Dual-booting OS X & Windows XP – Limited to 10.6 Snow Leopard?

I have an October 2008 vintage MacBook Pro 17-inch*, which will shortly be revitalised with an OCZ Vertex 4 512GB solid state drive, and with the boost in available disc space, I’m exploring options for dual-booting OS X and Windows.
* Model ID: MacBookPro 4,1 – Order No: MB766LL/A – Mfg. Part No: A1261 – full spec at EveryMac:
» http://everymac.com/systems/apple/macbook_pro/specs/macbook-pro-core-2-duo-2.5-1 7-early-2008-penryn-specs.html
I have installation discs for:
• Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard
• Windows XP Home Edition SP2
My understanding is that the Boot Camp version in OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard will allow me to set up dual-booting between these two OS versions. My natural geek instinct would be to upgrade OS X → 10.7 Lion → 10.8 Mountain Lion, but as I understand it the Boot Camp versions in 10.7 Lion and 10.8 Mountain Lion only support Windows 7.
Q. Does this mean that if a successfully dual-booting ‘10.6 Snow Leopard + Windows XP’ MacBook Pro has its OS X upgraded (→ 10.7 Lion → 10.8 Mountain Lion), it will no longer dual-boot Windows XP?
BTW, I’m aware that I can run a virtualised Windows XP inside Oracle VM VirtualBox under OS X 10.7 Lion and 10.8 Mountain Lion (and other virtualisation software is also available); I’m interested in the reduced-complexity full-throttle option of dual-booting Windows XP.

To answer your question, I will give you 2 answers.  First off, it is not officially supported, so it may work, but if it doesn't you can't get support from Apple to make it work again.  Now that I have given the official answer, I will give you what I consider to be the "real answer".  I have not done this myself, but I have read from others that they have done just what you are looking to do.  I will add the warning that I have read from others that when they performed the upgrade, it did do something which caused the Boot Camp to stop working, and they could not get it to work again, so it seems to be a crap shoot.  Keep in mind that installing Lion or Mountain Lion wants to put a recovery partition on your boot volume, and Boot Camp only supports a total of 4 partitions on your MBP internal drive, so the EFI, MacOS, MBR, Boot Camp & Recovery partitions gives you too many partitions on the drive.  If you can perform the install without creating the Recovery partition, then you have a much better chance of it all working properly.

Similar Messages

  • HOW TO DUAL BOOT W540 with windows 8.1 / 7

    I got my W540 recently with windows 8.1 pro on it. but as all engineers worst nightmare windows 8 has hard time with engineering softwares (for my case TIA Portal for  PLC programming software which only support windows 7). so i need to have a windows 7. i prefer to keep my windows 8 and have dual boot system with windows 7 added. But i can't install windows 7. initially due to disk type (GPT), then i changed it to MBR without losing my files (which only was possible if i had deleted the recovery partition- now my recovery is on my flash drive). But there are already 4 partitions on the system (1 for C: drive and 3 for recovery and system files which came originally with the product) , how can i install a windows 7? i can't add another partition because that makes my disk a Dynamic disk (which i don't really know what is). all in all, i really need windows 7 on my system ASAP.  If anyone know how to fix this please reply. Thanks guys.
    Solved!
    Go to Solution.

    You are limited to four PRIMARY partitions on an MBR disk.
    But other than the "active" partition (i.e. the small 100MB "system reserved" partition where Boot Manager is placed from doing a cold Windows install on an empty drive, or the 1.4GB equivalent Boot Manager partition that Lenovo provides along with other tools and utilities), all other partitions on the drive can be "logical".  They are not required to be PRIMARY, although Lenovo delivers its partitions that way.  But you can change that.
    You can have up to 120 LOGICAL partitions on a drive (all of which live inside an originally PRIMARY partition which gets converted to an "extended partition" which houses all of the logical partitions.  So if you have at least one logical partition (and thus have to give up one primary partition in order to build that required "extended partitions"), that means you can have up to three remaining primary partitions and up to 120 logical partitions... all on an MBR disk.  No "dynamic", and no GPT.
    Yes, that means even the Windows system partition itself (i.e. "C") can be on a LOGICAL partition.  It's only that one "active" partition (where the BIOS goes to find Boot Manager and its menu, and kick off the rest of the system boot process) which truly must be PRIMARY.  That's the only requirement.
    So, if you want to use MiniTool's Partition Wizard to carve out sufficient free space for your second Windows 7 partition (by shrinking your existing Win8 partition), you can create one or more logical partitions inside that new free space, and do the Win7 install to one of those empty logical partitions.  You can then use a second logical partition in that same free space for "data", if you want.
    Note that Partition Wizard can even convert one of your existing primary partitions to logical (i.e. convert it to an "extended partition", inside of which will be then be the original primary partition now converted to logical).  You can then shrink or move/resize the partitions on the drive (both primary and logical) however you want, to perhaps make room for additional "logical" partitions inside of that now present "extended partition" which can hold up to 120.  You can even convert ALL of your primary partitions except for the one "active" partition (which MUST BE PRIMARY) to logical partitions, which gives you maximum flexibility in having even more than just two bootable OS's along with one or more data partitions, etc., up to 120 logical partitions... plus the one "active" primary Boot Manager "system reserved" partition which must be kept.

  • [Success] Dual Booting Arch and Windows 7 [Advice / Confirmation]

    So I have been trying to get Starcraft II to work with wine and no luck.
    I have decided to install windows back on my computer, besides it might come in handy since I'm heading back to school soon.
    Anyways I have tried dual booting arch and windows in the past, and my results have never been stable.
    Today I will try using the program gparted.
    Let me give you my thoughts on how I plan to go through this and please give me some advice so I don't loose everything I have worked for on my linux box
    1.Currently I have two hard drives, one for all my main programs and one for my media files (mounting usb, dvd, etc, and it actually has no files in it xD).
       I plan to use gparted to re-size my second harddrive (media drive), create an extended partition, and a logical ntfs partition within it.
    2.I pop in my windows cd that I recieved with my laptop and install it on the space I have partitioned for windows.
    3. If my grub gets wiped out my windows (which I hope it doesn't not sure how the MBR stuff works) I insert a Ubuntu live cd and do
    sudo grub
    > root (hd0,0)
    > setup (hd0)
    > exit
    4.Configure grub to boot windows 7.
    5.Be happy with no headache.
    SO....
    If someone with past experience with dual booting windows and arch could please give me some advice, as I do not want to lose all my data, start over, and have another headache.
    I know I must learn to backup arch, which I will before september.
    But if anyone has any protips, or sees a flaw in my plan please point it out!!!
    Thank you very much for taking the time to read this and even more if advice has been given to boost my confidence!
    For now I will wait
    Thank you fellow archies.
    Last edited by Jabrick (2011-07-03 01:29:36)

    satanselbow wrote:
    1) Windows must be installed to a primary partition - attempting to install it to an logical partition will result in an epic fail
    2) Physically disconnect the harddrive you do not want windows on as windows typically installs the bootloader on the 1st hardisk (ie /sda) regardless of installation drive (ie /sdb)
    3 / 4) Complete the windows installation then reattached your Arch drive and edit /boot/grub/menu.lst (as root) pointing the W7 entry to (hd1,0) - no need to reinstall grub
    5) Hey it's windows - anything could happen
    If you create an NTFS partition right at the beginning of the the drive before you start the W7 install you can prevent it greedily using up 2 of you 4 primary partitions - I would also completely update you new W7 installation past SP1 before reattaching the other drive to further prevent W7 going mental
    satanselbow thank you so much!
    Everything works great I had no stumbles, and I hope no problems in the future!!
    I will post exactly what I did in case someone has the same issue.
    1. Partition you're secondary harddrive as primary ntfs with gparted
    2. Reboot, and if you get a file system check error, check you're udev rules. (For my case in particular I had to change the udev rules I got for auto mounting usb, ext harddrive, etc.
    3.Power off your computer and physically remove the harddrive that contains all your linux goodies
    4. Plug in your windows cd and install in the partition you created
    5. Update your windows OS
    6. Plug in Ubuntu live CD and reboot
    7. Use commands to get grub to overwrite the windows boot loader (In my case I put grub everyone hd0,0 hd0,1 just to be sure, but you might want to do things cleaner)
    8. Reboot and see if grub loads up
    9. Use Ubuntu live CD again and launch Gparted, select the boot to your extra linux space (if you had one, not sure if this is needed)
    10. Plug in your linux harddrive and reconfigure /boot/grub/menu.lst and your good to go
    Once again shout outs to satanselbow!!! For without him I might've failed brutally!
    Cheers!

  • Can I dual boot Mac with Windows?

    Hi all,
    At the moment I have Windows 7 32 bit OS. I've always wanted either an iMac, or atleast the Mac OS. I've recently found out it's only £20.99, and i've always thought it was a lot more than that, which is a bargain! The only thing which is stopping me from buying it at the moment, is that certain programs which I use reguarlarly won't work on Mac, and I really need those programs. Is their anyway I could dual-boot it with Windows 7, so I give Windows 7 say only 8gb of my hard drive, and Mac the rest?
    I will appreciate any answers, and thanks for tackling this for me!

    ryanroks1 wrote:
    Thanks for helping
    Is an Intel Mac just an Intel Processor, with Mac OS?
    Yes Macs changed to Intel Processors in about 2007. You can upgrade as far as Lion with a Core2Duel Processor or better. CoreDuos will only update as far as Snow Leopard.
    Hope this helps
    Pete

  • Dual Boot on Yoga11S (windows 8 + windows 7)

    I'm trying to install Windows 7 as a dual boot with the Windows 8 preinstalled on a  new Yoga 11S.. Has anyone succeeded at trying to accomplish this?

    hi
    You might want to follow this thread,
        Yoga 11s was able to run Windows 7 but There is a screenshot of Unknown devices.
    I also check the Lenovo Support site and no drivers yet for Windows 7.
    You can follow neokenchi's guide there on how to parse and check the Hardware ID and then download the driver from the device Manufacturers.
    http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/IdeaPad-IdeaTab-Slate-Tablets/Yoga-11s-Windows-7-drivers/m-p/1180983#M23...
    Regards
    Solid Cruver
    Did someone help you today? Press the star on the left to thank them with a Kudo!
    If you find a post helpful and it answers your question, please mark it as an "Accepted Solution"! This will help the rest of the Community with similar issues identify the verified solution and benefit from it.
    Follow @LenovoForums on Twitter!

  • Dual boot CentOS and Windows 7

    Hello,
    I am looking for such solutions wherein I can have CentOS as a dual boot along with WIndows 7. I tried searching for resources and found the following link very helpful.
    http://www.techotopia.com/index.php/Installing_CentOS_6_with_Windows_in_a_Dual_Boot_Environment#Part...
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCSROwFTQ1c
    This should help. Please follow the above steps if you can find your required Linux Distributors iso's similar to the CentOS.
    Moderator note: moved post to its own thread.  Changed subject to match content.  Was:  Re: dual boot kali linux with windows 8

    First, you need to configure your broadband router. WLAN security puntually.
    For Windows, you need to install drivers. When the wireless card drivers are installed, Windows automatically will detect any WLAN (ADSL routers use standard options, like showing the name of the WLAN).
    For other any OS, read the FAQ.
    PS: Always check hardware compatibility before installing an OS.
    IPnaSh
    First Spanish Community Guru - Colaborador ad honorem

  • Pre-configured dual-boot Ubuntu and Windows

    Of possible interest to the Linux folks: A newly opened Laptops with purpose store is now offering several popular ThinkPad models fully pre-configured with dual-boot Ubuntu Linux and Windows.
    These systems come with a lot of pre-installed applications, see Dual boot Linux and Windows page for details.
    At the moment, we are working on specific solutions for students, educators, scientists, designers...
    Would love to have some feedback from the community on the existing offerings as well as suggestions/wishes for the future ones.

    That would be fine if some hp machines didn't have broken UEFI that don't respect setting the default OS.

  • How to set time in Dual-boot config with Windows 8.1

    Hi,
    I have been trying to workaround this problem i am having with Arch linux and Windows 8.1 time settings.
    According to Installation guide on Wiki I set hardware clock to UTC and added my local time zone too.
    But my Windows 8.1 uses hardware clock a local time and it is really confusing me.
    I did tried to setup Windows 8.1 to use UTC (http://superuser.com/questions/494432/f … bios-clock)
    but that settings is not working on my side (most Windows 8.1 users are also getting the same problem)
    Please help.

    I have two laptops which are dual booted arch and Windows 8.1.  For both of those machines I set the Windows clock to be UTC instead of local using the method in https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Ti … in_Windows (i.e. creating the .reg file and executing it - take care that the .reg file is created correctly with the .reg extension or it won't execute).  I still allow Windows 8.1 to update its time from the network and it does not cause a problem, though the advice is to let Arch do the time synchronisation. (That may be because it is not yet summertime so I will also disable time sync in Windows before the change to summertime at the end of this month). I also followed the normal install advice for Arch and have the hardware clock in UTC, and have chrony set up to keep time in sync.  Additionally I use KDE and have my normal timezone with DST adjustments for summertime.  I have not had any problem with that way of working on either of my two machines.
    I presume that if the Windows clock registry hack is done after the dual boot install it should not matter but I made that change before installing Arch.
    Last edited by mcloaked (2014-03-21 10:46:04)

  • Working in adobe illustrator - computer crashed - will not soft boot or reset PRAM - should i reinstall from CD snow leopard 10.6.3? I have an extra hard drive in my MAC with time machine on it set to do auto back ups. How do i recover ?

    working in adobe illustrator - computer crashed - will not soft boot or reset PRAM - should i reinstall from CD snow leopard 10.6.3? I have an extra hard drive in my MAC with time machine on it set to do auto back ups. How do i recover ?

    Well first you have to figure out what is wrong with the machine and solve that problem first.
    Your post is very vague on what occured, and there are many types of "crashes" it really depends upon what see on the screen and what the hardware does, we can't see it to tell you, so you have to tell us.
    I suggest you run through these user tips and provide more information about your hardware.
    Disconnect the TimeMachine drive for now
    ..Step by Step to fix your Mac
    Help us to help you on these forums
    Create a data recovery/undelete external boot drive
    If this is going way over your head, there are local PC/Mac techs that will assist you for a fee, Apple only does hardware repairs and is advised to use them if you discover it is, especially if under warranty/AppleCare.
    Hard drive and RAM upgrades can be handled yourself or by a outside tech in many older models of Mac, but don't expect Apple to cover the new parts.
    Install/upgrade RAM or storage drive in Mac's

  • Is it possible to DUAL BOOT SUN 8 & WINDOWS Server 2k

    I just took SA 239 Intermediate. I have limited resources and need to dual boot my Intel Based Sys with SUN Solaris 8 (what we use at work) and Windows 2000 Server. Is this possible?
    Keyword Searches for dual boot; dual boot intel etc return nothing. Tons of Linux, not SUN. Anyone have a link?

    Yes there is a way. Check the following link:
    http://multiboot.solaris-x86.org/v/1.html
    I have used the same document (another section of it) and i have installed in my laptop windows 2003(or XP,2000), solaris x86 (9 or 10) and linux and it worked just fine. you don't have to change the boot loader. solaris boot loader can work just fine. for further instructions and advice just ask....

  • Dual Boot Ubuntu and Windows 8.1 on HP ENVY dv7

    Okay, I've installed 14.04 LTS with EFI and Secure Boot enabled. My problem is that the HP automated boot process ignores the presence of Ubuntu and boots directly into Windows. The only way I can boot into Ubuntu is to intercept the boot process by pressing the Escape key immediately, selecting Boot Device options (F9). choosing "Boot from EFI File", then pressing Enter on the next page (a description of the hard drive), choose EFI from the next screen, select "<ubuntu>" from the subsequent list, the select "shimx64.efi" from the next screen, which gives me the Grub list (without, I might add, any reference to Windows!) So, while it works, it is a laborious process at best. Have tried to follow the following post from an HP help forum:
    So, until HP releases an updated UEFI that allows turning this "feature" off or rearranging boot options through the F10 UEFI setup, this is what you can do to get dual boot with the least amount of hackiness:
    In Windows, mount the UEFI partition (mountvol S: /S mounts it as the S: drive) and copy the file \EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi to use some other name (for example, I copied it to "\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi~", but you can change the name to anything else).
    In the Windows command prompt, update the Windows UEFI entry to point to the new name: bcdedit /set {bootmgr} path \EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi~ (adapt to your set name accordingly).
    Optionally, change the name of the Windows boot loader so that you would be certain that it points to the new file location: bcdedit /set {bootmgr} description "Fixed Windows path"
    Install the other OS. In my case the bootloader was installed into \EFI\opensuse\grubx64.efi.
    Delete the two files, \EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi and \EFI\Boot\bootx64.efi.
    Use efibootmgr to delete the "OS boot Manager" entry: sudo efibootmgr -b 0000 -B
    Set the new OS bootloader to be the default bootloader by using efibootmgr with the -o option. In my case, I had an entry called "opensuse" in slot Boot0001 and the updated path Windows entry in slot Boot0002, so I had to do sudo efibootmgr -o 0001,0002
    Update GRUB to point the Windows entry to your renamed file (you'll have to create a new file in /etc/grub.d and rerun grub-mkconfig).
    Was able to do everything as posted except "Delete OS boot Manager", because there is no entry for that item when I run efibootmgr in Ubuntu terminal. I did reorder the boot order using efibootmgr so that Ubuntu was first and Windows was second, but the HP OS boot Manager changes it back!
    Would really appreciate any help.  Thanks in advance.
    SamJ20109

    Hey vikas_g,
    Welcome to the HP Forums!
    With Ubuntu not recognizing your partitions during installation, some information that may be of assistance to you, could be in this document 'Frequently Asked Questions About Linux (FAQs)'.
    If your question is not answered from this document, I would suggest asking your question on the Ubuntu Forums.
    I hope this information helps!
    I worked on behalf of HP

  • Macbook Pro - 2 Hard Drives - Dual Boot OS OSX + Windows

    Hello guys, I've been facing an issue here
    I bought an SSD 2 years ago and changed the original MBP HD. I did a fresh install of OSX while still having my optical drive. Everything is fine with the OSX installation.
    Recently I bought an enclosure and installed the original MBP HD drive into the optical drive slot. Now i have two HD's on my MBP (Early 2011 - Unibody Model)
    The configuration for the Hard Drives is as follows:
    SSD Drive - disk 0 - OS X Running fine
    HD Drive - disk 1 - clean formatted to accommodate Windows 7 installation
    I started the BootCamp Utility formated the second hard drive to install windows from bootable USB. Everything works fine until the point where the Windows installation actually expands the files. I always get the same error, that windows cannot be installed on that drive and any changes will be reverted back to original settings.
    Several hours after researching the whole thing this is what I've got:
    The error that I am getting is for the configuration of the drives, a fix to this problem is to take out my SSD, install the old HD in its original position, install windows normally, put my SSD back in its position and put the old HD in the optical drive and thus I will have the Dual Boot of two OS in two different HD's. That's really really awful as I have to take appart again the whole thing and swap between the drives till the process is finished. This is because The EFI boot + Windows to be installed require the disk that windows to be installed to be on main slot - disk 0.
    My question here is, is there any fix to the BootCamp assistant to let me install windows on the hard drive that it is located on the disk 1 position?
    Moreover is there any way to install windows through the environment of OSX with the use of a VM, but, the windows to be a bootable OS rather than a VM bootable image? (on disk 1 - optical drive SATA port). - What I mean by that is, while running OS X normally on disk 0 run a VM software that will mimic the environment of a bootloader so that I can install windows on disk 1, but after I shut down my computer, windows should be accessible on disk 1 as a normal installed OS.
    Sorry for the long post and thank you very much for your time, any suggestions would be really helpful.

    You can install Parallels or Fusion, either will work. When you setup either Parallels or fusion you can tell it to use your already installed Boot Camp installation of Windows as its target guest operating system.
    You would then just boot into OSx, start your VM (Parallels or Fusion), then you'll have access to both OSx and Windows without having to reboot.
    I have this setup and two monitors. I have my Windows running on my external monitor and OSx running on my Macbook Pro monitor at the same time.
    Beware that you will need to re-register Windows to get a second key. This is free and easily done either online or by calling the Microsoft registration number. The reason for needing a second key is that Windows, although only installed once in your Boot Camp partition sees the virtual hardware created by your virtual machine and thinks it has been reinstalled on a new computer.

  • Unable to install windows 7 and fedora in a dual boot even with windows 8 and fedora also

    Unable to install fedora in dual boot please help me to install, is my system supports windows 7 or not with  fedora or windows 8.1 with fedora please help me i need very urgent installation of fedora

    Hi @siddu007 , 
    Thank you for visiting the HP Support Forums and Welcome. I have looked into your issue about your HP 15-r262tu Notebook and issues with Dual booting Fedora. Here is the support site for Linux for troubleshooting.
    Here is a link to Microsoft on your Downgrade Rights. Some features will not be available in a different OS.
    Thanks.
    Please click “Accept as Solution ” if you feel my post solved your issue, it will help others find the solution.
    Click the “Kudos, Thumbs Up" on the bottom to say “Thanks” for helping!

  • Dual booting pre-installed Windows 8 and Linux?

    I just bought a G780 with Windows 8 pre-installed. Ideally, I would also like to install some flavor of Linux. I've been searching but not finding much info on how difficult or time-consuming this would be, or if there are any special considerations or anything. I've found some guides on dual-booting Windows 8 and Linux but they were all for installing Windows straight from a disk, not anything where it's already pre-installed, and some indicated they thought it might be problematic to use a pre-installed version of Windows. Anyway I was hoping that if anybody has done this on the G780 or even a similar laptop that you could share how it went and any difficulties you encountered. I'm open to using any Linux distro if it'll be easy to install. I would appreciate any info you could share. Thanks.

    I had issues with Windows 8 as pre-installed on my G580, my employer at the time was using Windows 7 only and would not allow upgrades for security purposes.  I deleted the entire drive (including hidden) knowing at some point I would re-install Windows 8 or later from retail disk when needed.
    Linux can resize partitions during the install process, but be careful not to disturb the hidden partition or the windows boot loader in the process.  Linux Mint is the best yet for this purpose, OpenSUSE and Fedora failed, CentOS failed and Ubuntu was not able to boot, but did not "hurt" the windows partitions.
    Good luck.

  • Dual boot on K410 window 8 with window XP pro

    Recently I had purchased K410-i7 window 8 x64 and want to make dual boot with window XP 64 pro.
    Would you please teach me how to do or if someone can do for me, I can pay service?
    I live in Cupertino, CA.   Thanks in advance.

    with my little experience i find solaris 10 isn't able to install on sata hdd but with solaris express edition 5.11 i was able to install it on my lap top toshiba tecra and now i can boot with xp sp2 and solaris i hope this answer your question .

Maybe you are looking for