[SOLVED] Triple Boot on Macbook 5,5 kills my arch install

I am currently trying to get a triple boot working on my mid 2009 macbook pro. I have 3 seperate partitions set up so that i can just launch the OS's with rEFInd.
Problem is.. as soon as I get all of them installed and up and running. I will try to boot cycle all of them to make sure everything is working as planned.
i boot OSX, everything is good
i boot Windows 7, again good to go.
as soon as i boot arch AFTER windows it kills the install it seems. the system will lock up at
starting version 217
/dev/sda6: recovering journal
/dev/sda6 clean, XXXXXX/xxxxxx files, XXXXXX/xxxxxx blocks
I am not quite sure how to find a log or anything since i cannot even boot into the system.
it ONLY happens after I boot into windows.
Already tested my ram per someone elses advice. everything turned out ok with that
the arch install works great if i only boot osx or arch.
I am not using bootcamp
i could chroot in and look for the log im just not sure where it would be.
i will gladly post that as well if i can get the location
Last edited by BoomZooka (2014-12-08 07:07:01)

ended up finally figuring out the issue
Figured out I couldnt see what was going on was, because I had a kernel parameter set as quiet for some reason. So it was not showing me anything which led me to run across a blog online that described system lockups at boot.
Added this to the kernel boot parameters in my grub.cfg on the linux line. After I did that everything booted like normal.
nomodeset reboot=pci
credits to http://dreamtimecircles.com/2013/10/06/arch/

Similar Messages

[Solved] Triple Boot on MacBook Pro

Hi all,
I'm trying to install archlinux with Mac OS X and Windows, even following this guide (https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/MacBook).
I partitioned the disk as recommended by the guide so now I have the following partitions:
-Boot partition Mac
-Macintosh HD
-Partition in which I am trying to install Arch
-Partition in which I successfully installed Windows
I followed the installation step by step, until the bootloader installation. I reboot to sync the partition tables in rEFIt, but it's written that I don't have to synchronize and shows dev/sda3 in HPS+ despite is in ext4.
The problem then is that I can't install Grub as suggested in the guide (the only option that shows me is installed in dev / sda in which the partition boot the Mac), so refit doesn't recognize the partition of linux and shows only mac and windows.
Thanks in advance.
Last edited by User0 (2012-02-06 00:06:24)

How did you "solve" this? I recently acquired a new Macbook Pro as well, and want to dual boot with Arch, so I am curious as to what steps you did to make it work.

[SOLVED] Triple Boot Arch Linux, Windows 7 + Windows 8 on second disk

Hi,
I have installed Arch Linux and Windows 7 on my primary disk. Everything's perfect. I want to install Windows 8 on my second disk. My only problem is how do I make grub2 recognize Windows 8 on the second disk and add it to the grub file, so i can boot Arch, Windows 7 and Windows 8.
Thank you for your time,
Deadvi
Last edited by Deadvi (2012-08-29 21:24:00)

It overwrote the MBR from the first disk, even though you installed Windows 8 on the second disk? That's odd... Make sure that the boot order in the BIOS is right (that the drive with Arch Linux is the first to boot) and from a 2012 Arch Linux install media run:
# mount /dev/sdxY /mnt #Your root partition.
# mount /dev/sdxZ /mnt/boot #Your boot partition (if you have one).
# arch-chroot /mnt
And continue with the instructions from here. If you don't have a 2012 Arch Linux install media (or you only have some other "live" Linux distribution), use the old chroot way.

[solved] triple boot on mac with ubuntu

i have a macbook pro 5,5 if that helps, i installed ubuntu on the macbook with refit and i now want to install arch as well. i discovered that i can not see any partitions after four on my mac and therefore can not have a boot partition for arch and ubuntu has the grub boot on its partition, my questions are should i and how do i add arch to ubuntu's grub and boot from there, or is there a better way that gets around the four partition problem.
i apologize if this has been asked before but my searches came up with nothing
thanks
Last edited by xcabal (2012-07-28 02:01:21)

You probably need to learn more about partitioning and partition types. Read everything relevant here:
http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/gparted.html
Pay close attention to partition types and extended partitions. You likely need to use an extended partition.
(Not sure why 40 people looked at this before me and nobody bothered to tell you the easy and obvious suggestion...nice.)
Last edited by andrekp (2012-07-27 12:27:52)

Triple Boot 2010 Macbook Pro with Dual Drive

I have a 2010 Macbook pro running Mavericks and Windows 7 on a 250gb SSD. I just removed the cd drive and installed my old 250 gb hard drive. So now I have two drives. I would like to make the hard drive purely for a linux distribution.
How should I go about doing this?
Some things to note/ consider:
1.   I have no CD drive so I would like to boot up from a USB.
2.   I read that Mavericks has issues with dual booting. So I can't trust many sources?
3.   What file format should I erase the new drive to.
4.   Also should I use rEFInd for booting purposes?
5.   I am aware there are plety of tutorials that walk you through installing linux but I want to have
     A second hard drive JUST for linux.
My current plan is:
Reformat drive with Mac OS Extended (journalized).... Install rEFInd.... Burn ubuntu ISO to flash drive... install ubuntu though rEFInd?
I have no clue if this is at all correct
Thanks in advance...

First the scratch. Like you said, most everyone has a different take on scratch discs but I'd guess you're wasting one heck of a lot of hard drive space using all 500 GB for Scratch, did I read that right? If I did read it correctly YES, partition it and get some use out of it!!
I've got a unibody MBP 2.93GHz, OS 10.5.8, CS3 & PS 5 (running in 32bit mode), and 8 gigs of ram. I've partitioned the one 300 GB drive so 50GB is scratch, the other partition is for OS, & Apps, and documents (images).
I use LR 2 first than export to PS 5 to finish up. My photos get to be 300MB to 500MB in size and both versions of PS work on this setup just fine. Using PS 5 in 64 bit mode is faster opening files but NON of my plugin's are 64 bit yet, that's why I'm still stuck in 32 bit mode.
Not knowing what size or kind of files you work on makes giving advice a bit tough but try setting the status indicator (don't know the right name for it) in the bottom left corner of any PS open file to "Efficiency" and watch what happens when you process your files. I rarely see mine drop below 90%, I've got the usable RAM in PS Prefs set to it's max suggested, cut way back on History and Cache.
Can't wait for NIK and others to offer their plugin in 64 bit, later this year is what I was told.
There used to be an old "rule of thumb" with old version of PS about Scratch disc size. I don't remember exactly but it may have been 3 to 5 times the size of your biggest file??
Good luck, Alan

Triple boot in Mac OS X

I learned that dual boot is possible. Now, how about a triple one? I'm asking cause I'm now on Lion 10.7.5 to which I returned after resetting my MBP to factory, but planning to boot up into Mavericks (which I need for some of its newer features), thus having the two serving as my main OSes and testing Yosemite as the 3d one with Mavericks and Yosemite locating on external drive of 1TB. Is it possible to do a triple boot? Won't it kill my machine considering it's still running on 4 GB RAM?
Kindest regards,
I.S.

You can boot from any number of external drives. That is not "Triple" Booting. It's just booting to an external. Double and Triple booting would be the process of making non-native boot partitions on the same hard drive, like one Windows and Linux Bootcamp partitions.
You you can partition the external normally and put any OS X your mac can support on each partition. Hold down the Option key when you startup to choose which one to boot into.

Virtualization of Windows Partition on Triple Boot System

I have recently triple booted my Macbook using the following partitioning tables:
(hd0,0) /dev/sda1 - EFI
(hd0,1) /dev/sda2 - Storage (FAT32)
(hd0,2) /dev/sda3 - Ubuntu Linux (ext3) <- GRUB
(hd0,3) /dev/sda4 - Windows XP (FAT32)
(hd0,4) /dev/sda5 - Mac OS X (Mac OS Extended)
I used the Bootcamp drivers to get Windows XP working correctly, but I had to use rEFIt as my gui bootloader.
My desire is to also be able to virtualize my Windows XP of the /dev/sda4 partition inside Mac OS X using either VMware Fusion or Parallels Desktop. I have tried the trial versions of both and both don't appear to handle my partitioning scheme very well. Parallels returns an error stating that I have a non-standard Bootcamp partition (due to "multiple" Bootcamp partitions; probably from my FAT32 storage partition). VMware Fusion just attempts to boot the storage partition and it returns the obvious error of "No Operating System".
Is there any work around to this? I would think that it should be an option to create a virtual machine from whichever partition you have an OS installed in, but that doesn't appear to be the case...
Thanks in advance!

The boot selector built into the Intel MacBooks will only show one non-Mac partition per drive and it will always be labelled "Windows". There is a utility called Refit ( http://refit.sourceforge.net/ ) which replaces the Apple-provided boot selector with one which is capable of triple-booting. It doesn't remove or overwrite Apple's boot selector, so you can always go back to the original if need-be.
I believe you may also be able to dual-boot Linux and Mac OS... then use a boot selector under Linux (such as GRUB) to pick between Linux and Windows.

Triple Boot OS X 10.5, XP 32bit and XP 64bit

Hello
I have been searching high and low on information about triple booting my macbook pro with OS X, XP 32 and XP 64. Does anyone have some sort of advice about doing this? There are plenty of tutorials on doing it with XP and Vista...
- The XP 64bit is for CAD
- The 32bit is for running non 64bit compliant programs
thanks
John

Thanks xnav
i ended up following this guide to get XP Pro and Vista 32bit working (no linux).
http://www.fosk.it/quad-booting-a-macbook.html
so far it seems to work really well.
John

Dual boot Arch and Windows XP (arch installed first) [solved]

I recently moved over to arch from Ubuntu, and would like to install Windows XP so that I can dual-boot between the two. However, my arch install created four partitions on my disk, and I can not create another one.
I would rather not have to reinstall arch, as setting it back up would take days on my current network connection. Is this possible? While I have installed XP over Ubuntu in the past (and am more than able to reform the MBR after the XP install) I have absolutely no experience with disk-partitioning, so concise instructions would be very much appreciated.
errata: my laptop has 4 gigs of RAM, so I don't think I need the SWAP partition. I am hesitant to delete it outright however.
this is a Gparted screenshot, running off of a Ubuntu live CD. The 60 gigs of unallocated space is where I was hoping to install windows.
Last edited by spotdart (2009-02-05 17:13:55)

What's on /dev/sda4? If you can blow away the last partition, turn the whole thing into an extended partition and then you can set up as many logical partitions as you want inside the extended partition. I suppose Arch is probably on sda4 and if that is the case you could move arch to sda3 first--there are lots of posts in the forum about how to move an installation of arch from one place to another.
Edit: Beat to the punch again. Yeah like he said you might want to delete the swap partition and then incorporate it into the 1st or third partitions so you can free up that last one.
Last edited by bgc1954 (2009-02-05 15:27:21)

How to triple boot (MacOSX / Win7 / Linux) a MacBook Pro (Retina, late 2013) with Refind

ok it's not a question, it's an howto.
You do it at your own risk. No failure reported so far, but I'm not responsible for anything.
If you try to multiboot your MacBook Pro (MBP hereafter) you may face a new complexity. With on partition, Bootcamp does a pretty amazing job installing windows. But when you want to partition your disk in your own way, Bootcamp may fail to install windows and another third OS. You may also want to have a share partition between your OSes, hence have multiple partitions. Most of this tuto should also work for Windows 8 and for other Macbooks.
Problem 1 : Bootcamp does it with one partition that it divides in two and allow to setup Win7. Not all time though since some user reportidely have problems to get USB 3 support and the keyboard and mouse are non working during the install / setup phase.
Problem 2 : Windows 7 is not able to install itself to a GPT partition and needs an Hybrid MBR. Bootcamp does this, but just for a Dual OS setup. So to make the magic happen in a multi OS environment, you'll have to do want bootcamp does, manually.
Step 1 : Download the OS X Recovery Disk Assistant from Apple and flash it to a USB stick. (http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1433)
Step 2 : Reboot, holding the option key (aka CMD, left of spacebar) down, to trigger the boot menu options. Start the usb drive with OS X recovery and enter the partition tool. Create 3 to 4 partitions, suiting your tastes. Just put windows partition first and I recommend to put the partition sharing data across OSes second, MacOS 3rd and Linux Last for example. MacOS and Linux are fine with pretty much every setup, Windows need the 1° usable partition.
Step 3 : Migrate your Macos using the same tool (google it for details) or Reinstall MacOS from the recovery partition. (more about migration here, but there are better tuto on this)
Step 4 : Start your MacOS and create a bootcamp USB stick with the bootcamp tool. You need an ISO from Win7 (or Win 8) and a drive of at least 4 GB. Bootcamp will most likely complain about the fact that it will not be able to install 7 due to the fact that you don't have only one partition, ignore and proceed to the Bootcamp USB stick setup.
Step 5 : Adding the USB3 support to your Win7 installation. Plug your newly created Win7 USB stick to a computer running Windows. In the sources directory, copy the boot.vim on your disk drive and add the drivers that Bootcamp added to your USB stick, in the $WinPEDriver$ directory and follow these instructions to add them to your boot.vim image. Follow carefully every step, it does works. Add the drivers you feel like, commit and copy back your boot.vim image, patched, to your USB stick, in the sources directory.
Step 6 : In your MacOSX, install the GPT fdisk partition tool. You just have to unzip the archive. Win7 is unable to install to a GPT disk, so you will have to create a (dirty) Hybrid MBR. From a terminal, launch GPT fdisk. Carefull here, the Win7 is most likely not the 1st but the 2nd or 3rd because there is an UEFI partition before. Just check before adding them if in doubt, by striking p. Then key in r then h then the number of the partitions you want to add to this hybrid MBR (the Win7 & the Shared one). Accept the type 07 for this partition and type y, n & finally w. (more details here for the fans)
Step 7 : Reboot, keep the CMD key down to trigger the boot option menu. Reboot on the USB stick, install Win7. If it doesn't understand the partition made for it, format it, if needed, from the 7 installer, delete and recreate it.
Step 8 : Install your favorite Linux distro with a USB stick generator. (see here & here). No complex part, except that Grub will most likely scratch your nice Hybrid MBR, rendering Win7 inaccessible. No problem, reboot in MacOS and redo step 6, this will revive your win7.
Step 9 : It's cosmetic but keeping CMD key down to boot is not so practical. ReFind does it just great. Setup is super easy, just kick install.sh from a shell in MacOS. Fine tune decoration and some stuffs later on from the config file.
Step 10 (optionnal) : You want it all, without switching between OSes? Having Windows app running within MacOS is easy, with most native hardware acceleration preserved, using Parallels desktop. It also works with a "simple" Bootcamp Windows setup.
Enjoy your mighty triple boot MBP.

Just ordered a Retina MacBook Pro11,2 (mid-2014 15", 2.2GHz Intel Core i7, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD, OSX 10.9.4 Pre-installed - Build 13E28) and have the exact same issue. The first thing I did when i booted it for the first time was enable FileValut2 and encrypt the disk. Though I failed to notice this behavior prior to encrypting the disk, the stuttering/lag happens without fail every time I have logged in from a cold boot, locked screen or sleep. Additionally I have noticed the same stuttering behavior when switching tabs on various built-in OSX applications such as the tabs on the About This Mac > More Info.... (System Information) dialog for example, and similarly other dialogs that experience this behavior of resizing when switching tabs. I was running no other software than About This Mac > More Info ... (System Information) and OSX 10.9.4 itself. The issue happens without fail with and without a USB mouse plugged in.
I am really glad to have found this thread and with such recent posts. I'd love to find out that this is just a software bug that will be fixed when OSX 10.10 "Yosemite" is released. If not, I hope the cause of this bug is determined soon so I can still exchange or have it repaired.
Migflono and Matthew, would you be able to post your hardware specs for comparison?

Triple Boot on 2012 MacBook Pro

Hey guys,
I'm trying to get a triple boot installation going on my macbook. I'm kinda stuck now so I had to reach out here for help.
Currently my macbook has 5 partitions.
sda1 = mac boot
sda2 = mac os
sda3 = mac recover
sda4 = partition I created with mac os disc utility for ArchLinux
sda5 = windows partition that was working created with bootcamp
I read over the wiki:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/MacBook
I created sda4, and originally I tried to create three more partitions out of sda4 using cgdisk. The extra partitions I created would never show up so I couldn't mount them... finally I just decided to mount and install /dev/sda4 without a boot or swap partition. I went through the installation as normal.
I also installed refit.
At this point I think i have arch successfully installed on sda4, I just can't boot to it. Refit doesn't recognize the linux partition, it sees the windows, but windows won't boot either, I can only boot to my mac osx parition.
What should I do at this point? what logs and command outputs do you guys need to help me get this working.
Last edited by brarch (2013-02-17 20:11:55)

HalosGhost wrote:Also, I'm not positive of this, but I think Macs can only boot to hfs(+) partitions, even with refit/find. I'm not positive of that, but I'm fairly sure that's the case.
No, you're mistaken on that. HFS+ does have some advantages (you can get boot loaders on HFS+ to show up in Apple's boot manager, for instance), but it's not a requirement.
The Windows boot problem is most likely a result of the fact that Windows requires a hybrid MBR entry, but chances are that entry has been lost and not re-created. Given the partition layout, you'll need to use gdisk to re-create this entry. See the gdisk documentation (to which I just linked) for details.
For Linux, a boot loader is required, and it's not at all clear what boot loader is installed, if any. It's possible to boot Linux on Macs in either BIOS mode or EFI mode. IMHO, EFI mode is superior if it's possible, but it poses problems on some models, so you may need to use BIOS mode. The details of how to get it working depend on which mode you use, and there are multiple boot loader options for each mode. It looks like the wiki covers both modes, with an emphasis on rEFIt and GRUB, but I've not read the whole thing. IMHO, rEFInd is superior to rEFIt, but I'm biased (I'm the one who forked rEFInd from rEFIt). If you install rEFInd and a filesystem driver for whatever filesystem you used for your Arch partition, you should be able to boot Arch directly from rEFInd. You'll need to adjust the boot parameters manually the first time you boot, though, and create a refind_linux.conf file to bypass that need on future boots.

When I try to boot my macbook pro the startup manager doesn't show any drives. How can I solve this issue?

when I try to boot my macbook pro the startup manager doesn't show any drives. How can I solve this issue?

Please confirm what version of OS X you are running - I doubt it is the ancient OS 10.1 !

Triple Boot Macbook

Hi,
Is there any way of triple booting my MBP? I already have 2 mac partitions (main Lion partition for general use and a smaller Snow Leopard partition for my music software). I am wanting to use Boot Camp to install Windows 7 and it just told me that i couldn't because it needs to be installed on a disk that is a single partition.
If i were to backup my SL partition with CCC and then erase it, then install Windows 7, could i then split my Lion partition and restore the SL partition that i previously had?
Thanks
mrmeister

I finally tried this today and i'm happy to report that i'm now posting this from my Windows 7 partition (although Iwon't really be using it for internet at all, just a few minor games), i can still use everything on Lion for day to day usage, and i was using Logic with all my plug-ins before.
Everything is working as it should be.
Just to go over what i did:
- I had my full drive as 2 partitions; Lion and Snow Leopard
- I used Carbon Copy Cloner (CCC) to make a complete backup of SL
- I then deleted the SL partition on my internal drive
- I installed Windows 7 using Boot Camp (I couldn't get it to download the Boot Camp 4 drivers however, the progress bar kept freezing at the same point, so i used my SL install DVD to install the Boot Camp 3 drivers, then used Apple Software Update to upgrade to version 3.3)
- Finally, I booted back into Lion, split the Lion partition using Disk Utility (one for Lion, one for SL), opened CCC and selected the SL backup as the source, and the new partition as the destination and chose the menu option "Restore items from a backup" to copy my SL partition exactly as it was
Now when I hold alt (option) at startup, I get a choice of 3 partitions to boot into; Lion, SL and Windows.
I hope this helps people trying to do the same as me
mrmeister

[SOLVED] arch wont boot after triple boot experiment

Hi,
I cannot boot into arch anymore after installing ubuntu to another partition on my hard drive.
I used grub to dual boot arch and windows, but i need to use ROS and there are no working packages for arch so i tried to install ubuntu on another partition and triple boot.
Somhow my arch got broken by the ubuntu setup.
Windows still boots fine.
I already chrooted (to arch) from a live cd and reinstalled grub and did
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
, after that ubuntu appeared in the grub selection menu but arch still wont boot.
Arch boot hangs after checking /dev/sda6 for errors (arch partition), i cannot type or ctrl+shift+fx to another terminal
Anybody has an idea what got broken by ubuntu and how i can repair arch?
thanks!
samy
Last edited by Samy (2013-09-09 11:27:09)

Hey so i chroot again following this artikle: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Change_Root
then i did
pacman -Syyu mkinitcpio linux udev
and restarted
I tried starting arch again and it seemed to still not work, this time i gave it some more time and it actually booted.
It took very long though (more then 3 minutes or so)
in journalctl if found those lines:
Sep 09 04:20:00 meanarchy kernel: USB Video Class driver (1.1.1)
Sep 09 04:21:25 meanarchy systemd[1]: Job dev-disk-by\x2duuid-12027d8a\x2dd4b0\x2d4559\x2daa1c\x2de3ea5ca8f5bb.device/start timed out.
Sep 09 04:21:25 meanarchy systemd[1]: Timed out waiting for device dev-disk-by\x2duuid-12027d8a\x2dd4b0\x2d4559\x2daa1c\x2de3ea5ca8f5bb.device.
Sep 09 04:21:25 meanarchy systemd[1]: Dependency failed for /dev/disk/by-uuid/12027d8a-d4b0-4559-aa1c-e3ea5ca8f5bb.
Sep 09 04:21:25 meanarchy systemd[1]: Starting Swap.
so it seems boot is searching for some disk device 1:25 minutes before it fails.
I think i know the reason: I resized the Partition of arch while installing ubuntu this changes the uuid of the partition, now something is waiting for this disk to become ready because it still has the old uuid written somwhere.
UUIDs really suck, they are not human readable and always have problems with them if i touch my partitions.
Last edited by Samy (2013-09-09 11:27:45)

Tutorial - How to triple boot OSX, Linux and Windows 8.1 with a shared Data Partition without any third party Win / OSX softwares

This is not a question, but rather a personal guide that has proved to be running successfully.
I would like to thank numerous sources, including Christopher Murphy's suggestions at:
Re: Repairing Boot Camp after creating new partition
Before proceeding, there are certain concepts needs to know:
Why Boot Camp does NOT allow further partitioning of drives after Windows has installed?
Answer: Because the way Apple configures the Mac to be recognized as non UEFI capable system on Windows.
Quote from Christopher Murphy based on the above line:
However, Windows on Macs right now use CSM-BIOS mode in Mac firmware that presents BIOS to Windows rather than EFI. Windows thinks it's on a BIOS computer, and therefore mandates the use of MBR for boot disks, rather than GPT. So that's why we have this hybrid MBR+GPT approach on Mac with Windows on it. You inherit the limitations of MBR, which is four primary partitions.
So what does it means?
It means that OSX + EFI + Recovery HD + Boot Camp partition = 4 primary partitions and thus any attempt to modify the disk will render booting issues of either system.
For more info on GPT (GUID Partition Table disks VS Master Boot Record or MBR in short, you may visit: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/hardware/dn640535%28v=vs.85%29.a spx)
So, how to overcome it?
The general guideline is to install ALL GPT ready OS first then create a Data partition, before installing Windows (Which is again, NOT supported GPT due to EFI configuration by Apple where end-users are not able to modify it).
Interestingly, since Mac Pro 2013 Late supports only Windows 8 and above, thus it is not known if this CSM-BIOS applies to it or not.
Do take note that GPT disks in Windows can only be booted when the system meets the 2 requirements:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/hardware/dn640535%28v=vs.85%29.a spx#gpt_faq_win7_boot
1) Windows x64 version (Which is a must for newer Macs. If you cannot go to Boot Camp 5, then you need Windows 7 x86 or 32bit version)
2) UEFI system. However, Windows sees all Macs (With the possibility of Mac Pro 2013 Late is an exception. To be determined) as BIOS, or rather NON-UEFI system.
In short, booting on GPT disks is not possible for Mac in Windows.
Summary,
It is tested that a combination of the following will not work:
- OSX + Windows + Linux
- Windows + OSX + Linux
- Windows + Linux + OSX
Usually it can create the system un-bootable or OSX refused to install due to the system does not recognize such partitions and / or Disk Utility refused to format a free space. An example screen-shot is provided below:
The error message is shown as
Title: "Failed to erase volume" Message: "Failed to wipe volume, as an error occurred: MediaKit has reported that the device does not have enough free space to execute the requested operations."
The second thing is about the preparations we need.
1) 1X Windows 7 or 8 DVD or USB thumbdrive
1A) If you uses a DVD to install, you will need another thumbdrive to load the BootCamp drivers for Windows as well as may requires an external DVD drive for newer Macs
2) 1X Linux DVD of your choice. Personally I choose Fedora 20.
So ready? Let's go.
1. Using Disk Utility, shrink the OSX's partition size to what is needed. For me, I give OSX 150GB. Do NOT create any new partition.
Disk Utility should see something like below whereby only OSX partition is left with desired disk space. The remaining space are to be unused disk space for the moment.
Note: Click on the top most item that should start with the size of your HDD / SSD. Then clicked on "Partition" and specify the desired OSX size. Hit "Apply" after that.
2: Download Boot Camp drivers only via Boot Camp Assistant. The USB thumbdrive shall be used later after Linux's installation.
Boot Camp Assistant should see this:
I have only selected "Download latest Windows Support Files from Apple"
3. Insert Linux DVD, reboot Mac into EFI mode (The left most first "EFI mode").
Note 1: Before rebooting, please plugged in an Ethernet adapter because Wi-Fi drivers is not installed.
Note 2: For Thunderbolt adapters, it must be plugged in before reboot as hot-swapping is not supported under Linux. More on the tips at the end of this article.
Note 3: Press and hold "Option" after the screen turns black. Release Option key after you see the image as below:

For the unfortunate part that did not make it on time to edit the images:
9. Install the Windows Support software from your CD/USB drive to gain full functionality of your computer. Reboot and go to Windows again.
Note 1: You may choose to eject disc at this point of time. For Apple SuperDrive users, you will need to wait until the drivers (i.e. Boot Camp support files) is installed and rebooted before ejecting is reasonably possible (As I failed to figured out how to right click without the drivers)
Note 2: Unlike Windows 7 on KBase article TS4599 Keyboard/trackpad inoperative, black screen, or alert messages when installing Windows 7, USB stick can be plugged in after the Windows installation is done. This is because Windows 7 (And probably Windows 7 with SP1 DVD) does not have a built in USB 3 drivers when it was released back in 2009 where USB3 has not arrived then.
Note 3: Due to TPM, Bitlocker is not supported without the use of thumbdrives.
10. Using Disk Management to determine the given drive letter for the DATA partition (DO NOT DELETE and RECREATE partition or else you can goodbye to booting Linux and OSX). Disk Management will not allow you to format it as exFAT / FAT32 in graphical way.
Note: You may remove or modify some of the disk letters in Disk Management. However, do NOT remove / modfify the drive letter for the partition with 200MB size in HFS. This is because it will disallow booting of Linux and neither could Windows nor OSX can do anything EXCEPT to reinstall Linux only.
11. Open Command Prompt in Administrator Mode (Important!!), and key in the following command:
format F: /FS:exFAT
Give this volume a label after it has successfully formatted before hitting "Enter" again.
Note: Mine Data partition was assigned as F drive. Please make necessary adjustment to "F:" should your Data partition is assigned to other letters.
12. After that, Setup your Data partition structure as you like.
Tip: Minimally create the important folders such as:
- Music
- Documents
- Movie (Videos)
- Downloads
- Pictures
All these folders are commonly used by the 3 OSes. I do NOT recommend changing of /home (OSX and / or Linux) and / or user home directory (Windows) either partially or as a whole.
This is because of compatibility issue.
On a side note, iTunes Media Library used in OSX and Windows are NOT able to be use interchangably due to hard-coded path used.
13. Useful troubleshooting in Fedora / Linux:
With references to these:
http://chaidarun.com/fedora-mbp
http://anderson.the-silvas.com/2014/02/14/fedora-20-on-a-macbook-pro-13-late-201 3-retina-display/
http://unencumberedbyfacts.com/2013/08/16/linux-on-a-macbook-pro-101/
I would like to highlight a few important points:
1) Wi-Fi driver:
http://rpmfusion.org/Configuration
Note 1: The sound driver should be installed at Out of Box Experience. However, the Wi-Fi is not.
Note 2: Install both free and non-free repository. By the way, some other software like VLC can only be found after the Free Repository is installed.
Search for "akmod-wl" in Gnome-Package-Installer in order to install Wi-Fi drivers
Note 3: For those who do not have Ethernet adapters and their Mac does NOT have a built-in Ethernet port, it is recommended to get one. This is because Fedora 20 does not have a good support for iPhone USB tethering. Unsure for Andriod / Blackberry / Windows Phone users.
2) Grub Menu:
It will show several options to boot into OSX, even of the capability to boot into x86 or x64 mode. However, neither of them is bootable except Linux and the rescue.
Hence, it is recommended to remove the items by hand in this file:
/boot/efi/EFI/fedora/grub.cfg
Command to be used:
"sudo gedit /boot/efi/EFI/fedora/grub.cfg"
Parts to be removed:
- For any extra kernels, delete the target entry by locating the line "menuentry" under "/etc/grub.d/10_linux" sector to one line above the next "menuentry".
It is recommended to keep one main kernel, and one recovery at the minimal.
- For other OS, delete all the entry (Since neither it can works) under "/etc/grub.d/30_os-prober" sector without removing the lines starts with ###.
Auto Mount exFAT partition:
- After installing extra packages for exFAT support (Since it is not supported by Fedora 20 from a default installation), you may wish to edit "/etc/fstab" in order to mount the exFAT partition during boot time.
Command to be used:
"sudo gedit /etc/fstab"
Add the following line in gedit:
UUID=702D-912D /run/media/Samuel/DATA exfat defaults 1 2
Note 1: For DATA partition, OSX & Boot Camp partition, Fedora defaults mounts under: "/run/medua/<Username with case sensitive>/<Partition Label Name>"
Note 2: UUID is unique ID. You can find out the UUID by:
Step 1: First determine the DATA partition number:
"sudo gdisk /dev/sda"
Step 2: Determine the UUID of this partition number:
"sudo blkid /dev/sda8"
Reference 1: http://manpages.courier-mta.org/htmlman5/fstab.5.html
Reference 2: http://liquidat.wordpress.com/2007/10/15/short-tip-get-uuid-of-hard-disks/
3) Overheating CPU
Solution is to issue the following command in Linux terminal: su -c "echo -n 1 > /sys/devices/system/cpu/intel_pstate/no_turbo"
4) System resumes immediately after suspend
Solution is to issue the following command in Linux terminal: su -c "echo XHC1 > /proc/acpi/wakeup"
5) What does not works well out of box:
- Both GNOME and KDE's fonts are too small to be readable for out of box experience. Additional configuration is a need. (Some of the info can be found on "More Tips" later)
- Thunderbolt hotplugging is NOT supported under Windows and Linux so far. Neither FaceTime HD camera works as well.
- The red light in Headphone jack is always on. I do not have luck in switching off the light without losing the sound.
Note 1: It is determined that the module "snd_hda_intel" is used by both cards (HDMI and normal output)
Note 2: It is also known that blacklisting it can switch off the redlight at the price of muting the system.
Note: Based on this article, http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1574
A Mac (Except Mac Pro) needs servicing when there is a red light while the system fails to detect internal speakers. However, this article does NOT applies to this issue.
5A) More Tips:
Install gnome-tweak-tool for more customization
Search for: "gnome-package" to install:
Install Gnome Package Installer for advanced package repository
Install Gnome Package Updater for advanced updates to be install (Whereby Fedora's App Store alike might not show the relevant updates)
14. Verify if disk is still GPT:
Use Gdisk to determine if the disk is pure GPT:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1742682
Command: sudo gdisk -l /dev/sda (The entire hard drive)
You should see the MBR is "Protective" instead of anything else.
15. Congrats, the system is ready for triple boot. (I forgot to eject my Windows DVD when the photo was taken)
Note 1: You cannot set the default startup disk in Linux due to the lack of Boot Camp Control Panel in Linux.
Neither is changing startup disk recommended in Windows due to the inability to display correctly.
For me, I click "Cancel" whenever I am on this tab (Feel free to make other Boot Camp adjustments in other tabs).
Only OSX I know that can show the startup disk options correctly.
Note 2: For some reason, OSX likes to auto mount the EFI partition everytime it boots up. It is not known to have any issue for ejecting other disks or mounting disks via Disk Utility.
Note 3: It is not determined if any Firmware or System upgrades will cause issues. It is only known that all 3 OS's regular updates should not be an issue.
System Updates excludes Mac OSX 10.9.3 updates to OSX 10.9.4 type as I had done it on a OSX 10.9.4 Mac or Windows 8.1 to Windows 8.1 Update 1 since my Windows DVD comes with Update 1.
System Upgrades refers to OSX Mavericks to Yosemite, Fedora 20 to Fedora 21, Windows 8.1 Update 1 to Windows 8.2 / Windows 9 for that matter.
Note 4: Reset SMC and / or PRAM will NOT affect your ability to boot any of the OS (OSX, Recovery HD, Fedora & Windows 8)
Yup, that is it!

[SOLVED] Triple Boot on Macbook 5,5 kills my arch install

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