Dual Booting with OSX and XP

Hello.

This is my first post, so forgive me if I sound a little dumb. I've read through the other posts, hoping to find the solution to a problem I'm having, but haven't been able to figure out what's going wrong.

I'm using an Acer Aspire One with a 160gb hard drive and Windows XP. I will mostly use my Aspire under OSX, but would like to be able to choose between XP and OSX at startup.

In XP, I used a program called Easeus to partition my drive into two sections (three if you count the 5gb section devoted to the emergency recover). One I kept as 'Acer' and the other I labeled 'Macintosh HD'. I made the 'Macintosh HD' partition Logical... because I was afraid if I made it Primary the computer would get confused between the XP half and the OSX half and freeze up. Was that the wrong choice?

Then I used the Kalyway install disk to format the 'Macintosh HD' partition with Macintosh (Journaled). Next I clicked all the options exactly as instructed in the FAQ that comes with the install disk. Then, I installed and waited. About 40 minutes passed and I got an 'Installation Successful' screen. The computer reboot to complete my install, but popped up into Windows XP instead of OSX as I was expecting.

Restarting, I hit F12 during bootup to take a look at the BOOT ORDER menu and saw that there was no 'Macintosh HD'... just the Mitsubishi hard drive, something called 'Legacy' and the DVD drive I used for the install. I can boot into XP automatically with no problem (where the hard drive size is now around 75gb) but I can't access the Macintosh half at all.

At the risk of embarrassing myself, can anyone tell me what I screwed up? Is there a way to fix what I have, or do I need to start over again? Since I've already installed OSX, it would be nice not to have to do it over again. If I have to, though, what should I do differently when I try again?

Sorry if this question is stupidly simple or has already been asked in another thread. I didn't find quite the same issue as this.

Thank you very much for any advice or suggestions.

Matt

 

there is no option to boot from partitions in bios.
thats why there is no option for macintosh hd
what happens if you turn it on and let it boot by itself

 

Yeah F12 is a BIOS command and will only show you your Hardware boot choices...

You'll need to use chain0...

Your Mac partition installed correctly, but because XP was still the "Active" partition, the windows booloader can't find any other bootable os.

Download chain0 here: http://riccardo.raneri.it/blog/eng/wp-content/uploads/2006/08/chain0.rar

Extract it to your C:\(root) directory

Insert C:\chain0="Mac OS X86" into the boot.ini file and change the timeout to something manageable like 60 seconds..

Edit the Boot.ini File
To view and edit the Boot.ini file:
1. Right-click My Computer, and then click Properties.
-or-
Click Start, click Run, type sysdm.cpl, and then click OK.
2. On the Advanced tab, click Settings under Startup and Recovery.
3. Under System Startup, click Edit.

Sample:
[boot loader]
timeout=60
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect
(INSERT MAC OSX CHAIN0 INFO HERE) C:\chain0="Mac OS X86"

Save and restart.. Your windows installation should now see you Mac OSX partition.

BTW if you want to use Mac's Darwin Bootloader, you'll have to mark the Mac partition as active so it's the 1st to load..(You'll also want to ERASE the info we just created for the windows bootloader. otherwise you'll have Two menus to choose from at startup!)..Go here for more info on dual booting with Darwin:
http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=86792

 

Rory and brgroup,

Thank you both very much for your responses.

The procedure you listed, brgroup, took just a few minutes and worked like a charm. Apparently, Kalyway OSX installed fine. I have just returned from a coffee shop where I was writing under OSX for several hours without any problems. I am able to switch back and forth between XP and OSX at startup without a hitch.

I have a question, though, about chain0. In the event I wish to go back to just XP, how do I go about removing chain0? Is it safe to simply delete it while I am in XP, and then go back and re-edit the Boot.ini file to the way it was before?

Thanks,

Matt

 

Before you delete it or change anything, make sure you get the OSX Darwin bootloader running in front of the Windows one..

Go to the tutorial at the insanelymac forums. Make sure since you installed you OSX on the second partition, that you choose " F * " (Flag command) correctly in fdisk..When you enter the "P" command (List Partition command) it will list your partitions..look for the HFS+ partition when entering the " F * " command..It may be partition #2 or 3 depending on how your computer is setup..That will make the mac partition active and allow the Bios to find your Darwin Bootloader..

Once in darwin, choose mac osx, to make sure you startup correctly,
then restart back into Darwin and choose your windows partition..
In the windows Bootloader, choose windows again and it will startup.

Once you load windows safely, just edit the added line in your boot.ini file..You can leave chain0 file on your windows disk in case you like the windows bootloader better than Darwin at a later point..The file won't hurt anything, but if you erase your OSX partition you can erase the boot.ini entry and the chain0 file too..Just make sure to re-mark your Windows partition as active before your erase the mac partition!!

 

brgroup,

Thank you again for your reply.

I read through your instructions several times but I am unfortunately quite confused.

You mentioned that I should go to the tutorial in the insanelymac forums... but I am not sure which tutorial you mean (this one...? http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=129774) nor do I understand why. Would you mind please reexplaining your second paragraph (about the forums and fdisk)?

Using Easeus Partition Manager, I checked my partitions. Here is what I get:

*: PQSERVICE - Type=FAT32 - Status=None - Primary
C: ACER - Type=NTFS - Status=System - Primary
*: {BLANK, no title} - Type=Other - Status=Active - Logical

The last one listed above is my Mac partition, which simply shows up as 'Other' under type. So, does this mean that my Mac partition is already active? If so, can I skip what you mentioned in your second paragraph?

To give you an idea of how things are working on my Aspire right now, here is what happens when I startup...

1 - The Acer screen pops up with the F2 and F12 options...
2 - I enter into a menu where I can choose to boot either 'Microsoft XP Home Edition' or 'Mac OS x86'

3a - If I select Microsoft XP then I go right into XP as I normally would.

3b - If I select OS x86 then I go into A SECOND screen (it says 'Darwin Bootloader' at the top), where a countdown starts at 5... if I do nothing, I will go into OSX. If I hit a key, I go to a menu which gives me 3 options:

hd(0,1)
hd(0,2) ACER
hd(0,5) Macintosh HD

Beneath this menu, it tells me I can hit ENTER to start Darwin with no options, or type -v for diagnostic messages, or type ? to learn about advanced startup options. And then finally, there is 'boot:'

From this same Darwin screen, when I select ACER I go to the Windows Bootloader in a kind of loop. If I select Windows, I go into XP. If I select Macintosh HD I go back into Darwin again to step 3b, listed above. I have never tried the first option "hd(0,1)".

Is all of this good or bad? I'm confused! My Windows partition is set up as 'System' so I don't have to label it 'Active', do I? I can just erase the Mac partition, expand my ACER partition back to it's full size and then edit my boot.ini file back the way it was before (changing the count to 30 secs and removing the line about Mac OSX)...?

I'm sorry to be such a pain in the ass, but I appreciate your help. Thank you again,

Matt

 

Hey, just thought I'd shoot out a question here since I can't seem to figure out exactly what I need to do from the forums.

I installed iDeneb on my AAO through a weird method: I made an osx-install partition and used this chinese program to make it bootable with the iDeneb image mounted. I then installed OSX from that, and then deleted that partition afterwards, changing it to some sort of 5gig storage partition.

All is well (relatively speaking) with my OSX install (still running too hot and want speedstep and other things), but I can no longer boot back into windows as my MBR or something on that HD is screwed.

What happens is:

for about a tenth of a second at startup I see what is presumably the windows bootloader pop up and give me a 2line message about an MBR.

Then it heads into Chameleon/Darwin and I can choose between OSX or Windows. If I choose windows, that brings up the windows bootloader, but when I choose to boot XP, I get a message about the bootsector and a missing file.. bootsctr.dos or something like that.

All I'd like to do is get the option to head back into windows when convenient, but I've got to be able to solve this problem from within OSX or its terminal, and at the moment boot.ini on my windows partition is completely locked and read-only.

I suppose I can modify its permissions from terminal and start messing around from there, but since I proceeded upon this strange way of installing OSX, I'm paranoid about screwing up the MBR stuff and losing it again. If I mess up the OSX MBR i have no windows MBR to fall back on at the moment.

Any ideas? My current boot.ini looks like this:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=C:\
[operating systems]
C:\tboot=Mac Os X System