[jhoff80]

Very true, I guess it just comes down to personal preferences. And since I have a Technet subscription with access to all of the MS stuff anyway, I guess that's just what's more natural to me.

[ravenmsb]

Is it not possible to install OSX in a triple boot with CD's?

I don't have a Mac avalible to me at the momoent trying to figure out how to get it done without some of the Mac configuration steps. if you must use a usb key for mac install how can I configure it for installation on a windows or Linux PC...

[ravenmsb]

NM I figured it out I used the install to HDD method in the dual boot XP and OSX post this post helped a lot thanks for the info though I installed Ubuntu last and edited the grub bootloader and added OSX anyone that is interested just install with the directions from this post but install OSX 2nd then Ubuntu last Ubuntu will pick up your XP install but you will have to edit grub to load OSX add the following to /boot/grub/menu.lst:


sudo nano /boot/grub/menu.lst
add the following lines to the end:
title MacOSX
root (hd0,1)
makeactive
chainloader --force +1

this will work if you follow the partition settings in this post.

[ravenmsb]

I complied all of the steps I took for an alternative Triple boot.

again thanks to all the authors of the links guides at the start of this post and to the author of this post and I am not trying to take credit for any of it I just thought someone might be like me and want to do this a diffrent way, here are the exact steps I followed.

Dell Mini 9 XP OSX Ubuntu Triple Boot Cookbook 1.0

A. Use Gparted partition the SSD.

1. Boot with the Gparted flash drive or CD.

the default choices all work so just press enter for each question.

2. At Step 4 select manual partioning.

3. Once Gparted is up it should be showing the SSD (/dev/hda) and its current partitions.

4. First choose Device / Create Partition Table

Make sure it says MSDOS as the devicelabel, if not change it with Advanced
and click apply.

5. Now create your partitions in whatever sizes you want.

The first partition must be the EFI partition and can be made 8MB and choose UNFORMATTED as the type.

The second partition is for OSX, whatever size you want, choose UNFORMATTED as the type.

The third partition is for Windows XP, whatever size, choose NTFS as the type.

The fourth partition is for Ubuntu, Whatever is left, choose EXT3 as the type.

The types don't matter as you will be reformatting later but they do help keep XP from getting confused.

5. Apply the changes

6. Now set the XP partition as BOOT

Select the XP partition ( number three above)

Select Partition / Manage Flags

Click on Boot

7. Shutdown the Gparted image.


B. Install XP

1. Start the XP install

You should see the third partition labeled as C: if you set the BOOT flag correctly above.

Select the third partition as where to install XP

Do a quick format in NTFS.

2. Continue on with a normal XP install until you have completed the install choosing the GUI Mode choice and selecting P3 choice to
boot off of partition three.

3. When the install is done you will have a functional XP install


C. Change the Boot partition with Gparted

1. Boot with the Gparted flash drive or CD

2. Set the OSX partition as Boot

Choose the OSX partition
Select Partition / Manage Flags
Click boot.

3. Shutdown Gparted


D. Make OSX Install USB Thumb Drive

1. Insert the retail Mac OS X DVD into your Mac,(If you don't have a Mac and your desprate you can install OSX to an external HDD and boot into it with the Boot 132 CDROM and follow these directions) and plug the USB drive in.

2. Open Disk Utiltiy in the Applications/Utilities folder. Format the USB drive with the Mac OS Extended format (doesn't matter if it is Journaled) and when it is finished click the Restore tab.

3. Drag the USB Drive to the Destination field, and drag the DVD to the Source field.

4. Click the restore button, confirm your decision, and then wait for it to finish. This typically takes half an hour to one hour.

5. Next you have to modify on file on the OSX partition of the flash drive to allow you to install to an MBR partitioned drive.

6. Then plug the USB key back in (this makes sure it mounts with the right volume name). On your desktop create a new folder and call it OSInstall.

7. Open terminal and do the following:

sudo -s
cd /Volumes/"Mac OS X Install DVD"/System/Installation/Packages
cp OSInstall.mpkg ~/Desktop/OSInstall

8. Open up a second terminal and do the following:
cd ~/Desktop/OSInstall
xar - x -f osinstall.mpkg

9. If you now look in the OSInstall folder that you made you will see the OSInstall.mpkg and some new files. Delete OSInstall.mpkg.

10. Open the file called "Distribution" with text edit and delete the line that says "eraseOptionAvailable='true'" and save the file.

11. Go back to your second terminal window and enter the following:
xar -c -f OSInstall.mpkg *

12. This creates a new copy of OSInstall.mpkg. Close down that second terminal window. Go back to your first terminal window and enter the following:
rm OSInstall.mpkg
cp ~/Desktop/OSInstall/OSInstall.mpkg ./

You have now modified the install DVD image so that it will now allow itself to be installed onto an MBR disk.


E. Install OSX

1. Boot with the OSX / Boot 132 CDROM to the OSX installer.

2. Select the OSX partition to start on your USB Thumb Drive and boot it the install.

3. Format drive as GUID in disk util.

4. Install will fail at the end but this is ok reboot.

5. on reboot boot from boot132 iso above again, choose device 80 for internal drive (or other if you did another drive) and enter -f when booting from your hard drive (might freeze first reboot, just restart)

6. update to 10.5.6 and any of the other updates, reboot (Skip this step if your OSX install disc is already 10.5.6)

7. on reboot boot from boot123 iso above again, choose device 80 for internal drive (or other if you did another drive)

8. on the iso above Go into the DellMini9Utils folder, and run the DellEFI application.

9. Your best bet is to leave it on "Easy" and click "Install"

10. It will prompt you to reboot when it's done it should boot up to the darwin bootloader.


F. Install Ubuntu

1. Start the install from the CD.

2. At Step 4 select Manual Partitioning

Select the fourth partition, set it to your choice of filesystems, check the format box and use / as the mount point.

3. Install normally and let Grub install as the boot loader.

4. After the install is done you will boot with the grub boot loader and it will give you the option to boot Ubuntu or Windows XP don't panic we need to modify the Grub Boot loader to boot our OSX install.

5. Boot into Ubuntu

6. Edit your grub boot loader


Boot into Ubuntu and edit /boot/grub/menu.lst:
sudo nano /boot/grub/menu.lst
add the following lines to the end:
title MacOSX
root (hd0,1)
makeactive
chainloader --force +1

7. Save the file and reboot this should give you the option in grub to now boot Ubuntu, Windows XP or OSX.

Thats it your done!! with a freakin sweet Triple boot!! congratulations!!

oh crud... I made it all this way, now I'm stuck at the OSX install.

How do I make it a GUID if I had to make it a MBR in the first steps? The OSX Disk Utility doesn't let me format as GUID. It'll only let me do that if I reformat/repartition the WHOLE drive!! Which means I lose my Xp and Ubuntu!

So close, yet so far.. Any help would be great..

[oldskoolboarder]

Originally Posted by Fat Tony

oh crud... I made it all this way, now I'm stuck at the OSX install.

How do I make it a GUID if I had to make it a MBR in the first steps? The OSX Disk Utility doesn't let me format as GUID. It'll only let me do that if I reformat/repartition the WHOLE drive!! Which means I lose my Xp and Ubuntu!

So close, yet so far.. Any help would be great..

We had the same problem if you use the OSX Install DVD. You have do the USB method and modify the install package so that OSX can be installed on an MBR formatted SSD. Then it works fine.

[ravenmsb]

yep it just won't work from DVD if you don't have a mac to edit the settings and set up the USB install on you can install to a USB HDD just to have an OS X Enviornment to work with this is what I had to end up doing.

Thanks guys. I was so used to installing OS X the regular way that I missed that one line in the first post. I also didn't realize it was a bit different than making just a USB stick install. All these methods of installing OS's, I'm running out of USB sticks

I was about to say screw it to XP and just have Ubuntu which works fine in GPT drive. I wonder if Windows 7 will also support native GPT?

Thanks again for a very useful thread.

[tastewar]

I had mixed results with Win7 and GPT. I think it's much happier with a sync'd MBR and believing the disk to be MBR.

[leward]

I could not get Win7 to install with GPT. It popped up an error saying it could not install as the hard drive used GPT. I thought it would work originally as I thought Vista onward support GUID partition tables...