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2 Os?

J

Jeffrosproto

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jun 10, 2008
458
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Hello,
I'm sorry if this has been asked before, but I searched and couldn't find anything.

First off, I know this is not supported by apple.
So, I really want to try out the new Windows 7 Beta. However, I have XP currently installed in boot camp with critical files/programs, and I don't think that they will be stable in 7. Is there any to dual boot inside of boot camp?

Thanks,
Jeff
 
You might want to look into the free program called WinClone

http://twocanoes.com/winclone/

Allows you to clone your Boot Camp Partition while in OSX to save and archive. I used to it clone my Vista partition and then I deleted the Boot Camp Partition and did a fresh install of Windows 7 using Boot Camp. You can always just restore your old copy of Windows if you choose to.

Its also just a very useful program if you just want to backup Windows to a external drive or something. You can also use this program to increase the size of your Boot Camp partition. Clone it, Delete BC Partition, Create a new one with the size you want, and restore it. Simple and useful.

Hope this helps.

-David
 
Thanks for the suggestion, but that's not really what I'm looking for. Is there any way to have 2 boot camp partitions and then once into the windows bootloader select which OS to use?
 
Why don't you just use Boot Camp Asistant to create another partition and install Windows 7 on it? Hold down Option at startup and select between Windows 7, XP, and OSX.
 
I'm having the same problem also. I thought I could partition off the remaining free space in Windows, but apparently (using Partition Magic) the partition is "BAD" to repartition.

Using Boot Camp again, I am only allowed to delete my current Windows partition.

But yea, I am basically looking to hold the option key and see Vista/Windows 7/Mac OS.
 
Jeffrosproto said:
So, I really want to try out the new Windows 7 Beta. However, I have XP currently installed in boot camp with critical files/programs, and I don't think that they will be stable in 7. Is there any to dual boot inside of boot camp?

Thanks,
Jeff
Click to expand...

Dude, I just came to MacRumors to post this same exact question and found that you beat me to it. Thanks.

I also want to try Windows 7, but I certainly don't want to mess up my XP partition or have to risk using a program like WinClone (as I really don't know much about it).

Why can't we use the OS X install disk to add another Boot Camp partition?
 
When I have some free time (probably tonite), im gonna try to use GParted to shrink my XP partition and then install 7. Hopefully, once holding down option and selecting windows, I'll be able to use the 7 bootloader to select between Xp and 7. Does anyone think this will work?

EDIT: found this guide: http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=15225
I'm gonna try it, soon. One thing I'm gonna do: resize the osx partition, not backup, make, restore, using this:

sudo diskutil resizeVolume disk0s2 60G "Linux" "Linux" 17G "MS-DOS FAT32" "Windows" 15G
from this guide:

http://wiki.onmac.net/index.php/Triple_Boot_via_BootCamp
 
OK so I decided to start this. I'll keep this post updated.

1:41EST: I started using WinClone to backup my Current XP installation, as I have to delete the old one, then split the free space that was created, for 2 partitions (Xp and 7).

2:40EST: Gonna use iPartition to split my partition for windows.

3:00EST: Can't get iPartition to work, I'm gonna try to boot into the windows 7 cd and split my current partition.

6:00EST: Got the partitions split, XP was restored to it's partition, now I have to install 7. Will do tomorrow.
 
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