[gordon.jackson]

Hi there, I need to enlist the help of all you talented people out there.

I have a mini 9 with the 16GB SSd running windows 7 right now. I successfully installed OSX onto a separate 160GB USB Hard disk drive and the boot order means that when it's present I have a MAC and when it's not I get windows.
My OSX install has the Chameleon Bootloader and I can actually boot to the Windows on the existing SSD from there
I decided to buy a Runcore 64GB Replacement SSD and I want to run OSX in the main with a small (say 10GB) partition for a copy of Windows (ideally XP)
I have an external USB DVD drive which works fine on the mini 9 and don't have any thumb drives. I also have a PC running Windows 7 and also an Imac running leopard 10.5.7 if that helps

Can anyone walk me through the start as I have difficulty understanding which to install first. Do I install Windows and then install OSX second. Do I install both before running Dell EFI?? etc etc
How do I partition and format the drive for both OSX and Windows. I'm not sure wether the windows should be NTFS, FAT 32 or Master Boot Record etc etc.
Can I do this using disk utility and the mini USB connector or do I need some 3rd party software to format and partition the drive prior to starting.
ALso I think that the infamous USB Legacy might be applicable now as it didn't seem to affect the install using the USB HDD.

Ideally I want to switch it on and see the Chameleon bootloader screen where I could select the Windows boot or let it carry on into MAC.

I would really appreciate your help with this as i've spent many hours trying to do what in my head seemed quite straightforward!

Kind regards
Gordon Jackson

[mfruit]

If you're going install XP then it needs to be a MBR disk. I would install XP first and then install/restore OSX after that (though if you are doing a fresh install, you will need a modified OSX installer that allows for MBR installs). You can use the Chameleon bootloader that comes with DellEFI/NetbookInstaller to boot either OS.

As for how to partition, I would use either OSX's disk utility or for maximum configurability, Vista/Win7's diskpart, which allows for an offset value during partition creation (for partition alignment).

[gordon.jackson]

Can I just confirm then,

Plug the runcore into the mac via the mini USB,
Set up two partitions, both as MAC OS Journaled???
Then format both partitions as Master Boot Record??

Then install Windows to the first one??
Then Copy my imaged install of OSX to the second?

Then would I use my Boot CD to boot the OSX and re-install the Dell EFI which would put in the Chameleon boot loader.

Do I Need to make a third partition for EFI or will it automatically do this?

Sorry to appear thick but once I've grasped it I'll be away with the installs themselves

Cheers

[mfruit]

Originally Posted by gordon.jackson

Can I just confirm then,

Plug the runcore into the mac via the mini USB,
Set up two partitions, both as MAC OS Journaled???
Then format both partitions as Master Boot Record??

Then install Windows to the first one??
Then Copy my imaged install of OSX to the second?

Then would I use my Boot CD to boot the OSX and re-install the Dell EFI which would put in the Chameleon boot loader.

Do I Need to make a third partition for EFI or will it automatically do this?

Don't have a Runcore so can't help you there. Two partitions are all you need. First partition should be NTFS (for XP) while the second should be HFS+ (for OSX). The disk does need to be MBR.

Yeah, I would install XP first to partition 1 while restoring OSX to partition 2 then run DellEFI to install the boot loader.

No need for EFI partitions.

[gordon.jackson]

Sorry to ask this but As far as I can see, Disk utilty dosent allow me to format a partition as a NTFS. Also what is a HFS+??

Lets assume that the drive is in the dell mini.

I can get to the disk formatting section in the XP install. What exactly do I do?

Else I start installing OSX and get to Disk utility, What do I do there??

Sorry to be a pain but I must have been at this stage 15 times and get no further once I've installed something.

Any chance of a blow by blow descriiption??

Cheers

[mfruit]

Disk Utility doesn't format as NTFS so just use it to create the first partition. You can format from within the XP install. The reason that you don't use XP's partitioning tool is that it's not SSD-aware so it creates non-aligned partitions.

I didn't create a guide or anything but I did post a lot in this dual boot thread starting here:

Woooohoooooo dual booting os x & xp on the runcore!

As you can tell, lots of problems initially but eventually I figured it out. Then moved on from XP to Win7 when that was available.

Here's a step by step guide from someone else:

http://www.mydellmini.com/forum/mac-...py-ending.html

[usafpilotruss]

If you initially format the drive with two partitions (1 as FAT for Windows and 1 as HFS+ aka Mac Extended Journaled) you can then boot up from an external HDD/thumbdrive and reformat the FAT partition from within the Windows Installer to NTFS or leave it as FAT depending on what your trying to do and then boot from another External/Thumbdrive with the OSX installation and install to the HFS+ partition. Running DellEFI from within the OSX installation will take care of getting that EFI partition that you'll need to run the bootloader at boot to select either Windows or OSX.

I've been where you are just a few days ago. XP will require you to format the HDD as MBR where as Windows 7 you can use a GUID format.

You'll need to modify as mentioned the OSX installer to install to a MBR drive which is really why I just decided to run Win7 and avoid that hassle (plus I wanted a GUID formatted drive).

[gordon.jackson]

I'm really grateful for ll the help here but I'm just not getting anywhere

I have spent all weekend now re-formatting, re- installing and I'm getting hacked off with it!

I have this Runcore SSD which is just a hard drive, but could someone tell me the exact settings and steps to set this drive up.

I have managed to get Windows 7 installed to a 14GB Partition, then I managed to to load OSX into the other, but I can't get the thing to boot.

I'm getting a bit lost here now so would really appreciate an "idiots guide" if possible.

I'm all ears!! donantions available if I need to pay someone for some help

[usafpilotruss]

Alright, here's my best recap without getting too detailed:

1. Restored 10.5.4 Install DVD on External USB Harddrive (Followed the tutorial here and you can use some of the pictures from this tutorial if something doesn't make sense but skipping Step 2 and Step 4 on the second link)
   -Make sure if you use DellEFI Method 1 v3.02 that you name the drives EXACTLY as listed. The DellEFIBootMaker and OSX Install HDD must be named exactly or it won't work. You can rename your internal HDD later.
   -I did everything on this tutorial up to the "Post Install" portion.
2. Boot up from the External HDD that you just cloned the OSX install too (Make sure the External HDD is a MBR formatted drive) and then hit F12 if I remember correctly when booting your dell, select USB and it should run through a lot of code and finally after 3-4 minutes display the OSX installer. If you don't see the USB option at first, then enter the BIOS, exit and hit F12 again to see if it will display USB as an option)
3. Reformat the internal HDD from within the OSX installer by going to Disk Utilities and set the internal HDD to GUID and create 2 partitions (The first will be the OSX and the second will be Win7). When Disk Utility creates a GUID disk it by specifications of GUID creates a hidden partition that is 200MB at the beginning of the drive. While a native OSX installation on a Macbook or Mac built product doesn't utilize this hidden partition, we will to install the bootloader and replicate EFI.)
4. At this point you should have OSX installed.
5. You need to create the Win7 installer follow steps 1-14 from the tutorial here
6. Boot off your Windows 7 USB/HDD and pick advanced install when you reach that point, choose your empty partition on your disk (should show up as partition 4, and attempt to Format the partition as NTFS.) Install as normal.
7. At this point, the bootloader will be coming from Windows, but you can still use Chameleon that is installed on your external OSX HDD to continue choosing what partition to boot from by hitting F12 at startup and selecting USB. When the bootloader then appears you'll have the option of booting to OSX or Windows NTFS is what I think it's called.
8. Boot into the OSXMINI9 partition and finish up the install there. (By that I mean, finish with the Post-Install instructions from here)
9. Now reboot into Windows 7 and complete the following
10. Now that you are back in Windows 7 again, click on the Start menu button. Type "cmd" without the quotes in the Search box, you should only get one result back. Open cmd.
11. With cmd (Command Prompt) open, type "diskpart" without the quotes and press enter, you will probably have to authenticate the app which will open another cmd window.
12. Once your second cmd window is open, type "list disk" without the quotes and press enter. You should see a list pop up. Usually disk 0 is your main HDD in the computer
13. Type "select disk 0" without the quotes and press enter, you should get a message telling you disk 0 is now selected. Now type "list partition" without quotes and press enter. You will see a list of all your partitions on the HDD.
14. Search through the partition list until you find the one that you know to be your Mac OS X partition. (Guessing on this part is not recommended! If you need to, get back into your Mac install DVD to make sure of the partition size)
15. Once you have your Mac partition picked out, type "select partition x" without quotes and while changing 'x' to match your Mac partition number, then press enter. It should once again inform you that the partition is selected.
16. Now, with your Mac partition selected, we need to make it the one to boot off of. type "active" without quotes and press enter. It should inform you that whatever partition you chose as the Mac partition is now active. Now close out the cmd window by typing, without quotes "exit".
17. Reboot the computer and cross your fingers. Once it loads, check to see if the bootloader installed on the Mac partition is booting up again, it should now give you the option to boot into OS X or Windows.

Most of this was documented here and was provided by gygabyte666, but I had to change a few things around and gave you a few links that I've come across. That should get you on your way.

[mfruit]

Does Chameleon 2 support hibernation in Win7? I had switched to EasyBCD because the version of Chameleon that came with DellEFI 1.1 didn't support hibernation in Win7.