[oznyc]

I have a mini 10v, perfectly running Mac OSX on it right now.
I want to install a second partition for a Windows XP or 7, for dual boot
What are my options. Do I need to wipe out everything including OSX and install it again, which I am in least favor of doing so? I am guessing Boot Camp will not work.

Is there a way to do this while keeping my OSX?
Has anyone experienced parallels in terms of performance?

Thanks in advance.

[Side.Step.Society]

Off hand, I can't remember the specifics to the install, but you CAN install Windows 7 the same way you would do it manually (without Boot Camp) on a real Mac.

Use Disk Utility to add a FAT partition to install Windows on your drive.

Boot to your Windows (I would suggest using Windows 7 if possible) installer (be it on a USB stick, or external DVD drive).

Then, begin installing Windows 7. I know for a fact this won't "just work". You will run into error messages, but these aren't "real error messages", in the sense that you can "trick" the Windows installer into installing on the partition. However, I can't remember the errors it gives off hand.

So try that, get as far as you can, then Google any errors that you receive along the way.

[Montala]

You might also find some help or ideas in the Dual-Booting section of the Forum, which can be found here.

It is not something I have ever tried myself, but I am sure there is someone on here who will be able to assist.

P.S. Welcome to the Forum!

[Kimmy2000]

Hi,

Just did this myself yesterday, very simple, no need to wipe OSX:

1: In Snow Leopard, go to Disk Utility, create a 2nd partition and format it to FAT and rename it to something like Win7

2: Install Win7 via USB Pen to the Win7 partition
After Win7 is installed, at your reboot, Win7 will be the only OS, to fix this do the following:

In Win7
- Open "Run" and type "cmd"
- type "diskpart"
- type "select disk 0"
- type "list partition"
- type "select partition X", where X is the number of HFS+ partition (large size + offset 200MB)
- type "active"
- type "exit"
- Unplug ALL the removable drives
- Plug in the USB pen which you used to install Snow Leopard and boot from this USB pen
- in the boot selection screen select OSX
- Once in OSX run the latest version of NetBookInstaller, and select to install the bootloader. (You can select the other options too if you require them, but make sure you DO NOT select Enable Quite Boot)
After this is installed, when you reboot you will get a selection screen, use the left/right arrow keys to select OSX or Win7

The above instructions has been slight adapted from this thread, and I do not take any credid for it:

Simple way to create Dual Boot : Snow Leopard and Windows 7


Kimmy

[oznyc]

this seems fairly easy set up.
Thanks for your replies.

does it matter if I install a 64bit win7 or 32bit?

[Kimmy2000]

Hmm, you wont be able to run 64bit on the netbook as it does not have a 64bit chip, so you would need to install the 32bit version.

Yes, the process is very simple, the only important thing is to make sure you have the USB pen with the Snow Leopard install so you can boot back into OSX and install the NetBookInstaller software.

Kimmy

[majidbhurgri]

Originally Posted by Kimmy2000

Hi,

Just did this myself yesterday, very simple, no need to wipe OSX:

Kimmy

Thank you so much Kimmy for a simple and straightforward guide that works

It took me only couple of hours to install Windows 7 (Professional) alongside already functional Leopard OS X 10.6 on my Dell Mini 10V. They are working like breeze. On less powerful processor like this, and with Ram limitation (mine has 2 GB), Windows in Virtualbox as well as VMWare barely manages to work.

I fully recommend the solution suggested by you, it is working 100%.

I wish to share a couple of dumb confusions just to help those who might get confused like me.

-While installing Windows7, even after formatting the partition, Windows did not proceed with installation till I restarted the process again.

-During the install, when the computer restarted, it again booted from USB Pen because USB is at top of boot order list as set up by me in BIOS. I had to cancel the process, take the USB Pen out, and restart. Windows7 this time booted from the hard disk and proceeded with the rest of the installation process.

-When restarting from Mac, I expected that the start up screen would give me option to choose, which it did not. To get the option/choice, I had to hit keyboard key (any) to bring up the choice (unlike the Leopard install USB which right away lists various start up disks).

Thanks once again for instructions which were not only simple but looked simple as well which serves to encourage the users.

[cnreese]

Can this be done with Win XP?
I mean can you install Win Xp when OS X is on the mini 10v already.

[Oscar]

Don't know if there's any new info/guides for XP. But I tried that myself some months ago. While there is a way to dual boot SL/XP, the only way I managed it was to back up SL, wipe the drive, install XP (MBR, on partition 1), and 'restore' SL to a second partition. You can find details in the dual boot section.

Cheers.

O.

[Kimmy2000]

Originally Posted by majidbhurgri

Thank you so much Kimmy for a simple and straightforward guide that works

Im glad it has worked for you and hopefully others would also find it useful.


Kimmy