) to set it up

And if you use 7 I have found that the plan can be done as so:

Install OS X on GPT as normal, with dummy partitions for Linux and free space for win (You must have rEFIt)
Use BC assistant to setup Windows
Install 7 and BC extensions
Install Linux, using dummy partitions formatted (GRUB goes on Linux's partition, not your whole disk!!! or else your windows partition will be formatted))
 
I see your plan; I never tried it that way personally. Windows through bootcamp then Linux outside of the OSX environment seems a tad messy for me but I dont see any reason why it wouldnt work.

If you install OSX in the normal manner i.e GPT setup, that is what messes up XP because that only installs properly on MBR. Win7 can use MBR or GPT.

Depending on its overall performance, another option which I can highly recommend is a program called VirtualBox. This is an emulator program much like VmWare or Parallels. It is free to download and use, comes with the requisite drivers for the most popular operating systems; it runs almost every system you can throw at it, and has been around for a while so it is well matured and tuned right now. It gets regular updates too. It was originally made by Sun and now belongs to Oracle.

The obvious advantage with this is that you install it like any other program in OSX. So your actual base OSX install can be a standard setup. The VM's can be easily managed and you can copy/backup/restore your VMs to your hearts content. This is the setup i now use and performance of the VM's under VirtualBox is actually very good indeed!

:thumbsup:
 
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