Hello,

I'd like to try setting up a win-mac-linux multi boot system on my laptop. I have never set up a dual-boot or triple boot system. I've looked around and found a few tutorials, but most of them assume I already have knowledge of bootloaders and the linux command line etc. Or they are very out of date.

What I will be using:

Laptop: Everex Stepnote SA2052T (80GB hard drive)

OS's:
Windows 7
iATKOS v7
Kubuntu 9.04

Here's my process so far.

First I used a utility from the Ultimate Boot CD to partition the drive as best I could. It has an 80GB hard drive, so I partitioned it into 3 20 GB partitions for each of the OS's, leaving the remaining 20 GB for shared storage.

Then I installed Windows 7 to the first partition. Everything went smoothly. In disk management, the partitions all showed correctly.

Next I went to install Kubuntu, but it didn't recognize that there was a partition table on the drive at all, so I aborted that.

I then booted up iATKOS, it also didn't see any partition table. I decided to go ahead with the installation. Using the iATKOS Disk Utility, I partitioned the drive out again in the same way, except I put Mac OS on the first partition this time. Installation went smoothly. However, upon trying to boot into Mac OS, it would show the Apple logo and the little Apple version of the hourglass, and just hang there.

So I decided to go ahead and install Kubuntu. I set up the FAT32 partition I had set aside for Kubuntu and installed. Kubuntu starts up perfectly well, but the GRUB bootloader only shows Kubuntu, no Mac OS.


I'd like the end result of this experiment to be a collaborative tutorial. If anyone has any advice or can point me towards a helpful tut, I'll let you know my results.

Hi, try this, it worked for me
Use gparted in linux(dont install the Os just use the live cd) to create the required partitions. 1 ntfs, 2 fat32.
install windows first on Ntfs then make 1 partition active.
install OSx second on the active partition.
reload the windows mbr using the windows install disk, in windows download EasyBCD and create a boot file for Osx. check that you can boot in and out of Osx and windows.
Install Kubuntu on final partition.
Linux grub will show various boot options one being windows if you click that it then will give you the option to boot either windows or Osx.

Raz

I think you should decide first what you want to use as a boot manager, Windows bootmgr, Chameleon/PCEFI or GRUB (or something else)?
I would partition the drive using Parted Magic or similar, you should be able to create all kinds of partitions including HFS+ partitions with recent versions, though OS X may not like them, you would just need to reformat them with Disk Utility.
Then install all the OS just leaving the one whose Boot Manager you are going to use to multiboot for the last. Marking the target partition as active before each one is usually advisable to avoid installers messing up with your other partitions but I think its not really required in your case.
If you are going to use GRUB to multiboot make sure you install it to the drive's MBR, if you are not, just install it to the Partition's bootsector.

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AsRock P45TS | C2D E8200 | GeForce 8600GTS
Mac OS X Snow Leopard 10.6.1 + Windows 7 Ultimate 6.1.7600 + Fedora 11

There's a weird hardware problem with this particular laptop and a couple others that causes the system to freeze when Linux tries to load the sdhci modules, so they have to be blacklisted before Linux will load. I'm not sure how to customize the ISO of GParted or Parted Magic to do this before burning it.

I think Chameleon would be the preferred bootloader, unless there's something shinier.

Also, is there good resource for drivers for laptops when installing OS X? I was able to get it running, but the trackpad among other bits of the laptop don't work.