Vista on MacPro w/o BootCamp?

[davidkain]

Hey folks, first time poster.

I did some digging with the search function and didn't turn up an answer to my specific question. If I missed something, I apologize!

I am looking to install Vista on my Mac Pro running Tiger. I never downloaded the Boot Camp beta, and any links to the software I've been able to find since the beta ended have turned up dead.

The alternative (which sounds promising) is to install Windows on a separate hard drive entirely rather than partition an old one. My question for you guys is, do you think it will work properly?

I *think* the process would be:

1) Install additional hard drive
2) Install Windows
3) (tricky party) Insert Leopard disk from my Mini or Laptop to get the proper drivers

Essentially this should give me a windows hard drive that I can start up from instead of the normal OSX.

It sounds good, but I am not as tech savvy as I'd like for messing around under the hood without supervision. Here are a few concerns:

How will I switch between operating systems?
Would using a Leopard disk on a tiger machine for drivers actually work? If so, what is the process for that?
Are there any other things I am missing? Steps? Pitfalls?

I appreciate all your help! Upgrading to Leopard is not an option for me because there is far too much audio software currently running on the system that I cannot upgrade. This is actually another reason why booting to a completely separate drive is especially appealing. I would also prefer to run windows natively as opposed to virtualization because the applications are resource intensive.

Cheers!

 

[Guiyon]

Bootcamp does not do anything special; it just makes your life easier if you are trying to install Windows on a pre-formatted drive that will have multiple partitions. The Leopard driver CD should be fine because, again, Bootcamp isn't doing anything special and Windows can't even SEE your HFS+ drives without third-part software. I installed Vista on a secondary HD (actually it's a dual-boot using GRUB) on my Mac Pro and it was pretty trivial. Just be warned that Vista it a bit touchy with multiple drives in, or attached to, the system; Vista refused to install at all until I unplugged all my external drives.

As for switching between OSes, you can either use the standard bootloader (hold down Option at boot or use the Startup Disk control panel) or, if you want more flexibility, install rEFIt.

 

[davidkain]

Thanks Guiyon! That is great news. I'm planning on picking up the hard drive soon. Hopefully everything goes according to plan.

Thanks again for the response. It was exactly the info I was looking for!

Cheers