Muubook Project | Dual-boot 3 Partitions : Mac OS X Leopard + Windows XP + shared NTFS on Macbook Pro

I copy this from my old blog. This configuration still works nicely. The only change is now I change the shared drive from NTFS to FAT. It works much smoother. The instructions are the same except that you can skip those NTFS-3g and Macfuse and you don’t have to convert FAT drive to NTFS in step 4.6. However, I still keep NTFS-3g and Macfuse so I can read/write the Windows partition in OS X.

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This is my first time that I have an Apple computer and have to play with OS X. However, I still want to have Windows XP on the same machine. As you may know, OS X 10.5 or “Leopard” supports having Windows on the same machine using feature called “bootcamp”.

Nevertheless, my goal is to have 3 partition on this machine.
Goals
1) Mac OS X partition (HFS+)
2) Storage partition (NTFS) so I can keep my pictures, music or whatever in this drive
3) Windows partition (NTFS)

Challenges
1) Windows cannot read HFS+
>> I have to install a tool called Macdrive. It works!
2) Mac can read NTFS but cannot write.
>> Install latest version of Macfuse-Core and NTFS-3g will fix this. You will be able to read and write NTFS volume from OS X.
Macfuse-core : http://code.google.com/p/macfuse/
(I used MacFUSE-Core-10.5-1.1.1.dmg)
NTFS-3g : http://mac.softpedia.com/get/System-Utilities/NTFS-3G.shtml
3) Bootcamp supports only 2 partition, Mac and Windows.
>> This is the hardest part. It took me 2 days with 3 Windows installations until I can get what I want.

This is conclusion from all of my trial and errors about how to do it.

Read this first

I tried this on Macbook Pro 15″ with Intel Core2duo using Mac OS X 10.5 “Leopard” and Windows XP Professional.

By using this method. You can normally restart in Mac OS X from Windows by right-click on boot camp menu and “Restart in Mac OS X”. However, when you open “Startup Disk” on Mac to choose to boot from Windows, you will NOT see the Windows there. Don’t worry. You can still boot from Windows by pressing “option” key (The key on the left of left Apple button) while the machine reboot to open boot menu. You can select Windows from there.

My suggestion is to install RefIt (http://refit.sourceforge.net/), which will give a nice boot menu when the machine starts

Instructions

  1. Install Leopard
    1. Install Mac OS X Leopard.
    2. Install Macfuse and NTFS-3g
  2. Partition
    1. Run bootcamp to create Windows partition but when it ask you to insert Windows CD and press the button. Don’t do it. Exit the program.
    2. Run Disk utility (see Appendix below)
    3. Click on the harddisk.
    4. Click on “First Aid”
    5. Verify and repair your Leopard partition first.
    6. Click on “Partition”
    7. Resize Leopard partition. You can drag the bar to resize it
    8. Make new Mac partition in the middle by pressing “+” to add new partition and select its type to be Mac OS Extended (Journaled) (The one on the top).**It must now be a Mac partition and we will convert it to FAT in the end otherwise you will not be able to install Windows completely.
    9. Here are what I have (top to bottom in this order)
      • Macintosh HD (HFS+) 31GB
      • Storage HD (HFS+) 80 GB (Approx.)
      • Windows HD (FAT32) 31GB
  3. Install Windows
    1. Quit disk utility
    2. Quit Mac OS X installation.
    3. Reboot in OS X.
    4. Remove OS X CD
    5. Insert Windows CD
    6. Restart and hold “C” key
    7. Wait for a while you might see “Press any key to boot from CD..” so Press any key (Last time I got pass this step into setup automatically)
    8. Then wait for setup to initialize.
    9. After enter Windows setup, select the 31 GB partition. and try to install Windows on that partition. If it ask you to format it or not, you MUST format it no matter you want to use FAT32 or NTFS for your windows drive.
    10. Wait for Windows setup to format and copy files. It will reboot when finish.
    11. Finish the rest of Windows setup. (You will have to boot into the Windows partition to do so. If you do not boot into it by default, you can either press alt when the machine start to select the Windows partition or select Windows partition as startup disk within OS X and restart)
    12. When you are in Windows, insert OS X cd and run bootcamp setup to install drivers.
    13. Install Macdrive
  4. Convert Mac partition in the middle to NTFS
    1. Run Disk Utility
    2. Erase that Mac partition to FAT partition
    3. Restart in Windows
    4. Look in my computer. You should see the main Windows drive and another FAT32 drive. Remember its drive letter.
    5. Run command line.
    6. type “convert X: /fs:ntfs” and enter (Replace “X” with your drive letter)
  5. Enjoy!

Appendix

How to run Disk utility

  1. Insert your OS X cd into CD drive
  2. Restart and press “C” while booting.
  3. You’ll enter Mac OS X setup screen.
  4. Choose language
  5. Look on the top menu bar. Click on utilities>>Disk utilities

Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)

11 Comments

  1. Some notice after used for a while.
    - It is a little slow to write to NTFS volume (in OS X)
    - Sometimes the computer stop running while playing music with FrontRow and when reboot in OS X, it found the NTFS drive but nothing is inside. I have never found it directly at the time when it crash. I just come back from doing something else and found a black, blank screen so I reboot. The problem may happen because mistake in writing or reading files which make NTFS file system error. The solution is not hard. Just boot it in Windows. Scandisk will be called to fix the drive automatically. After that, it will come back to use again.

    However, I just hope it will not crash too often. It is boring to restart and wait for Scandisk to fix it. I hope Apple will release NTFS support soon.

  2. elixirk,

    I wasted my last 2 weekends trying to do this until I found your article!
    Worked like a charm! Thank you very much! My life is a better place now! hehehe

    Just for the note (and future readers):

    I used WinClone (under Leopard) after installing Windows XP thorugh normal bootcamp process. The goal was if I managed to F*** everything up, I would have at least an WinXP image and restoring is wayyy faster them installing it all over again. Just don’t forget when you are creating the image with WinClone to “shrink” the WinXP partiton. There are plenty os tutorials out there to help on using WinClone (by the way, it’s free).

    PS1: Soo, I followed everytinh ecxept the itens (installins Leopard, mine was already installed) and installing WinXP (used image from WinClone)

    PS2: Everytime this tutorial refers to DiskUtility we HAVE to boot from Mac CD1, otherwise partition creatiton (especially the data partition will take forever…..)

    PS3: Did not used RefIt (just for option) and I manage to swap between OSs holding down option button after restarting my MacBook.

    One more time, thank you very much!

  3. Rafael,

    Thanks for the notes. I am glad this article can help you.

  4. elixirk,

    You have freed me from a world of pain! I had spent MANY hours trying to get this working prior to finding your solution. It now works perfectly.

    Thanks Mate.

    Dave

  5. Your method worked where others had failed.

    However, there is one important detail missing from your guide: when you in the Windows XP installer in Step 9, and choosing the partition format for the soon-to-be Windows OS partition, DO NOT choose the “convert to NTFS” option (if that is your desired format for the boot partition). It generated a Disk Error when I rebooted to Windows after the OS installation.

    I retried with the “format this drive as NTFS (Quick)” and everything worked well after that.

    I now have

    HFS + (Mac OS)
    FAT32 (Data)
    NTFS (Windows XP Professional)

    Reminder for some readers that the Windows XP installer cannot format FAT-32 partitions larger than 32GB; you’ll have to use NTFS.

  6. Nicholas,

    What I meant in step 9 is to always format the drive within Windows setup. I didn’t notice the convert to NTFS option before. Sorry if this confused you and thank you for adding your comment.

  7. It should be noted that you can format the data partition in OS x as FAT32 and just leave it like that. This way both OS’s can read and write to it without additional software.
    It should also be noted that you cannot run Win XP 64bit or Vista 64bit on a Mac.

    Thanks for the article BTW, it worked perfectly

  8. Ah! I am so glad I found this! Have been trying for the last few days to restore a windows vista partition on a 2006 Imac after replacing the HD, don’t know if it will work yet but am transferring old Leopard (and contents of the mac partition) now. When it finishes I will try using bootcam and my Winclone file (Thanks Rafael Bianco for the tip) and see if I can just restore from that. Seams like it should work. Thanks again!

  9. Thank you everybody for your comments. You guys are helping this article better and better.

  10. Just used this to dual boot os x and windows 7 with success. You’re amazing.

  11. Hi, I am doing this again with my new machine and realize that too. It does not matter. You can restart in OS X and change the CD and then boot from CD later. There is no need to switch the CD while in Mac OS X installation. I can’t remember why I can do that when I wrote this blog.


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  1. By MacBook - Partitions, Bootcamp, and my new 320GB HD - Mac-Forums.com on 17 Dec 2008 at 3:27 am

    [...] tried the following instructions: Muubook Project | Dual-boot 3 Partitions : Mac OS X Leopard + Windows XP + shared NTFS on Macbook Pr… However, I cannot get past the part where you have to eject the CD while in Leopard install. It [...]

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