Adding dual boot after install?

[guddler]

Hi all,

I've just "successfully" set up my system on a Gigabyte EP35-DS4 and everything is running pretty smoothly (I have 1 problem but I'll post about that another time). I really, really can't suss out the dual boot with Vista though.

I have two hard drives, both SATA, with AHCI enabled in the BIOS. I've tried this with OS X as disk 0 and Vista and disk 1, and the other way round, it doesn't seem to make much difference.

I used iPC for my install and I more or less did a vanilla install so I didn't pick any kind of bootloader during install apart from what it put in by default. I've copied the chain0 file over to the root of C: on Vista but that method just completely fails with the "Chain boot error" message.

The best I managed so far was to use EasyBCD to add their method (NeoGrub + some other thing), but even that required you to hit a key and change the default disk from 80 to 81 in order to boot OS X.

I need this foolproof so other members of the family can use it.

Is there anything else I can do to add some kind of bootloader without reloading either OS X or Vista? Certainly reloading Vista is not an option as it's got all my games on it.

I think the problem may be that the Vista disk is MBR and the OS X disk is GUID? Basically disk utility wouldn't let me format the OS X drive as MBR, and using iPartition to change the type of the Vista disk to GUID didn't work either so I changed it back and recovered the MBR.

I'm not at all clear on how I might install Chameleon, for instance without getting into OS re-installs.

Any help appreciated.

Ta,
Martin.

[nagu]

I am using Dual Boot Vista and Osx without any problems.
Try reading this guide. It has tons of info and I personlly feel the best guide out there
http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=39253

Since you have already installed both, only focus on the section explaining boot loader

Setting up with BCDedit is the easy. I havent figured out the graphical way of doing it(ie. easybcd)

You might need to copy chain0 from OSx to your Vista root. and rest is explained in the guide wonderfully.

[guddler]

Thanks nagu.

I'll admit I've not got too much time right now, but I've had a read through that and it's not telling me anything there that I haven't already tried.

I'm a little confused as to what I should be able to expect and what I shouldn't.

Should both my hard drives appear at the Darwin boot prompt? Currently only disk0s2 (my OS X) drive/partition is listed. I've tried using fdisk -e to make my Vista partition active (disk1s1), but it still doesn't list it. Should it?

It would be nice if the Darwin bootloader is all I need :)

I did also previously try copying chain0 over to the root of the vista partition and then editing the Vista boot menu but that didn't work either, failing with the chain boot error message. I did have the drives physically plugged in the other way round then though (OSX was 1, Vista was 0). It's currently OSX=0, Vista=1 and OS X is the OS that boots.

[nagu]

Assuming you have copied chain0. try this cmd prompt in vista.

bcdedit /copy {current} /d “Mac OS X”
Copies information from Vista to use as basis for Mac OS X Boot Loader

bcdedit /enum active
Enumerates the selectable OS' from Vista's Boot Loader

bcdedit /set {YOUR-GUID-HERE} PATH \chain0
Replace {YOUR-GUID-HERE} with the ID that is listed for Mac OS X under the enumerated list

tell me for each step what output you get.

Once you have done this sucessfully, u can arrange the order using easyBCD.

I assume that your primary OS is going to be Vista. So the best option is use Vista menu itself.

[guddler]

Hi Nagu,

Currently, no, my primary OS is OS X, not Vista. When I originally posted, my HDDs were the other way round, so Vista was the main boot and I have tried the method you're posting, many times. Even before going off and searching for help! The Vista boot menu part, the whole BCD bit works perfectly without errors, so there's no point telling you what it says after each step. It works! The bit that doesn't work is when chain0 tries to pick up the boot process, it fails to find the OS X drive and just sits there with "Chain boot error".

Ok, so that was then. Things have been swapped around here a little since my Mrs is not familiar with Vista so I made OS X the default disk.

2 HDDs, both SATA in AHCI mode
Disk 0: GPT Partition scheme
OS X on rdisk0s2

Disk 1: MBR Partition scheme
Vista on rdisk1s1

OS X Boots to Darwin prompt, the only option available is rdisk{0,2} (OSX).

I'm kind of stumped as to how come this is proving so difficult, but it certainly is!!

Martin.

[guddler]

Still haven't been able to resolve this. Has anyone else got any suggestions, or do I have to just sit tight and wait for the next release of EasyBCD that will allegedly incorporate a fix at their end?