MP 1,1-5,1 Partitioning HDD prior OpenCore installation on cMP 2009

[polanskiman]

Hello everyone

I would like some guidance on partitioning before proceeding in installing Martin's Lo OpenCore package.
I have a 1TB WD Black HDD drive that I would like to use for multiple OSes, namely: Ubuntu, Windows10/11, macOS (for testing), and potentially another partition. So 4 partitions in total. This drive will not be the one I'll be running my production macOS which will be on a different SSD drive.

Can anyone advice on what Format and Scheme I should partition my drive and if this is ok to install multiple OSes like this?
Any recommendation is welcome.

Thank you.

 

[h9826790]

GUID, but most likely you will have more than 4 partitions.

EFI Windows will create 5 partitions.

APFS macOS will create another 5.

TBH, it's far from ideal to mix few different file systems on a single hard drive. But if that's a test drive, and you want to try. That's no big deal. And I wish you have great success, so that you can share your experience to the others.

 

[polanskiman]

Ok so if I read between the lines it's best to have one operating system, or at least 1 file system per drive?
Is there a combo of OSes that can play nice together on the same drive or not at all?

The idea was that this drive would be used for very short and specific tasks so I didn't want to waste 1 full drive and space just for an OS that is not really being used on a daily basis. But I also don't want to spend my time having to deal with troubleshooting something that is destined to fail.

 

[Dayo]

Reading between the lines, it's best to only have one operating system type per disk?

Yes. Less chances of conflicts.

Is there a combo of OSes that can play nice together on the same drive or not at all?

They can theorectically all play nice together but at the same time, they can theorectically all conflict with each other.
The advice to avoid the mix is to eliminate the chances of the latter.

I also don't want to spend my time having to deal with troubleshooting something that is destined to fail.

Not destined to fail but a potential failure point and one that might confuse things if you have other issues.
All in all, unless some kind of guru that fully understands all that is involved, best option is to keep OS types separate.

 

[LarTeROn]

Thanks for your info friends.
I'm reinstalling fresh with Opencore Patcher, and it'll be a pain reinstalling from external media. However, it sounds like having a separate partition for user data to avoid this isn't worth it because it neither helps with backup, nor sharing resources between operating systems.
Correct?

edit: The reason I like having userdata on a separate partition is just in case I've missed something in my backups somehow. So that seems useful, but maybe still not worth it

 

[haralds]

If you plan on an EFI Windows installation, only run it under OpenCore. A BIOS BootCamp setup has a partition limitation and will eventually trash your NVRAM.

 

[Macschrauber]

If you plan on an EFI Windows installation, only run it under OpenCore. A BIOS BootCamp setup has a partition limitation and will eventually trash your NVRAM.

You got something mixed, a Bios Bootcamp setup will not harm the firmware nvram streams with certificates.

Uefi Windows does, thats why it needs protection by OpenCore or RefindPlus.