MacBook Pro and triple boot?

st2_998

Member
Hi everybody. Sorry for my poor IT knowledge and bad english.
I was considering a Macbook Pro ibut I need it to boot Leopard, XP and Vista. Today I found information on you boot loader and understood that it could really solve my problem.
But I wasn't able to figure out how to install them on a single disk.
Perhaps I could free up some space on the disk using Boot Camp, but could I then split it in other partitions using a partition manager running from a CD without ruining my OSX installation?
And in the future could I run a partition manager to shrink/expand Windows partitions without affecting EasyBCD or OSX?
Thanks a lot.
 
GParted would be the LiveCD of choice here. There is a topic already with osme of these tools with links in the General Discussion area:

Disc Formatting tools - The NeoSmart Forums

That will allow you to shrink and do what you wish with the partition and not affect OS X. As for the boot process you will have to read up in the Wiki:

Mac OS X - NeoSmart Technologies Wiki
Windows XP - NeoSmart Technologies Wiki

All the info is there. The OS X page gives info about OS X before and After Vista. While the XP page gives info as well with before and after Vista. Good Luck! :grinning:
 
hi st2_998, welcome to NeoSmart Technologies.

Here are the steps in short:
1) Use Boot Camp to install Vista
2) Run a partition manager to split the boot camp'd partition into two (one for Vista and another for XP)
3) Follow our instructions on a XP-Vista dual-boot.
Windows XP - NeoSmart Technologies Wiki

Other members have tested these steps and confirmed that they work. I can't help much with the details, not being a MacBook user myself.
 
Thanks guys, you were really most helpful. I had been thinking at the MacbookPro for a while and when I read Boot Camp can only boot two partitions I almost fainted.
I was wondering also if it would be possible to use the usual image backup software, like Ghost and similars, on the Win partitions without affecting OSX.
Moreover, I should really transfer my XP installation from my PC to that Mac instead of installing a new one, obviously after preparing it to accept the new hardware. But that's something different...
 
Yes you should be able to use Ghost easily. The Win partitions wont see the OS X partitions cause of the different file system. So pretty much anything you do in Windows wont affect your OS X partition. Unless you get a massive virus that formats the hard drive fully.

As for you XP move. Wont work. There is no way to "prepare" XP to accept new hardware. After you try to move it you will get errors such as hal.dll missing then it will pregressive get worse from there. I see it all the time where people try to sue a XP image from 1 machine to another. The mother board and CPU are the first 2 things accounted for in the hardware profile. Swicthing those creates massive issues right away for any Windows install.

If you are very lucky, and i mean very lucky. You can use a image of your XP drive and maybe, maybe get lucky witha repair install and have nothign go wrong. But the only failsafe thing will be a fresh install.
 
Thanks Mak for your kind reply.
The information I had on XP are absolutely the same, a different disk controller requiring different IDE driver setup is more than enough to stop you with no way out.
Nonetheless I think I read a MS KB some time ago, about preparing an existing installation to be transferred to another PC. I remember only that the point was in integrating the installation with the drivers needed in the new location. I'll look if I can recall that info.
Thanks a lot as for now.
 
Sorry for the delay in answering. Yes, I was thinking at sysprep and and some other simple methods described in MS KBs, but in fact it appears that the HAL has always to be the same, which is definitely not my case. Or possibily I don't know enough about sysprep (which IS definitely my case!) Do you know of some other method?
 
Well, I've always had good luck with just cloning/moving the drive/partition to another PC and performing a repair install.... but no guarantees.
 
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