Partitioned with Disk Utility, during XP inst. desired partition N/A

Question

Basic computer info: Macbook Pro 3,1 Leopard 1.5.1
I partitioned my computer into 4 separate partitions:
MacSys - 25gb, journaled, extended
LinSys - 12gb, journaled, extended
WINSYS - 14.86gb, fat32
HdaSys - 59.35gb, journaled, extended
So, 1 partition per OS, and a commonly accessible partition.
I used Disk Utility to do all this.
The problem is that with my XP Home SP2 disk, the WINSYS drive does not show up. Instead, it shows 1 large conglomerate partition, I believe as unpartitioned space (Don't write that last bit in stone, this is from retrospect)
What have I done wrong? I need some insight.
Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

lilwing wrote:
Ahh thanks, now I understand.
However, how can I have another partition for file storage/archiving which can be mountable from all other partitions? The njHdaSys would have problems, I would assume.
Due to the GUID/MBR Hybrid issues, you need to change your GPT disk setup/cration to this:
1: MacSys - 25gb, journaled, extended
2: HdaSys - 59.35gb, FAT32
3: WINSYS - 14.86gb, FAT32
4: LinSys - 12gb, FAT32
Then after using a tool that creates a hybrid MBR on your GPT disk (such as gptsync included with rEFIt or maybe some version of OSX's Disk Utility), your hybrid MBR (what Windows ONLY sees) will be:
1: EFI Protected
2: MacSys - 25gb, journaled, extended
3: HdaSys - 59.35gb, FAT32
4: WINSYS - 14.86gb, FAT32
(with LinSys not accessible (to Windows) and showing up as 'unallocated space', which you can't ever touch under Windows or you'll trash it.)
Now, with this setup:
1) your OSX HFS+ system partition has an MBR entry, so you'll be able to see and read it under Windows with the BootCamp 3.0 HFS+ file-system drivers.
2) your HdaSys storage partition has an MBR entry, so you'll be able to see and read it under Windows
3) your WINSYS volume with be the last partition which Bootcamp demands (or else you get the hall.sys error.)
Then, you can install Windows into WINSYS, reformating to NTFS during install.
Then, since Linux is GPT aware, you can install it into LinSys which doesn't have an MBR entry and is only GPT. (Depending upon your RAM, you might also want to have a SWAP partition after LinSys.) However, since Linux does require a BIOS/MBR boot in order to get full video support, during your Linux install, you need to install GRUB to the start of the HdaSys STORAGE partition -- then GRUB will boot off a BIOS/MBR partition, gaining video support, but can still point to the rest of the Linux install on the GPT partition.
Now, since the Mac startup selector will only give you a choice between OSX GPT volumes and 1 BIOS/MBR choice, you'll need to either setup Windows or GRUB to be your secondary OS chooser (between Windows and Linux), or use rEFIt to be the single startup chooser between OSX, Windows, and Linux instead.