Dual booting Leopard and Windows without a blank cd or dvd?
February 20, 2010 11:45 AM Subscribe
I would like to install Windows XP on my Macbook Pro (running Leopard) with a Windows XP image (iso) and an external drive but without a blank CD.
The end goal is to dual boot XP and Leopard, preferably without erasing my current Leopard install.
I bypassed Boot Camp's CD/DVD check by mounting the image using Toast Titanium, so it reboots successfully. Obviously, after restarting the laptop the Windows install CD isn't found and it starts Leopard as usual. If I can restore the Windows image on a flash drive and restart, it should work, right? Right??
rEFIt and grub are also possible solutions, as long as the boot camp drivers work. The easy method (by far) is to get a blank CD/DVD but I would like to finish this today if possible.
The end goal is to dual boot XP and Leopard, preferably without erasing my current Leopard install.
I bypassed Boot Camp's CD/DVD check by mounting the image using Toast Titanium, so it reboots successfully. Obviously, after restarting the laptop the Windows install CD isn't found and it starts Leopard as usual. If I can restore the Windows image on a flash drive and restart, it should work, right? Right??
rEFIt and grub are also possible solutions, as long as the boot camp drivers work. The easy method (by far) is to get a blank CD/DVD but I would like to finish this today if possible.
Response by poster: Eep, the computer wins this time. Thanks for the comment. I'm still interested in ways of doing this in the future, so I don't have to carry cds around but this time I've purchased some CDs.
posted by yaymukund at 2:31 PM on February 20, 2010
posted by yaymukund at 2:31 PM on February 20, 2010
You can use a program called "unetbootin" to make bootable USB disks from an ISO image. I have had success using it to install Ubuntu and Windows together, but I do not have any experience with bootcamp or OSX.
If someone came to me and asked me to do this however, I would boot an Ubuntu liveUSB disk, and create a chunk of unallocated space for windows to screw around with by shrinking the OSX parition. Then I would create a USB Windows installer with unetbootin and let windows install itself in the unallocated space. After that, I would reload the Ubuntu liveUSB disk and manually install grub on the boot disk to "fix" the MBR.
I have no idea how well that will work on a macbook specifically, but I have done it tons of times with other hardware. As long as your BIOS allows you to boot from a USB disk it should work.
posted by I_am_jesus at 3:25 PM on February 20, 2010
If someone came to me and asked me to do this however, I would boot an Ubuntu liveUSB disk, and create a chunk of unallocated space for windows to screw around with by shrinking the OSX parition. Then I would create a USB Windows installer with unetbootin and let windows install itself in the unallocated space. After that, I would reload the Ubuntu liveUSB disk and manually install grub on the boot disk to "fix" the MBR.
I have no idea how well that will work on a macbook specifically, but I have done it tons of times with other hardware. As long as your BIOS allows you to boot from a USB disk it should work.
posted by I_am_jesus at 3:25 PM on February 20, 2010
I don't understand what you are trying to do but if it is running Windows XP from a USB partition, that's pretty much a no-go and it has nothing to do with bootcamp or macs. XP doesn't boot up with USB drivers in the kernel so it can't load itself. There is a work around for it but it's complex.
posted by chairface at 11:09 PM on February 20, 2010
posted by chairface at 11:09 PM on February 20, 2010
Response by poster: I_am_jesus: I'll give that a shot next time when I'm tweaking my partitions. I have bad memories of trying to dual book 10.4 and Gentoo and resorting to lilo after staying up all night wrestling with grub.
chairface: The end goal is to dual boot XP and Leopard, preferably without erasing my current Leopard install. I don't care how I get there, but I'd like to do it without burning a CD.
Thanks again everyone. I'll mark it resolved for now.
posted by yaymukund at 12:23 PM on March 22, 2010
chairface: The end goal is to dual boot XP and Leopard, preferably without erasing my current Leopard install. I don't care how I get there, but I'd like to do it without burning a CD.
Thanks again everyone. I'll mark it resolved for now.
posted by yaymukund at 12:23 PM on March 22, 2010
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by drpynchon at 12:11 PM on February 20, 2010