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How To: Multi-Partition a Mac Boot Camp Installation

by The Editor

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Boot Camp for Intel-based Macs enables you to run OS X and Windows on the same Mac. But there is one small problem. The installer for Boot Camp will only let you partition your disk in two - i.e. one OS X partition and one Windows partition.

If you think you can outsmart it by first partitioning your Mac’s drive in two and then adding the Windows partition with Boot Camp, you will be disappointed. Boot Camp won’t proceed if it finds more than one partition on your Mac’s hard drive.

But there is a way around it, and it’s quite easy. But, unlike the Boot Camp partitioner:

THIS PROCESS WILL DESTROY ALL DATA ON YOUR ENTIRE MAC’S HARD DRIVE THAT YOU INTEND TO REPARTITION

First the short version:

Partition your Mac as desired with the LAST partition being your Windows partition and then install Windows on it.

But if you want more detailed instructions, then read on…

1) Download the latest version of Boot Camp

2a) Before you go changing your current partition, if you already have only one partition, you can run the Boot Camp installer and then run Boot Camp and create the Mac Windows Driver Disk

2b) Otherwise, if you already have more than one partition, install Boot Camp and then Show Contents of the Boot Camp application (in Utilities), then in its Resources folder, you’ll see a file called Disk.image Burn its contents to a CD. This is the Mac Windows Drivers Disk.

3) Now you are ready to get destructive. Are you sure you’ve properly backed up everything? Copying it to another partition on the same disk is not good enough because the whole disk is going to be wiped.

4) Insert your Mac’s Install disk in the drive and reboot. Hold the Option key while rebooting until the screen to select the boot drive appears. Double click on the Mac OS X Install CD.

5) Once the installer starts, from the Tools menu, select Disk Utility.

6) Select your hard disk and repartition as desired. On my machine I have only three partitions. The LAST partition will be your Windows partition.

7) Mac partitions are usually “Mac OS Extended (Journaled)”. Only change that if you know what you’re doing.

8) Make the LAST partition an MS-DOS partition.

9) Check in the Options button and make sure “GUID Partition Table” is selected.

10) Cross your fingers, hold your breath, and click the Partition button. A few seconds later all your data will have been destroyed. I hope you had a good backup. If you didn’t - keep holding your breath.

NOTE: We will install Windows first. This is in case something goes wrong for you. It’d be a serious bummer to go through the whole process of installing two OSes to find the Windows one didnt work, eh?

11) Quit the OS X Disk Utility and then quit the OS X installer. Click on the Restart option. While your Mac is restarting, hold down the CD Eject key until the OS X Install disk is ejected.

12) Insert your Windows XP with Service Pack 2 disk in the drive and reboot. (Hold the power switch until your Mac turns off, wait a few seconds, and then turn it on again.) All being well, you Mac will boot up the Windows installer.

13) Follow the prompts until you have to select the drive to install to. This should be the last on the presented list, be marked as C: and be approximately the size you configured.

14) Select that drive and proceed. Make sure you REFORMAT it. Either FAT or NTFS is okay. FAT is readable from OS X, NTFS is not, but it is more secure and faster in operation. If you don’t reformat, the install will fail.

15) The install should proceed now with a few reboots. Do not remove the Windows install CD until you finally get into Windows. Things may look a bit funny (not just because it’s Windows) until you install all the drivers.

16) Eject the Windows install CD and insert the Mac Windows Drivers CD. It should autorun. If it doesn’t, double click the file on it called “Install Macintosh Drivers for Windows XP.exe”

17) This will install all the drivers for you Mac. It will throw up some warnings about drivers and software being unchecked. Just click continue anyway.

18) Once it finishes, it will ask you to eject the CD and restart. After doing so, you should have a working Windows environment, bootable by holding the Option key when rebooting you Mac.

19) After you’ve verified Windows is working okay, insert the OS X installer CD and reboot once more. Your Mac will automatically boot from it.

20) Install OS X.

21) You now have a dual boot OSX/Windows Mac with multiple partitions!

I haven’t tested it, but it is possible that if you create sufficient partitions, and create the right sort, you could also install Linux.

This post was inspired by the ProBlogger group writing project on How To’s.

| Post in Linux, OS X, Windows, How To |