Triplebootworks but OSX invisible to EasyBCD

L

limini

Member
I have a disk with 3 partitions: XP, OSX, and Vista. I originally installed XP into the first and then OSX into the second and used a modified boot.ini using the Chain0 file from the OSX installation to boot into either. This worked fine.

I then finally got my "express" upgrade version of Vista Business, which I decided to install into the third partition. I actually deleted and recreated this partition during the initial Vista installation. (You can install without a serial and then reinstall with your valid serial; it works).

Of course Vista installed it's own bootloader but I was really surprised to see "Mac OSX" as a third boot option when I rebooted. And it works fine as well.

So I decided to run EasyBCD to see if there was any additional settings that might be useful: but EasyBCD only shows the Legacy OS and Vista. OSX is not in the listing.

FYI: when I first boot, Vista presents me with the 3 options. Vista of course imediately boots. When I select OSX, I go throught the Darwin bootloader and I have to select my OSX partition for it to boot normally. When I select XP, I'm presented with the original XP bootloader that gives me my original choice between XP and OSX.

It's all a little odd, but I don't want to mess with a good thing. Should I "clean" it up using EasyBCD so each OS just boots or should I leave as is?

Thanks for any tips.
:sick:
 
Windows Vista loads up the old XP boot menu through "legacy entries" and uses that to load your operating systems.
EasyBCD 1.61 may address this issue differently, but for now, here's what you should do:

Open boot.ini and delete the OS X line.
In EasyBCD add an OS X entry.
 
Thanks! Did what you recommended and everything works fine. Now to figure out the Darwin bootloader so I don't have to select a partition... :smile:
 
I'm afraid that cannot be done. Apple unfortunately has the Darwin bootloader configuration as binary-only data without a way to actually edit the contents, so you're stuck with what you see now.

The plus side is that you never need to configure Darwin, it'll (almost) always work. The downslde is the limited control that you see now. Sorry :frowning:
 
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