Scott's Blog

Here is a complete guide to get a Dual boot setup with Windows Vista and Leopard running side by side. Please note this is a complete tutorial and if followed exactly you should be running Leopard and Vista side by side without any problems.

Yes, this guide has taken over a month for me to write and I have tried this out every possible combination of hardware setup I could possibly test, and I can assure you that if followed correctly you can easily have Leopard and Vista in a dual boot setup.

Loads of readers have sent me emails, dropped comments on my previous guides on installing Leopard and here is the guide for all you guys who waited so long patiently.

Disclaimer : This Guide is for educational purposes only, I suggest you buy yourself a original Mac.

Well before we proceed with the guide, here is the stuff that you will need for a successful dual boot setup.

• Vista Already installed on your Primary Hard Disk.
• iATKOS v1.0 DVD. (Do not ask me where you can download this)
• Windows Vista Boot DVD (Just incase something goes wrong)

Well now that you have everything ready, lets get started then. Please note this is going to take sometime so I suggest you have some Music playing near by and grab yourself a cup of coffee while you do this. Sit tight, here we go……….

• Install Vista on the First Partition of your Hard Disk. I am not going to elaborate into How to install Windows, I hope everyone knows it. If you already have it installed then read on..
• Right click on My Computer and Click on Manage. Select Disk Management. Now Create a new Volume for OSX by shrinking an existing volume. You need at least 5GB of space and the new volume should show up as Unallocated.
• Make sure that the partition shows up as Unallocated, else repeat the previous step.
• Now restart the machine and boot into the Leopard DVD that you burned using the iATKOS v1.0 DVD Image.
• Press F8 as the countdown begins and type -v at the prompt and hit enter.
• You should see scrolling text on the screen now. If it stops anywhere then drop a comment and I’ll try to help you out.
• After a while you should be looking at the Leopard Installer. Follow the instructions on Screen.
• Once the Loading Bar vanishes Select Utilities -> Disk Utility .
• Select the Volume you created previously and format it as MAC OSX Journaled Extended. Once the formatting is done the volume is ready for installation.
• Now Close Disk Utility and Select Utilities -> Darwin Boot. Type Y at the prompt.
• At the prompt when it asks for the Disk Number enter 0. For the Partition Number if your Leopard Partition is 2nd on the disk, then enter 2 and so on.
• Accept the following prompts and you should see a success prompt saying that so many block of data were written successfully.
• Now get back to the Leopard Install Screen. Choose the partition that you made in the beginning and follow the instructions on screen.Please don’t select any patches etc during the installation, this is normally the reason for most failed installations. Just the plain install would do.
• Once the Install is done, reboot with the DVD in the drive. Press F8 at Darwin Boot Loader and type -s and press enter.
• Execute the following commands :fdisk -e /dev/rdisk0
  flag 1
  quit
  reboot
• Now before the PC restarts remove the DVD. At this point you should be able to boot into Vista normally.Note: If you are unable to log into windows, because there is an error which says “winload.exe” correupted.! Relax. Just insert the Windows VISTA boot DVD into the drive and restart. Click on “Repair computer” once you are inside the DVD and it will automatically detect if a problem exists and suggest “Repair and Restart”. Press the same, and remove the DVD once the PC is about to restart. You should now be able to log in to vista without any problem.
• Now that we have almost everything running fine, lets proceed with the dual boot setup.
• Boot into Vista. Copy the chain0 file from the Leopard DVD to C:
• Open the “Command prompt” with “Elevated Admin” privileges from the Start Menu.
• Type the following into the promptbcdedit /copy {current} /d “Mac OS X”
  bcdedit /enum active
  bcdedit /set {GUID} PATH \chain0 

  In the first command type {current} as it is, literally..nothing else..just {current} with the brackets. In the 3rd command however, replace the {GUID} with the alphanumeric GUID you see in the enumerated list under MAC OS X. You can see this list on your terminal as soon as you type the 2nd command above.

• Close the Command Prompt and Restart Vista.
• You Should now be looking at a screen with two options to boot into Mac OSX or Vista.
• Select Mac OSX to see if you can boot into it. You should see the familiar Darwin boot Loading screen with the timer going down. If you dont do anything, then it counts to zero and again shows the menu screen withVista and MAC OSX options. Dont panic!Again select MAC OS X, and now as the timer counts down, Press F8. You would see a list of partitions on your disk with their names. Select the partition with MAC OSX installed by using up/down arrows and press ENTER.
• Voila!! your Mac should be booting up as you read this..