Triple Boot Windows 7, Mac OS X Snow Leopard & Ubuntu 10.04

Hey Floppers and welcome back to Big Floppy Donkey Disk!

Today I'm going to share with you all my most recent adventure into the realms of multi-booting operation systems.

Why would I want to triple boot Windows, Mac OS X and Ubuntu?

Well...

Windows
Windows has been my OS of choice for most of my life; it's flexibility, compatibility and gaming capabilities are excellent. Whether you like Microsoft or not, it is the dominant OS so you're probably going to need to use it.

Ubuntu
Ubuntu is the up-and-coming giant-killer of the Linux world. Being Linux, it is free, incredibly fast (loads instantly), secure and open to customization. Ubuntu itself has an incredibly helpful online community (see http://ubuntuforums.org/), dream-like package management (every application on your computer can be upgraded with the click of a button) and a user interface that I personally find easier to navigate than Mac OS X (although I am still at early stages with both OSes). And seriously, compared to other Linux distros I've tried, everything just seems to work in Ubuntu.

OS X
I've never been a Mac fanboy, in fact I've spent a lot of my uni life paying out on them. However, with the arrival of the iPhone/iPad, and the draconian restrictions on the Apple Developer Program, I've realised I'm going to have to suck it up and learn how to code Steve Jobs-style if I want to make some money on the smartphone market. Hence, I'm finally installing Mac OS X and am ready to be blown away by its style, user friendliness, security, Steve Jobs' sexy turtle-neck, etc. etc.

Why not just use wubi?

Two reasons: because wubi loads Ubuntu directly from the Windows partition, instead of its own filesystem, Ubuntu will run slower through wubi than via a side-by-side installation. Furthermore, I was unable to get wubi to install Ubuntu successfully on my dual-booted Windows 7/Snow Leopard machine. I believe it may have been to do with 64-bit Windows 7.

Okay, down to business...

Notes before we start

• This guide is for Intel-based multi core processors, specifically I'm using a HP dv5 laptop Core2Duo, but it should work with i3/5/7 (see comments below this post). The operating systems we're installing are Windows 7 Professional (64-bit), Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard and Ubuntu 10.04 Desktop Edition.
• I can't garuantee that this will work with anything else, but you can always try and post your results. More results = better guides = less heartache and pain for other fledgling developers.

Guides that I used

• tonymacx86's guides Dual Boot Windows 7 and OS X Snow Leopard Using Chameleon and iBoot + MultiBeast: Install Mac OS X on any Intel-based PC
• Kyle's guide Dual Booting Windows 7 and Snow Leopard on a HP dv5 Laptop
• charlesh1609's post on Ubuntu Forums, Triple Boot: Ubuntu 9.10, Win 7, OSX

My hardware specs

Model	hp dv5-1138tx
CPU	2.26 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Processor P8400
Memory	2gb
Graphics	NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT 512mb
Hard Drive	250 GB (5400 rpm)
Network	Integrated 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet LAN
Wireless	Intel WiFi Link 5100

Things you'll need

• Windows 7 Professional (64-bit) Install DVD
• Mac OS X Snow Leopard Boot Camp DVD, only $39 from the Apple Store
• Ubuntu 10.04 (amd64) Desktop Edition + blank CD to burn it to, only $0 from all the generous developers around the world
• In order to boot the Mac OS X Retail DVD, you'll need to download and burn one of the 3 versions of iBoot.  The most universal solution is iBoot NVIDIA. iBoot ATI adds drivers to support more ATI graphics cards. Or if you have a supported processor, such as the Core/Core2, or a new i3/i5 dual core, try iBoot Supported- with Vanilla kernel. For more info (and some experimental iBoot versions, such as support for Intel GMA HD) go to tonymacx86's iBoot Wiki page.
  
  
   
  
• MultiBeast (download) - Used to install additional kexts after Snow Leopard installation
• Mac OS X 10.6.4 Combo Update (download) - Used to upgrade Snow Leopard to latest version
• Put MultiBeast and the Combo Update onto a USB drive or a blank CD so you can load them later, as you may not have an internet connection.
  
• This process takes 3-5 hours, depending on whether you encounter any hiccups along the way. Be Patient!

Phase One: Partitioning & Formatting

1. BACK UP ALL IMPORTANT DATA ON YOUR COMPUTER! You will have to erase your hard drive completely in this process.
2. Turn your computer on and put the iBoot CD in. Make sure your computer is booting from the CD/DVD drive before the hard drive (if it isn't, go into the BIOS settings at start up, by pressing ESC or whatever is prompted, and edit the Boot Order so that the CD/DVD drive is above the hard drive). When loading from iBoot, the Chameleon boot screen should load:
   
3. Note: There may be more icons on the screen than this, indicating existing OSes. However this CD icon is the one we are interested in.
   
4. Remove the iBoot CD from your drive and put in the Snow Leopard Boot Camp DVD, then hit f5. If any errors pop up, don't worry; just wait for the DVD to load. The screen should eventually refresh with the following:
   
5. Choose the Mac OS X Install DVD and hit enter.
6. The Snow Leopard install screen should appear. Alternatively, you may get a screen asking you to turn your computer off then on again. If this occurs, repeat steps 2 - 4 until you get the Snow Leopard install screen. If it repeatedly doesn't work, try typing -x  and hitting enter when you get the Mac OS X Install DVD icon; this will start the install in safe mode. Alternatively, if this still doesn't work, type -v at the Mac OS X Install DVD icon screen and hit enter, to load verbose mode, and paste your details in a comment below so that I (or someone) can help you.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
7. Select your language and click the next arrow.
8. When the OS is loaded, select Utilities -> Disk Utility.
   
   
9. Select the hard drive you want to install your triple boot on from the left-hand menu, then select the Partition tab on the right panel.
   
   
Note: Under the Volume Scheme heading, there should be one partition at the moment (assuming you haven't partitioned the drive already). For my purposes, I wish to create a separate logical partition for shared storage, which we will use in a later guide, so I will create four partitions all up; one for each OS, and one for storage. If you do not wish to create a partition for shared storage, you only need three partitions all up. My hard drive was 250GB, so I split the partitions like so: Snow Leopard - 40GB, Windows 7 - 80GB, Ubuntu - 30GB, Storage - 99.72GB (a bit of space is used up by gaps between partitions). You can choose your own sizes, but I would not recommend OS X or Windows having less than 20GB each, or Ubuntu less than 10GB.
10th Aug 2010, Update: If you want the Storage partition to be accessible in Windows, you must make sure it is adjacent to the Windows partition (since Windows is MBR and that only allows four visible partitions). So the partitions should go 1. Snow Leopard 2. Windows 3. Storage 4. Linux. Note that the screenshots below are in the wrong order; ie. they list the partitions in order 1. Snow Leopard 2. Windows 3. Ubuntu 4. Storage. My apologies for the confusion!
10. Select the first partition and press the '+' symbol down the bottom left to split this partition into two.
11. Select the new partition and press the '+' again, select the new partition and (if you want a logical storage drive) press the '+' once more. You should now have four separate partitions.
12. Re-select the first partition, name it Snow Leopard, and select Mac OS Extended (Journaled) under Format, and type 40 (or whatever size you choose) for Size.
    
    
13. Select the second partition, name: Windows 7, format: MSDOS(FAT), size: 80.
    
    
14. Select the third partition, name: Storage, format: MSDOS(FAT), size: variable (whatever you don't want to use for Ubuntu).
    
15. Select the fourth partition, name: Ubuntu, format: MSDOS(FAT), size: 30.
    
    
16. Click the Options button and select GUID Partition Table, then click OK.
17. Click Apply, then Partition.
18. When the partition has finished, close the Disk Utility window.

Phase Two: Installing Snow Leopard

1. When the Snow Leopard install screen reappears, select Continue.
2. Agree to the Terms and Conditions.
3. When asked which partition you wish to install to, select Snow Leopard.
   
   
4. Select Customize.
5. In the Customize window, de-select everything except the Printers Used by This Mac option. This will speed up the install process.
   
   
6. Select OK, then select Install. The install took about 19 minutes for me.
7. When the installation finishes, select Restart, or let the computer restart automatically.
8. As soon as the computer starts loading up again, put the iBoot CD into the disc drive.
9. The Chameleon boot screen should now appear with the iBoot CD, the Snow Leopard installation and the other three partitions you created.
   
   
10. Select Snow Leopard and hit enter. The funky Mac OS X Welcome Video will pop up and show just how hip and with-it Steve Jobs is.
11. Select your country, keyboard layout, internet connection options, contact details, password, time & date, etc.
    
    Note: At this point in time, there doesn't appear to be any wifi drivers for a hp dv5 hackintosh, so you'll need an ethernet connection (network cable) to connect directly to your router.
    
    
12. After you've been through all the set-up steps, the desktop should load. It may ask you to set up Time Machine with one of your other partitions. Select Decide Later.
13. Now we will update the operating system and install relevant drivers. Insert the CD or USB with the Combo Upgrade and MultiBeast on it.
    
    Note: In OS X, you eject CDs by pressing the little eject icon up the top right of the desktop.
    
    
14. A CD/USB icon should appear on your desktop, double-click it to open up its contents and drag the MultiBeast and Combo Upgrade files to the desktop for easier use.
15. Open MultiBeast. Don't start installing it yet, just leave the screen open. If it closes unexpectedly, just keep reopening it until it stays open.
16. Double-click MacOSXUpdCombo10.6.4.dmg to mount the disc image and double-click MacOSXUpdCombo10.6.4.pkg to install the update.
    
    
17. Follow the installation steps, however do not restart your computer when it finishes.
18. Switch to the MultiBeast installation and select Continue. Follow the prompts.
    
    Note: When it comes to choosing packages for the custom install of MultiBeast, it varies depending on your machine. You can read about MultiBeast setups on tonymacx86's blog, as he is the author of this software. Personally, I used the exact configuration from the screen shots of Step 5 - Upgrading and Multibeast on Kyle's guide Dual Booting Windows 7 and Snow Leopard on a HP dv5 Laptop.
    
    
19. a) Once MultiBeast is finished installing, restart your computer with the iBoot CD in the disc drive. Confirm that Snow Leopard still loads successfully.
    b) Alternatively, you can also install Chameleon, the bootloader we have been using, to your Snow Leopard partition so that you don't need to use the iBoot CD any more. If you wish to do this, refer to Step 6 - Installing Chameleon of Kyle's guide for instructions on how to install Chameleon onto your OS X drive manually. Personally I didn't do this step, as later we will be installing the Grub bootloader over it anyway.
    
    Note: If you have any problems with the installation, you can follow tonymacx86's guide iBoot + MultiBeast: Install Mac OS X on any Intel-based PC from Step 2: Install Mac OS X, number 14. onwards. Alternatively, you can post in the InsanelyMac forums for help, or post a comment here and I'll try and help.

Phase Three: Installing Windows 7

1. Restart your computer with the Windows 7 Install DVD in the disc drive. If you get a screen like the one below, type the number 0, then press any key to boot from the DVD.
2. When the installation screen loads, follow the prompts, selecting language, keyboard, etc.
3. At Which type of installation do you want?, choose Custom (advanced).
4. At Where do you want to install Windows?, select the Windows 7 partition (it should be Partition 3.
5. Select Drive options (advanced).
6. Select Format.
7. Select OK.
8. Select Next.
   
   
9. After the initial install process, the computer will reboot. Remove the Windows Install DVD from the disc drive and when the installation loads again, follow the prompts (name, password, product key, etc.).
   
   
Note: The Windows installation will take a while and may restart the computer a few times, just wait it out and when the desktop finally loads you'll know it's done.

Phase Four: Installing Ubuntu

This is where things get interesting. If you restart the computer, you'll notice that Windows loads up but completely ignores your Mac OS X installation. This is because Windows has overwritten Chameleon with its own, rather self-centred bootloader that ignores all other OSes. It will also ignore all other logical partitions, except the Storage partition. This is why we install Ubuntu last, because Grub, its bootloader, is far more considerate, acknowledging other operating systems on your computer.

However, because Windows installs using an MBR partition table, and Ubuntu uses a GPT partition table, Grub will not be able to load Windows; instead, when you attempt to load Windows, you'll get the following error message (which plagued me for hours!!):

To fix this, you must install gptsync, a Linux tool that synchronizes MBR partition tables with GPT partition tables, and hence allows Windows to load from the Grub bootloader.

For more information regarding gptsync, see its man page, or the author's main project page rEFIt.

On to the steps...

1. Put the Ubuntu Install DVD in the disc drive and restart the computer.
2. After the Ubuntu installation screen appears, select Install Ubuntu 10.04 LTS.
   
   
3. Follow the prompts until you reach the Prepare disk space step. Select Specify partitions manually (advanced).
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
4. Select the Ubuntu partition. It should have /dev/sda4 under the Device heading, fat32 under the Type heading and 29999MB under the Size heading (assuming you allocated 30GB for this partition).
   
   
5. Select Delete. Under Device, it should now read free space.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   Note: Now we want to partition the drive into three parts: a swap area, which should roughly be double your memory (however 2GB is usually fine), a root drive /, from which the Ubuntu OS and applications load, and a home drive /home, where all personal data is stored. For this guide, I chose to make my swap area 2GB, my root drive 16GB and my home drive 12GB. You can select any sizes you want, however I wouldn't recommend making the root drive less than 10GB (although technically it can go down to 5GB).
   
   For more information on how to manually allocate Ubuntu partitions, see Manual disk partitioning guide for Linux Mint 9 and Ubuntu 10.04 on LinuxBSDos.com.
   
   
6. Still selecting this free space partition, select Add.
7. For New partition size in megabytes, type 2000. For Use as:, select swap area.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
8. Click OK. Notice the new drive of type swap has been created.
9. Select the free space partition and select Add again.
10. This time, Size: 16000, Use as: Ext4 journaling file system and for Mount point: select /
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
11. Click OK.
12. Again, select the free space partition and select Add.
13. Make this one Size: 11999, Use as: Ext4 journaling file system, Mount point: /home.
    
    
14. Click OK. Now the whole 30GB should be used up and there should be three new partitions for your Ubuntu install (plus a little free space to separate the partitions).
    
    
15. Select Forward.
16. Enter your name, login, password, etc. and select Forward.
17. Don't bother migrating any settings, as you just installed Windows anyway. Just select Forward.
18. Select Install. Now Ubuntu will explain why it is so amazing to you as it installs itself. This should take roughly 15 minutes.
19. Once the Ubuntu installation is complete, it will automatically remove the Ubuntu Install DVD from the disc drive and restart the computer. If it doesn't, just do it manually (ie. remove the disc and hold down the power button).
20. The computer should now load the Grub bootloader.
    
    Note: The Grub bootloader will load Ubuntu automatically after about 8 seconds if no other OS is selected. If you want to change this, I suggest you google the grub command in Linux.
    
    
21. Now we are going to download gptsync using Linux's Advanced Packaging Tool, or APT. If you're unfamiliar with this process, I'll go through it step by step. For those familiar with Ubuntu or Linux OSes, or those seeking further information on downloading the package, go to the gptsync download page.
22. Load Ubuntu and make sure you are connected to the internet. You can connect to WiFi by clicking on the icon on the top right of the desktop.
    
    
23. Once you are connected, go to Applications -> Accessories -> Terminal.
    
    
24. Type sudo vi /etc/apt/sources.list and hit enter. You will be asked for your administrator (login) password to continue. This will load the list of sources for the package updater in the text editor vi so that we can add a new source.
25. Scroll down to the bottom of the file using page down or simply by pressing the down arrow. When you reach the end of the file, press the letter o. This will open the edit mode on a new line.
26. Type deb http://ftp.iinet.net.au/debian/debian sid main
    
    
Note: If you are not in Australia, you are better off replacing the ftp.iinet.net.au/debian/debian part with one of the sources listed on the download page.
27. Press ESC. This will exit edit mode.
28. Type :wq and hit enter. This will save the file and exit the text editor. If you make a mistake, you can exit without saving by typing :q!.
29. Now we want to actually install gptsync. Type sudo apt-get install gptsync and hit enter. Install commands should pop up and (hopefully) it should install successfully.
    
    
30. Type sudo gptsync /dev/sda and hit enter. You will receive a message to update partitions from MBR to GPT. Type y and hit enter.
    
    
31. Restart the computer with no disc in the disc drive. Confirm that both Windows 7 and Mac OS X successfully load. If they don't, post a comment on here and I'll try and help.

Conclusion

I hope this helps you to achieve that elusive goal of triple happiness.

Good Luck and remember the key P's of a programmer:

1. Pursue all possible solutions to your problem. Google is the developer's best friend.
2. Post in forums, or here, if you can't find a solution.
3. Don't Panic. Patience and persistence will triumph in the end.

How's that for some funkyzeit alliteration?

Floppy Fran out.