[lexmac215]

Hey, I have windows 7 installed as my os. Is there any way to partition my 64gb hd and install osx without reinstalling windows 7? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

[dew912]

...and do your homework beforehand. I believe this will work. Use partition magic to resize the windows partition. In the free space created, make an osx journaled partition. Install Easy BCD, add mac as a boot option. follow whatever guide you see fit.

[jetkins]

Originally Posted by dew912

Use partition magic to resize the windows partition.

Win7 has limited partition manipulation capabilities built in to Disk Management, so you may not even need an external product like Partition Magic, depending on the placement of any non-movable files on your Windows partition.

[dew912]

if possible, i would still recommend getting your hands on this software. it has a easy to use graphical interface and I've never run into any issues with it. I personally have not tried the windows 7 partitioning program, so i don't have a frame of reference to compare the two, but taking a shot in the dark, i would still assume Partition magic is the better of the two.

[lexmac215]

Thank you for the information. I will try to use the windows disk manager first. After that would i simply follow the guides for an OSX install?

[dew912]

to play it safe, try to gather more information re: your order of operation. you may consider installing the boot manager first while windows is still fully operational. see how people respond to this post for more info. Personally, i started from scratch, installed osx, then installed windows 7, then installed easy bcd all from usb drives.

[bsoplinger1]

I'd suggest the same order for a Windows oriented person as dew912 mentioned. Partition and install Win 7 on 1st partition. Make sure it works. Add BCD 2.0 beta (insanely mac forum is where its found I believe) and make sure Win 7 still works. Then add OS X. Make sure Win 7 works. I've always had to use the Win 7 install disc at this step to repair my Win partition and its always fixed it just fine. Then add BCD entry for OS X. Then make sure OS X works.

I think for someone with a Windows background Easy BCD and the "new" Vista/Win 7 bootloader is a better choice than the chameleon bootloader but that's just me.

Since you've already got Win 7 installed you should be able to shrink the partition its on with the built in disc management program and make room for you OS X partition.

If not then its a case of using something like partition magic which means another program to figure out how to use and another USB stick to make boot and run it.

Folks are pretty helpful here *if* you provide enough info for them to help you out.

[win7er]

I use partition magic software to resize the windows7 partition to be smaller and then install another OS, this sw is free, see this article Windows 7 partition magic software help you resize windows 7 partition more easily | HDD Tool

[kags1969]

So I recently tried to add osx to a windows7 machine and the problem that I had was when I tried to install osx the installer indicated that I couldn't install unless the partitions were GUID partitions. I ended up using the mac software to create the partions... I would really like to clonezilla my original hd back to the windows partition, but am worried that it would fubar the whole dual boot setup.

Can partition magic create the GUID partitions?