Triple Boot Mac OS X, Ubuntu and Windows XP on MacBook Pro Core 2 Duo (Part 1)

Posted by Mr. IT Guy | Filed under Howto, Linux, Mac OSX, Microsoft, Operating System

In this guide I will show how I triple booted my machine with the big 3 desktop operating systems: Mac OS X, Ubuntu Feisty Fawn and Windows XP. I get most of the stuff from Ubuntu Wiki and customize it as I go along. I will also outline the places where I get some problem and highlights how I resolve it. I will also skip mundane, easy to do stuff such as turning on your computers, how to open a terminal, etc.

This guide will be separated into three different parts where each parts serves certain purpose.

Partitioning and Installing EFI Boot Menu
Installing Windows
Installing Ubuntu

Each part will also contain FAQ and troubleshooting section for that specific portion.

Ingredients:

Mac OS X with Bootcamp 1.4 (Link)
Ubuntu Feisty Fawn 7.04 AMD64 – Alt CD (Download: ISO | torrent)
Windows XP with SP2 (Creating SP2 CD from regular XP CD)
rEFIt 0.10 – EFI Boot Menu (Download: DMG | ISO)

Partitioning and Installing Boot Menu

If you have installed Windows XP using BootCamp before, you need to remove that
In terminal run the command:
```
sudo diskutil resizeVolume disk0s2 81.5G Linux Linux 20G "MS-DOS FAT32" Windows 10G
```
This will resize your existing partition (disk0 partition 2) to 81.5GB for OS X, 20 GB for Linux and 10 GB for Windows. The total size of the 3 partitions should match the size reported under size on #2 when you run the following command in terminal:
```
diskutil list
```
NOTE:It is advised not to change the partition order
Download and Install rEFIt (open the image file and double click the installer)

Troubleshooting

Error Mesages:

Resizing encountered error Invalid Argument (22) on disk disk0s2
Check your sudo command. The most common error is caused by using GB after the size of the partition. The CORRECT command should have a G.
Resizing encountered error The underlying task reported failure on exit (-9972) on disk disk0s2
Check the your Volume for error. Do a Volume Repair by booting into repair disk or use AppleJack
Unable to get into “Single User Mode” to run AppleJack with rEFIt installed
After rEFIt installed, Command+S during startup would bring you to rEFIt Shell instead of “Single User Mode”. The easiest bypass is to quickly press Command+S right after choosing the Apple partition on the rEFIt menu

Share and Enjoy:

Tags: Linux, mac, Mac OSX, macbook pro, Microsoft, os x, ubuntu, windows

Permalink | September 4th, 2007

You must be logged in to post a comment.

RSS Subscription

Subscribe to stay updated

Site Info

Control Panel

About

Life in 0 and 1 is supposed to be about the life of an IT personnel in this binary world. This is my story. Originally, this site is designed as my notebook as an IT professional. The content are mainly the challenges that I face in a day’s work and how I overcome it. Hopefully some of this information can also be used by others that face the same type of problem.

When I graduated from college in 2004, it seems like the job market is so saturated. There was very little chance for entry level jobs. I started as a Level 3 network tech support that sometimes also wears the hat as product manager on certain occassions. There I learn a lot of amazing technologies in details. My favorite so far are DSL, Firewall/IPS system, and VPN technology. Slowly I transitioned and moved into their IT department.

Initially, they needed a part time IT because they are lacking IT personnel. I shared some of my support time with IT time. After proving my competency, I became a full time IT personnel and slowly gained recognition. This is my life, this is my story.

Life in 0 and 1