• Mac OS X Leopard
  • Windows Vista
  • Ubuntu Linux
  • Windows XP

Quad boot Macbook

HOW-TO: Installing OSX Leopard, Windows Vista, Windows XP and Linux Ubuntu on a Macbook

Updated: Now also triple boot without Vista

1) You will need a format and repartition of the whole disk, so time machine your previous data.

2) Insert OSX Leopard (also Tiger works) Install DVD. Reboot the macbook pressing the C key (so it will boot from DVD). From the "Utilities Menu" window menu select "Disk Utility". From "Volume Scheme" tab, select 5 partitions and use this schema:

0 EFI protected (which is invisible under Disk Utility)
1 Name: VISTA Format: MS-DOS File System <--create this partition *even* if you don't plan to install Vista, XP partition *must* be the 4th one to avoid missing hal.dll trouble!
2 Name: STORAGE Format: MS-DOS File System
3 Name: XP Format: MS-DOS File System
4 Name: OSX Format: Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
5 - Format: Free Space (Linux partitions will be created here later)
Every partition will host its OS. The (optional, but very advidsed) STORAGE partition will be formatted in FAT32 to share files between the four OSes. If you are installing a brand new hard disk, check boot loader type as "GUID Partition Table (GPT)" (remove MBR default or you will not be able to install OS X). Then click the "Partition" button, and all your data on disk will be destroyed.
Now you can close "Disk Utility", and start install OS X to volume "OSX". After reboot into OS X, hou have to install rEFIt boot loader (download it from refit.sourceforge.net) into volume "OSX".

Update: If you have installed "MacBook EFI Firmware Update 1.1" (available via Apple Software Updater) installing rEFIt is no more compulsory if you plan to install linux after on your macbook. This update will fix built-in keyboard issue with "legacy" bootloaders, so you can use grub bootloader included in Ubuntu to boot Vista, Xp and Ubuntu. But I personally installed rEFIt because I really prefer his graphical boot than grub textual one :D

Update: If you want to obtain a triple boot macbook, without installing Vista don't create the VISTA partition on step 2), proceed to step 3a) and ignore 3b). Instead if you want to install Vista, jump directly to step 3b)

3a) You can use directly from OS X terminal the "fdisk" command, that handles an MBR-partitioned disk, to setup the XP partition suitable for installing that windows version. Open a terminal under OS X:

type "sudo fdisk -e /dev/rdisk0"
enter password and ignore the message "fdisk: could not open MBR file /usr/standalone/i386/boot0: No such file or directory"
type "p" to print MBR partition table
type "f " "4" to flag partition 4 active
type "q" to save and quit
3b) Insert Windows Vista install DVD. Reboot the macbook pressing the C key. Install Vista onto partition 2 named "VISTA". You must format it as NTFS at this point. Installation finishes and you have a dual boot Mac.
In Vista, click the "Start" button, click "Control Panel", click "System and Maintenance", click "Administrative Tools", and then double-click "Computer Management". In the Navigation pane, under "Storage", click "Disk Management". Right-click the XP partition, and then click "Mark Partition as Active".

4) Insert Windows XP install CD. You can't install any XP version coming on 2 CDs (like Media Center Edition 2005), only version from a single CD or DVD. So if you want to install MCE 2005 you need the (single) DVD version. Reboot the macbook pressing the C key. Press the enter key when you will read "Press any key to boot from CD". If you boot Vista by mistake, you must mark active XP partition again (because rEFIt will flag Vista as active if you select it).
You will see the VISTA partition marked "D:" and XP partition "C:". Now install XP to "C:". You must format it now (in either NTFS or FAT32) or XP will not boot. At reboot, select the 2nd windows logo "boot from partition 4" to continue install. Installation finishes and you have a (dual)triple boot Mac.

5) Insert Linux Ubuntu install live CD or DVD, (I used Ubuntu Desktop 8.04b AMD64) reboot from it. Launch install from desktop.

- At step 3, choose your keyboard layout as Macintosh.
- At step 4, choose to manually partition the disk:
create a / partition and a swap partition at the end of the disk. (Swap must be larger than memory to be able to "hibernate". And one megabyte here is 1000*1000 bytes, not 1024*1024)
- At step 7, before you go ahead with the install, click "advanced", and tell ubuntu to install GRUB to (hd0,2), the FAT partition. (Yes, this is the right place. Installing GRUB into the MBR will let GRUB manage the windows booting, you will have to go through 2 boot manager to boot windows or linux, which is not what we want. Besides MBR, it seems GRUB can only be installed into among the first 4 partitions to be bootable, and the FAT partition right now doesn't contain a boot code so it's safe to have GRUB live there)
Update: If you don't want to use rEFIt, install GRUB into the MBR. Hold "option" key upon boot to select "Windows", then use Grub menu to boot between Ubuntu, Vista, or Xp.

Proceed with the install. Reboot and you will see 4 OSes from rEFIt menu.

6) Almost done! Now install hardware drivers in each OS, in both Windows installation insert Leopard install disk 1 and install bootcamp drivers to make touchpad, iSight and so on perfectly working under both Xp and Vista.

Comments and faves

  1. ★

    Are Made of This, Arnold Dude, blahbah123, Señior Noetig, and 81 other people added this photo to their favorites.

  2. watstein (63 months ago | reply)

    Followed your instructions on my macbook pro because I wanted to do the same thing and have issues when installing WinXP Pro it gives me the whole missing hal.dll which most people complain on the apple discussion board how did you get around that issue?
    Did you use winclone for xp and not mention it. Any help would be appreciated.

  3. john_locke2342 (63 months ago | reply)

    It doesn't work for me: impossible to create Linux partitions and WinXP has a hall.dll missing file error. I'm not interested in Vista (it's really crappy, as I switched to mac because Vista is now preinstalled on every pc laptop.) so I skipped this step. Maybe it's this step that fails everything.

  4. edelbug (62 months ago | reply)

    I got around the missing DLL issue by booting into Vista and changing the XP boot.ini (must view hidden and system files) on the XP partition, however this got me past the hal.dll message but after the XP splash screen it just stops, no message nothing... so I am still unable to get it to boot properly. I had to change my partition to "one" back so even though it is physical partition 3 XP seems to like this - multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS=" Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn
    Please post back if you find a fix, I would love to get this working.

  5. foskarulla (62 months ago | reply)

    @all: Hi, sorry for my non-reply, but I never had any DLL missing issue. I personally use Italian version of both Windows, but I think hal.dll is a core component so language doesn't mind. Oh, mine is a Macbook 3,1 but this tutorial worked also for many other models;

    @watstein: no I followed exactly these steps, never used Winclone;

    @john_locke2342. I updated this tutorial for a triple boot mac w/o Vista, that worked for me flawlessly;

    @edelbug: A dumb tweak for those in your situation was to switch #3 STORAGE partition with #2 XP partition (don't know W-H-Y). Updated this in the tutorial now.

    This tutorial ia available with a slighty better formattation here: www.fosk.it/quad-booting-a-macbook.html

  6. whjnnkns (62 months ago | reply)

    This updated tutorial is correct now. It swaps the XP partition and the STORAGE partition. XP can only be installed on the 4th partition in this situation or there will be a missing hal.dll error which watstein, john_locke2342, and edelbug has encountered
    The original ideas and discusses can be found here:
    forum.onmac.net/showthread.php?t=2793

  7. whjnnkns (62 months ago | reply)

    Also, the firmware update need to install is MacBook EFI Firmware Update 1.1, not Keyboard Firmware Update 1.0 which solves another keyboard issue where the first key press may be ignored if the computer has been sitting idle.

  8. whjnnkns (62 months ago | reply)

    "If you want to obtain a triple boot macbook, without installing Vista don't create the VISTA partition on step 2)"
    but a partition is still needed here, to make the XP partition the 4th one.
    in a triple boot, this partition can be MacOS partition.

  9. foskarulla (62 months ago | reply)

    @whjnnkns: thank you for all your updates!

  10. edelbug (62 months ago | reply)

    Thanks to everyone! I just scorched earth and started over with the new instuctions and everything worked flawlessly. Just as a tip for anyone who is interested, I set mine up with both Tiger and Leopard, in addition to Vista and XP. I just wanted to be able to run tests for some applications and this setup worked like a champ. Just need to follow the directions as stated but setup the last partition formatted for MacOS and I installed Tiger last. Thanks again, I am very happy camper now. :)

  11. somusque [deleted] (61 months ago | reply)

    Hi,
    can I just add one more partition between Mac OS and Ubuntu so that I can install Tiger as well? I want to have 5 different operating systems on my MacBook Pro: XP (32), Vista (64), Tiger, Leopard, and Ubuntu. Well does Tiger run on the latest MacBook Pro models at all?

  12. sevruth (61 months ago | reply)

    thats huge, I hope I'll never need installing crappy WinXP, Ubuntu is just fine.

  13. -Mobile- (60 months ago | reply)

    I don't know if this is covered I didn't read the whole thing yet but could I use this exact method to simply duel boot with Ubuntu and Mac? Thanks

  14. erik.gyepes (60 months ago | reply)

    Looks interesting however I'm not sure if I'm so courage to do that :)

  15. Rockey's Photography (60 months ago | reply)

    Well, I'd say one copy of XP would do. Why put aaalll of them and go through unnecessary hard work and risk? Nice screenshot bytheway!

  16. quimpg (58 months ago | reply)

    Hi, I'm an admin for a group called Switchers, and we'd love to have this added to the group!

  17. Alysha Koby (58 months ago | reply)

    i like how your different partitions have icons,
    i already have bootcamp on my macbook (win xp + leopard) and was wondering how you added the icons. =)

  18. foskarulla (58 months ago | reply)

    @Aly K.: Icons are included with the rEFIt bootloader, and shows up automagically whe you install it. Bootcamp uses its own bootloader, so it is no possible :(

  19. technical_dmn (52 months ago | reply)

    check out this detailed guide.

    digg.com/apple/Quad_Booting_a_Macboob_with_OS _X_Ubuntu_XP...

  20. BrettMorrison (51 months ago | reply)

    Thanks for posting the instructions along with the picture.

  21. JonyTut (49 months ago | reply)

    Can I use this pic in our Novosibirsk Linux User Group?

  22. foskarulla (49 months ago | reply)

    @JonyTut : of course you can, image is under Attribution-ShareAlike Creative Commons. Thank You!

  23. Dick Thomas (48 months ago | reply)

    hiya
    what is your boot loader that is awesome!

  24. foskarulla (48 months ago | reply)

    @xpd259 rEFIt: refit.sourceforge.net/

  25. Mikhail 2009 (40 months ago | reply)

    <3

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