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How to Triple Boot Your iMac With Ease!
As many of you may already know, there are many guides out there on how to triple boot your new Intel iMac (this is a method of partitioning, not a special way to kick the crap out of your computer). However, many of those guides are just too complex - you’d need a PhD in B.S. just to figure out what they’re talking about. I ask you, why do they tell you that you must go to the command line to partition your harddrive? Why? Why?! Crazy talk, I tell you! Since we have enough of that going around, I’m here to inject a little sanity into your life. I’m going to give you the easy way to get the job done. I’m going to be Bob the Booter. Can he fix it? Yes, he can!
For the record, I should probably tell you that I’m doing this on an Intel dual core iMac. Why does that matter? Because it might work differently on a different machine - like a laptop. Probably not, but you should be aware of this upfront.
The first thing you need to do is back up your data! Then I want you to install Leopard. Do not, however, attempt to partition this harddrive - use it all up. After the install, boot up your iMac and update the machine with all the updates that Apple is going to push to you. This may take some time, so I suggest you go and make a sandwich. Just don’t eat it over the keyboard.
When the updates are done, install rEFIt. This might not work from the installer, however, so you may have to venture into the terminal to fix it with the manual install commands below (yes, I know I said you wouldn’t have to go to the command line, but I lied):
1. Open up the Terminal
2. Type this: cd /efi/refit
3. Type this: sudo ./enable.sh
After this, you are going to want to use Bootcamp Assistant to set up a 32G partition for WinXP/Vista. This is the one step that most guides tell you NOT to do, they all say you have to partition from the terminal using diskutil resizeVolume. I’m not sure why they tell you to do this. Perhaps someone had a bad experience with Bootcamp and wanted everyone else to suffer as well. Who knows? I found that going straight from bootcamp was the only way I could get the windows install to cooperate. It’s also easy to do.
Once you completely install Windows (in my case WinXP Professional) you will be left with OSX and WinXP. It should be noted that Bootcamp creates a FAT32 partition, but I don’t like that, so I did a quick NTFS format on the Windows partition - it’s much more secure and just plain better. After this, Bootcamp will change your startup disk/volume to the Windows partiton, so you’ll have to hold the Alt key down to get the option to boot into OSX again. You should then rerun the rEFIt enable.sh, after which you will change the startup disk/volume in the OSX System Preferences back to the Mac partition, which allows it to boot into rEFIt again.
From OSX, use the GUI Disk Utility from the Utilities folder (yes, the GUI application). If you click on the main disk (not on one of the two partitions) you will have a tab option for Partition. From the graphic of the two partitions, click the main OSX partition, then click the little plus sign and it will split the OSX partition into two. You can then drag the space between the two partitions to set their size (I left 60GB from my 250GB hard drive for the Mac, since my Linux partition is where all my development takes place). Now name the new partition whatever you want (you don’t have to, either). I named mine Poodles. Disk Utility will only format it as HFS+, but the Ubuntu live CD will gladly reformat it to ext3 for you. This may also work for other Linux distributions, but Ubuntu is what we use. After waiting for a spell, the Disk Utility will resize your OSX live partition without breaking your ability to boot Windows.
Next, insert the Ubuntu live CD and restart. rEFIt will come up and you should choose the option to boot to the Linux CD. Run the installer as normal after the system booted, choosing to partition manually. The installer wants to format the ext3 partition to use it as root, so I let it do that - I can delegate with the best of them. The installer complained about not getting a swap partition, but that’s normal. After everything’s working you can still create a file swap partition, if you like. The only thing to watch at this point is that in the last window of the installer, you have to click the "Advanced" button and tell it to install grub to the same partition as Linux - not hd0 - or it will overwrite the Master Boot Record. In my case (EFI system on 1, OSX on 2, Linux on 3, and WinXP on 4), that meant installing to /dev/sda3. Make sure to type in /dev/sda3 in that space.
When all that was finished, reboot and hope for the best. In my case, success! rEFIt came up with three entries! Since then, I have been able to boot all three OS’s just fine, with no partitioning from the command line! I am the champion! Woohoo! If one of the OS’s does not boot up (I am not naming names, but it rhymes with Vindows), you may have to go through the "Vindows" installer again and install it back on the fourth partition. After everything boots properly, install all the necessary software on all three of the OS’s.
Oh, yeah! I am Bob the Booter, yes I am! Now you are, too!
The main purpose of this article is to show that there’s an easy way to put three OS’s on a single iMac (keep in mind that the Intel Mac is currently the only machine you can legally do this with, since Apple does not license their software to other hardware vendors). Personally, I feel the Intel iMac is a great machine that not only gives you a lot of flexibility, but power, too. As both a user and a developer, I think it’s da bomb, baby.
Hey,
As I’m someone who’s always looking for the quickest and easiest way of doing things (lol) I shall do this tomorrow, and post a comment back here. What I don’t understand is that surely, *SURELY* it can’t be this simple. http://wiki.onmac.net/index.php/Triple_Boot_via_BootCamp That guide makes it seem like it should be far more complex than you say… I’m on a MB 2 GHz running 10.5.2 and I’m downloading the 7.10 Live CD as I type. I came across this guide as I was searching for alternative for having to use LILO to bootstrap my chosen Linux kernel (what the aforementioned guide goes through) in order to make sure the all the boot loaders and partition maps agree (I think that’s right) - anyway I partitioned with iPartition 3.0.1 which worked beautifully, and installed XP SP2 before coming across this. Just installed rEFIt, and it works really well. My partitions are all in the ‘right place’, i.e., with XP at the end as disk0s4/sda4 and Linux between OSX and XP as disk0s3/sda3 Let’s hope for the non-complicated Linux install tomorrow (but I’m still thinking my Xp is going to break :O)!
Hi Lewis!
This does work. I have triple booted many iMacs without a hitch using these simple steps. However, after installing Linux, you may have to reinstall Windows again (like the article mentions). If you have any questions or problems, please let me know and we should be able to work through them. Best of luck!
Hey Gorkee
Well unfortunately I wasn’t able to install Ubuntu as Safari managed to corrupt my Live CD download, I’m getting it again tonight.
Also unfortunately, I just found out that after reformatting my Linux-destined partition to HFS+ with Disk Utility, somehow, DU managed to change Windows from being at the end of the disc (disk0s4) to being in the middle (disk0s3). Well done DU. Windows promptly became unbootable, asking for hal.dll as it had become corrupt. It seems this error is a response to many things, and not necessarily hal.dll - so, as the internet recommended, I fixed the boot.ini to point to partition 3, rather than 4. Didn’t work. I replaced hal.dll. Didn’t work. I ran fixboot from the XP Disc command line. Didn’t work. Sooooooooo, I tried playing around with the partitions in iPartition to get Windows back at the end but it wasn’t having it. DU gave me an error when I tried to make a partition between my primary one and Windows. So atm I’m making a .dmg of my Windows drive, then I’m going to merge my disk back together again with BootCamp, re-partition it again with BC, NTFS format it, then Restore the image back to the partition. If that works (if it doesn’t I’ll re-install properly and then drag my settings and stuff back over), I’ll add the Linux partition in, then install Linux, reboot, and cross my fingers.
One more thing - I thought you couldn’t install Windows after installing Linux? Everything I’ve read states that Windows has to be installed first, before any extra partitions are made, or it gets confused.
Oops, sorry for the triple post - just an update: Windows refuses to be backed-up in almost every way so I’ve just taken one thing that I don’t have elsewhere, and I’m going to re-format and re-install.
Hi Lewis,
After you installed OSX and used up the entire hard-drive and booted into OSX, did you get all the updates from Apple? One of my older OSX disk didn’t have a firmware update that was needed, but the newer disk had it. Just make sure you get all the updates from Apple before doing anything.
After this, install rEFIt. Reboot the machine to make sure all is well. After booting back into OSX, use Bootcamp to install WinXP. After Windows is installed, make sure you can boot both into Windows and Mac OSX using rEFIt. If all is well, move to the next step…get Ubuntu Linux on it.
I have not experienced any problems with splitting my primary partition with Disk Utility. For my 250GB drive, this is what I did:
(1) First, I Installed OSX using only 1 partition (very important) (250 GB)
(2) Next, I Put WinXP on the Second Partition (So, now it is split as 210 GB OSX (partition 1) and 40 GB WinXP (partition 2) ).
(3) Finally, I split the 210GB OSX partition using Disk Utility into two partitions. (Now, partion 1 has become 2 partitions –60GB and 150GB).
If you are still having problems, let me know. Maybe we can set up a chat session to speed things up? I have created this configurations on many Intel iMacs, so it is strange you are having these problems. If all else fails, you may want to first download “GParted Live” and reformat your drive before starting? It may be that your System EFI partition is corrupted. Please try to follow the article instructions to the letter, because I just did this 3 days ago on a new iMac and it worked without a hitch.
Best of luck!
Lewis,
If you want to contact me through regular e-mail, just use the “Contact Us” page. Thanks!
To Gorkee or Lewis,
Can you tell me if bootcamp still recognizes windows as a bootcamp partition after triple boot is setup? Also, did you leave ubuntu install grub ? Finally, do you also have some free unlocated space on your hard-drive after you created your linux partition (I noticed that by running gparted from ubuntu, I wonder if it can cause problems)?
I am trying to achieve the same setup as you. I got to triple boot but bootcamp doesn’t recognise the windows partition so I can’t use vmware fusion to load windows within mac OS. So, in brief, do you have the same problem ?
Thanks a lot in advance,
Arthur
Ah, just realized that you do use grub. That answers one of my previous question. I am still looking for the answer to the other questions. Thanks.
Arthur,
First of all, thanks for your comments. As far as your questions go, I will try to answer them all:
(1) Yes, re-running bootcamp, my windows partition is still recognized. However, I am not sure if vmware fusion recognizes it, since I usually create a new install for my vm’s. I will look into this deeper for you.
(2) Yes, grub is what I used.
(3) No, I did not leave any unlocated space after the installs. If you create another partition, this will mess up things and your system will not boot. You can only have 3 partitions, plus the EFI partition (4 total).
Thanks Gorkee,
Can you tell me if you can boot all 3 OSs without rEFIt (i.e. by renaming /efi to whatever else) ? I would like to not depend on rEFIt.
Thanks,
Hi Arthur,
Yes this is indeed possible. I just use rEFIt because it makes things look cool and pretty, but you can use something else or nothing at all.
Good Luck!
By the way, I got everything working thanks.
Guess what?! After doing a bit o’ research on the MacBook side of things, I’m triple booting, baby!
It seems for the MacBook, the biggest problem is the MBR getting completely frazzled by GParted just before you install, and then GRUB not knowing what the hell your partitions are like, and then crashing the install. Silly GRUB. So us MacBook owners have to use LILO (and the alternate Ubuntu install)!
If you don’t mind, I’ll do a quick summary of what I did (with no references to the Terminal, yay! (unlike any other guide you’ll see)). For reference, I did this on a white, 2 GHz C2D MacBook (with the 667 FSB speed) - I don’t know if this’ll work on the newer ones, or the ones coming out with the Intel Penryns. It should work on the equivalent generation MacBook Pro.
First thing’s first: Follow Gorkee’s guide right up to eating the sandwich. You may install rEFIt if you wish (it means you don’t need to keep holding Option/Alt during all this stuff), but it serves no other purpose. You shouldn’t need to use its Partition Syncing tool. Now, grab yourself a lovely copy of Ubuntu - but it must, must, must be the ALTERNATE iso. Now, fire up BootCamp and partition your disk to desired size. Reboot and install Windows as per usual. Woohoo! You now have a dual boot system! Spend some time customising and what-not your Windows if you wish, or move on to the good part
Now, reboot back into OS X, and burn your Ubuntu iso (I use Toast) - check that it’s not corrupt first by checking the md5 hash (https://help.ubuntu.com/community/HowToMD5SUM). While you’re in OS X, fire up Disk Utility. It’s time to add the Ubuntu partition. Select your main HD (the very first entry in DU), and click partition. Click on your the first partition and click the + sign. Name your partition and select its size. Click Apply. It’ll probably give some warning about breaking your BootCamp partition, but ignore it. If you get an error here regarding not enough space on the disk, you’ve either made the partition larger than the free space you have, or if not, you need to defrag. I HEAVILY recommend iDefrag’s Compact algorithm. It solved this error for me every time. After DU’s done, format that *partition* to FAT in DU.
Now, pop in the Ubuntu disc and restart. Hold down C as she boots. You may get a grey screen for a long time. Wait at least 5 minutes before you choose to hard reset and try again. If you installed rEFIt: try booting it from the menu if it doesn’t work. Wait a long time again. Now, choose Install on the Ubuntu disc’s menu. Follow the options through normally until it gives you a screen saying you’re about to start doing partition things. STOP. You need to go into a Terminal (sorry I lied too
). Press Alt+Fn(probably)+F2. Now, enter (without the quotes) “dd if=/dev/sda of=/tmp/sda.mbr bs=512 count=1″. It should say something about 1+0 records in and out. Switch back to the normal screen with Alt+Fn(probably)+F1.
Now, at the partition screen it’s going to look a little crazy. Ubuntu will have cut off some of your DU partition for the main install, another bit for the swap, and left free space in between. We don’t want that! Delete the partition it created for the install, and the swap (don’t worry changes aren’t permanent yet), and also delete the partition you made in DU. So you’ll have (if I remember correctly), EFI, OS X, free space, Windows. Create a partition in that new chunk of free space. Don’t create a swap. In the options, make sure the mount point is / and that the format is ext3. DOn’t change any other options. That’s it! Apply the changes and move ahead to the install. The install should proceed without any hitches until it tries to install GRUB. Then the installation of GRUB will fail. However! Unlike the normal Ubuntu install, it won’t kill everything else with it. Ubuntu will calmly ask you to choose another bootloader (or something like that), or you’ll have choose “Go Back” or something. Either way, make sure you find yourself in what I call, “The Installation Chapters”. Basically it’s just a list of the various stages of the entire installation process which you can go back to (or forward to). Now, STOP! We need to dd the mbr back! This is crucial. So, go into Terminal (alt+F2), and do the reverse command! “dd if=/tmp/sda.mbr of=/dev/sda”. Alt+F1 to get back. In the Install Chapters, the stage just beneath where you’re highlighted should be “install the LILO bootloader” (or something similar to do with installing LILO). Enter it! Install LILO on sda3. It should proceed without a hitch (I had some trouble at this point, because I think I choose sda accidentally, but I’m pretty sure I’m remembering this correctly
Even if you choose wrongly, LILO will stop installing and say it can’t do it, no harm done).
You’re practically done! Let the installation finish up, and reboot. Hold down Option. Now, in EFI you’ll see a drive (if you installed rEFIt) labelled rEFIt (taking you to the rEFIt menu obviously) or your OS X HD, and a drive labelled Windows. Because BootCamp was only set up to deal with one BIOS-using OS, EFI sees only one drive (which BootCamp always labels irreversibly as Windows). When you select this drive, EFI will emulate BIOS, and boot into LILO. Now you’re in BIOS you can boot all the BIOS-using OS’s you like! The screen should turn black, and then in the top-left corner the word LILO should appear. The appearance of the word LILO means you have two seconds to press any key to get into the LILO menu where you can select between Linux and Windows, or Linux’ll boot by default. Test you’re triple boot set-up is working before celebrating by booting into both Linux and Windows. Do they both work? Yes? You may now celebrate. Enjoy your triple boot system! And, finally, be at peace knowing that any other triple boot you try to do will be a piece of cake compared to this one ;D
Lastly, you can un-install rEFIt if you installed it. I had it installed before I started all this, and it’s no harm having it installed while you’re doing all this, but in the end it’s useless. For some reason which I’m not quite sure of, even though it can see the partitions, and all three show up in the menu, the only one that will boot is OS X. Windows and Linux will just endlessly hang. So you can uninstall it.
As much as I’d like to, I don’t take any responsibility for any data loss or non-working installs produced by any accidental errors in this guide. Backup, and backup again before trying. Just in case you do something silly like format the wrong partition
Maybe you could add that as a separate article, Gorkee? Crediting me, ideally lol - oh, and this source: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=187465
Also, you can edit your article to say it definitively will not work for laptops.