[shines on]

THIS METHOD REQUIRES REINSTALLATION OF OSX AS GPTSYNC WILL NOT CREATE THE DUAL MBR/GUID PARTITION TABLE REQUIRED FOR DUAL BOOTING OTHERWISE

What you'll need:
- OSx (Snow)Leopard install DVD.
- Windows7 install DVD
- Two USB sticks, one greater than or equal to 8GB for OSX and one greater than or equal to 4GB for Windows7.
- Netbook Bootmaker 0.8.3RC2+ Downloads - netbook-installer - Project Hosting on Google Code

Preparing the installation media:

On a Mac:
1) Insert the (Snow)Leopard dvd, insert your 8GB+ USB stick and open Disk Utility
2) Select the USB drive from the left and click on the partition tab
3) Click the + button, select a name for the parition and select 'Mac OS Extended (Journaled)' from the 'format' drop down box.
4) Click apply
5) Once the partition has been created, click on the restore tab.
6) Drag the (Snow)Leopard DVD from the left to the 'source' field.
7) Drag the partition you created on the USB drive to the 'destination) field.
8) Click restore
9) Once the DVD has been restored onto the USB stick, you'll need to run Netbook Bootmaker so you'll be able to boot from it. You can find Netbook Bootmaker here Downloads - netbook-installer - Project Hosting on Google Code 0.8.3RC2+ is required.

If you don't have a mac with a DVD drive to prepare the install (IE all you have is a hackintoshed netbook/MacBook Air):
I haven't tried this myself, but in theory it SHOULD work. You'll still need a mac to prepare the USB drive, however.
1) On a PC, install TransMAC. You can find it at Acute Systems web site It's a pay program, but the trail is good enough for what we want to do.
2) Right click on the drive in which you have inserted the (Snow)Leopard DVD and select 'save image of disk'
3) Select a name and a location to save the disk image.
4) Once the process completes, copy the disk image to your DVD Drive-less Mac/netbook
5) Continue using the above steps. When you get to step 6, instead of dragging the DVD drive to the source field, you'll drag the image file which you copied over.

On a PC:
1) Insert your Windows7 DVD
2) Insert the 4GB+ USB stick.
3) Open 'My Computer', right click on the USB drive and select 'Format...'
4) Format the drive as NTFS. You can do a quick format.
5) Open a command prompt (run cmd for XP. Search for 'cmd' in vista or higher). If you're running Vista or Windows7 you'll need to right-click on 'cmd' once it appears in the search box and select 'Run as Administrator'.
6) Change directories to your Windows7 DVD. ' D: CD BOOT ' for example if your DVD drive is assigned letter D:
7) Change directories to \boot ' CD boot\ '
8) Issue the following command to make the USB drive bootable ' BOOTSECT.EXE/NT60 E: ' where E: is the letter assigned to your USB drive.
9) Copy everything from the Windows7 DVD to the USB drive.

Installing OSx:
1) Boot from the USB drive on which you restored the OSx install DVD.
2) Hit enter to select your language.
3) Run 'disk utility' from the 'utilities' menu above
4) Click on your netbook's internal hard drive from the left and click on the 'partition' tab.
5) You'll want to create two partitions. Press the + button twice.
6) The first partition will be the OSX partition. You'll want to give it a nice, descriptive name, make sure 'Mac OS Extended (Journaled)' is selected.
7) The second partition is where we'll install Windows7. Select it, give it a descriptive name, select 'MS-DOS FAT' as a format.
8) If you're like me and you want your Windows7 partition to be smaller than your OSx Partition, select a size in GB below the format drop down. I selected 20GB. The OSx partition should automagicly re size itself to fill up the free space.
9) Click apply, close disk utility and continue on through the installer as normal.

10) After installation, reboot the computer and when you see the OSx chameleon boot loader screen (apple logo with 'press any key to enter start-up options') press the space bar, highlight the partition where you installed OSx, type ' -s ' and hit enter.
A bunch of text should scroll across the screen. This will start OSx in single user mode, a command line only environment which we'll use to set the Windows7 partition as active so we can install Windows7.
11) Once you get the prompt which reads ' :/ root# ' issue the command ' fdisk -e /dev/disk0 '
12) Type ' p ' and hit enter to list the partitions currently on this internal hard drive. You're looking for the number of the partition you formatted as MS-DOS Fat (usually partition 3).
13) type 'f 3' and press enter to mark the Windows7 partition as active.
14 Type ' w ' to write the modified partition table to the disk (type ' y ' if it tells you a reboot will be needed)
15) Type ' q ' to return to the command prompt, type ' reboot ' and hit enter

Installing Windows7:
1) Boot from the Windows7 install USB.
2) Select your language and click next.
3) Select 'install now'.
4) Accept the license terms and click next.
5) Select 'custom'.
6) Select 'Disk 0 Partition 3' which should have the type 'System'.
7) Select 'drive options (advanced).
8) Click 'format'
9) Once the partition is formatted, click next and continue on through the Windows7 install process.
10) You should now be sitting at your new Windows7 desktop.

Configuring for Dual Boot with Chameleon:
1) Boot from your OSx install USB again, but this time when you see the chameleon bootloader, hit space instead of letting it boot all the way into the installer.
2) Highlight your OSx partition, type ' -s ' and hit enter.
3) You'll eventually get the ' :/ root# ' prompt. Issue the command ' fdisk -e /dev/disk0 '
4) Type ' p ' and hit enter to list the partitions currently on this internal hard drive. You're looking for the number of the partition wher you installed OSx (usually partition 2).
5) type 'f 2' and press enter to mark the OSx partition as active.
6) Type ' w ' to write the modified partition table to the disk (type ' y ' if it tells you a reboot will be needed)
7) Type ' q ' to return to the command prompt, type ' reboot ' and hit enter.
8) Reboot and boot from OSx USB drive all the way into the OSx installer.
9) Click enter for your language and select 'netbook installer' from the utilities menu.
10) Select your OSx partition from the drop down and deselect EVERYTHING EXCEPT 'install chameleon bootloader'.
11) Reboot

12) At the chameleon prompt, press space bar, highlight your OSx partition, type ' -s ' and hit enter.
13) Once again you'll eventually get the ' :/ root# ' prompt. Once again issue the command ' fdisk -e /dev/disk0 '
14) Type ' p ' and hit enter to list the partitions currently on this internal hard drive. You're looking for the number of the partition for Windows7 (usually partition 3).
15) type 'f 3' and press enter to mark the Windows7 partition as active.
16) Type ' w ' to write the modified partition table to the disk (type ' y ' if it tells you a reboot will be needed)
17) Type ' q ' to return to the command prompt, type ' reboot ' and hit enter

20) Boot again from the Windows7 install USB
21) Select your language and click next
22) Select 'repair my computer'
23) It'll scan the HDD and give you an option to 'repair and restart' automatically.

24) Boot from your OSx install USB again, but this time when you see the chameleon bootloader, hit space instead of letting it boot all the way into the installer.
25) Highlight your OSx partition, type ' -s ' and hit enter.
26) You'll eventually get the ' :/ root# ' prompt. Issue the command ' fdisk -e /dev/disk0 '
27) Type ' p ' and hit enter to list the partitions currently on this internal hard drive. You're looking for the number of the partition for OSx (usually partition 2).
28) type 'f 2' and press enter to mark the OSx partition as active.
29) Type ' w ' to write the modified partition table to the disk (type ' y ' if it tells you a reboot will be needed)
30) Type ' q ' to return to the command prompt, type ' reboot ' and hit enter.

Upon reboot you should now see the chameleon boot loader. By hitting the space bar you'll be able to select from either your OSx partition or your Windows7 partition. Enjoy!

[guruuno]

I tried this, as well as several of the other procedures outlined here on my A90 Vostro.
Although I can boot either OS, I cannot get Chameleon to display both OS'es.
(I have to mark each active to boot to one or the other, but the Chameleon only shows the internal SSD.
Am I missing anything, been trying all the variable for about 10 hours, no luck.

[OmgFriday]

Thanks for the posting. I will give it a trial too.

[shines on]

Originally Posted by guruuno

I tried this, as well as several of the other procedures outlined here on my A90 Vostro.
Although I can boot either OS, I cannot get Chameleon to display both OS'es.
(I have to mark each active to boot to one or the other, but the Chameleon only shows the internal SSD.
Am I missing anything, been trying all the variable for about 10 hours, no luck.

Are you trying to install Windows on an external drive? What version of netbook installer did you use? Did you use a GUID partition table? Did you deviate from my directions at all?

[guruuno]

What I did was install OSX a while back, via the Runcore method.
I've been using for a short time and then decided to try Windows 7 with the OSX install.
I booted OSX, and in Disk Management, partitioned the existing HD in 1/2 to give each OS 16 GB.
I then followed your instructions.
I can boot OSX with the GUI (Chameleon), but the Windows Logo only shows when the 4GB USB Stick with Win 7 on it is inserted.
Although I've been able to boot between each OS with the help of booting from the OSX or the Win7 install USB stick, I cannot get any boot manager to see both, or use both.
That's the thick and thin of it all.
Appreciate any help.
Thanks.

[holmes4]

Windows possibly wrote the MBR to the USB stick.

[shines on]

I've had the recovery tools install the MBR bootloader to the USB stick before, this was probably the result of it being the only MBR partition the installer could find, or it could possibly be the result of not setting the Windows Partition to active before running the repair and restart command. If that were the case, Chameleon would still be able to see the NTFS partition, the windows boot loader would just throw an error when you try to boot from it, so I think something else may still be going on.

You said you installed OSx awhile back? I'm pretty sure gptsync, which is run during the install process to enable the dual boot, requires a fresh install to successfully get the dual GPT/MBR partition scheme working, so this is probably the source of your problems if the following doesn't work.

In the interests of narrowing things down, reformat your Windows7 USB, set it up to be a bootable installer again, set the windows7 partition as active as outlined above, run the repair and restart command again, then set the OSx partition as active again and see if that works.

From within OSX, could you run the terminal and post the output of sudo ' fdisk -e /dev/disk0 ' and then ' p ' so I can see what you're working with?

I think you're going to have to reinstall OSx to get things working correctly though. Backup your current install to an external drive using Carbon Copy Cloner http://www.bombich.com/ , wipe the partitions and start over again. Follow the above directions and once you get the dual boot working, erase the OSx partition (erase the data on it with disk utility, don't delete the partition) and restore everything back from the clone.

[guruuno]

Upon doing fdisk, I get the following:

fdisk: could not open MBR file /usr/standalone/i386/boot0: No such file or directory

Disk: /dev/disk0 geometry: 3926/255/63 [63078400 sectors]
Offset: 0 Signature: 0xAA55
Starting Ending
#: id cyl hd sec - cyl hd sec [ start - size]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
1: EE 0 0 2 - 25 127 14 [ 1 - 409639] <Unknown ID>
*2: AF 1023 254 63 - 1023 254 63 [ 409640 - 30318488] HFS+
3: 07 1023 254 63 - 1023 254 63 [ 30728192 - 32348160] HPFS/QNX/AUX
4: 00 0 0 0 - 0 0 0 [ 0 - 0] unused

[mschoonmaker]

I'm getting the same message:

fdisk: could not open MBR file /usr/standalone/i386/boot0: No such file or directory

[shines on]

Originally Posted by mschoonmaker

I'm getting the same message:

fdisk: could not open MBR file /usr/standalone/i386/boot0: No such file or directory

You can ignore that error, its meaningless for what we're trying to accomplish. I see it every time I run fdisk.