Mac OS X and Windows 7
Geeks love Macs because Macs are really cool. They are slick, stylish and freaking awesome! What about windows 7, by the way? Yea, it is also cool, slick, stylish, bug free and freaking awesome! Being a hardcore geek, what will you go for? A Mac with Snow Leopard or a PC with Windows 7? Not sure? Why not go for both of them?
Oh! Don’t have the money to afford both? Don’t worry! TheGadgets.net is here to help you out! You won’t even need to buy a Mac! Lo! This step by step guide will help you install Mac OS X Snow Leopard as well as Windows 7 on a single PC! You don’t even need a high end PC! Just your current computer will work!
Step by Step Guide to Dual Boot Mac OS X Snow Leopard and Windows 7 on a PC:
Note: You need to follow the steps in the given hierarchy. Performing them out of order will not work.
1. Backup your data:
The first and the most important thing is to backup your data. It is not optional at all because you need to format and partition your hard disk from scratch. Best option is to write the important files to a DVD ROM so that you are able to access them anytime, anywhere.
Tip: DVD ROMs work even in worst conditions when USB and network ports may fail.
2. Partitioning the Hard Disk:
One of the most fundamental things in getting a dual booted Mac OS and Windows system is the proper partitioning. For partitioning, you can use any method of your choice. I know you are pretty used to doing this simple stuff. You may use partition magic or you can even partition your hard drive by booting your system with a windows XP CD.
I assume that you have a hard drive with 120 GB of total capacity. You are about to divide it into 3 partitions of 50 GB, 30 GB and 40 GB. But for now, you’ll make only one partiton of 40GB and leave the rest of the space unpartitioned.
3. Install Mac OS X Snow Leopard:
The next step is to install Mac OS X Snow leopard on your PC*. Lifehacker has a pretty nice and handy tutorial for doing that. You don’t even need to do any hacking! Install Snow Leopard on the 40 GB partition. Do not touch the unpartioned space.
4. Install Windows 7:
Now you need to install windows 7. When you go through the boot process you can easily find the unpartitioned space. Divide it into two partions of 50GB and 30 GB each using the installation wizard. 50 GB is going to be the C:\ drive whereas the 30 GB one will be the data storage drive. If you prefer having only one drive, then you may go for a single partition of 80 GB. Install Windows 7 on the desired partition.
When you finish installing, you’ll be booting into Windows 7 only. There will be no operating system selection menu while starting up. No need to worry!
5. Set up dual boot:
Here comes the climax! Now you have to set up the dual boot of Windows 7 and Mac OS X Snow Leopard. It is as easy as 1 2 3!
Dual boot windows 7 and Snow Leopard
- Boot into windows 7
- Open the browser and head to http://neosmart.net/
- Look for the latest version of EasyBCD and download it. Current version is EasyBCD 1.7.2. You can download it here. It should work fine for Snow Leopard.
- Install and run EasyBCD on your computer.
- From the main screen of EasyBCD select the “Add/Remove Entries” option on the left side.
- Select “Mac” tab.
- Select “Generic X86 PC” from the drop down menu. Try the other options if it doesn’t work but that’s a very rare case.
- You are all done. Reboot your PC and you can now see the boot menu showing Windows 7 as well as Mac OS X Snow Leopard. Select any of them and bingo!
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Owaeis is a geek, a gadget freak and the founder of theGadgets.net. He writes about Apple, Microsoft and everything between them. Owaeis always has some great tips and tricks to share.
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Nice…. Two rivals side by side in the same PC, in Perfect Harmony
absolutely! They won’t quarrel!
Awesome Post.Thanks alot
You are welcome. That’s what I am here for!
I followed this to the T, but when I load the installer for OSX, (image created from upgrade DVD of snow leopard) my HDD does not appear. It does show in the Hackintosh startup options, but not in Disk Utility
use some hackintosh flavor like iAtKos, ideneb etc. Better follow lifehacker’s tutorial on that.
Can you start at step 3 directly with a brand new HD or do you have to install windows first then start from the begining
sent from iPhone
@Jeremy I won’t recommend starting at step 3 because you need unpartitioned space before moving forward. But you’d install Win 7 after you are done with the OS X.
what about the os x disc? does it need to be patched? and i have Windows 7 Professional already installed on my laptop. Can’t i just partition that and in install 10.6 on the un-formated space?
you can!
thanks for responding! but that still doesn’t answer one of my other questions. Do you have to patch the os x disc? or can you install with a retail disc? Thanks for replying1
also, this method works on amd-cpu’s right?
yep, right!
So a non-patched version of 10.6? or will i have to resort to manual hacking of the iso on my friend’s mac?
oh. forgot about the link. sorry to bother you =) thanks anyway!
Omar, you won’t need to patch a Mac OS X CD/DVD yourself. Just download a hackintosh version of your choice and install it. It should seamlessly install like the Windows 7 does. Better follow lifehacker’s tutorial on that. Link is mentioned above in the post.
thanks!
You are welcome! I hope thegadgets.net serves you well and it will keep on doing so in future too!
Right now I don’t have a copy of Win7, is this possible on Vista too?
yep! It will work perfectly for Vista too
Thanks buddy
Thanks very much for the awesome post! I’m still having some trouble, though. I followed the directions but upon reboot, when I select the mac os, it takes me to a grub bootloader that asks me for input. The other option gives me a “insert your windows cd” error. Can you please tell me what I have to do with that grub loader? Thank you!
~~B3N
Ben, you’ve done something wrong. Most probably you’ve corrupted your Mac OS X installation or you haven’t selected the right drive from EasyBCD. Did you succeed to run Mac OS alone before installing Windows 7?
Hi. I am struggling to install Dual OS Windows 7 and Snow Leopard. I have a DMG copy of Apple Mac OS X 10.6.1 and windows 7 enterprise install into my laptop. I went so many website and youtube videos, but no luck.
I made two active partition. Windows 7 installed into C and other partition is formated as Extended (Journel). I put Snow Leopard image into portable HD(formated with extended (journel) using VMWare version of OS 10.5. I installed Chameleon R3, it shows which parition i installed from portable HD. Apple comes up, then I have gray screen with mouse curer(which I cannot even move). I don’t know why. I have Intel 5 seris video card in my Sony Vaio laptop.
When I used above instruction, I get into kernel Panic. When I used Chameleon R3, I stuck again into gray screen. Any advise would be really appreciate. Thanks a lot.
here’s ur guide for OS X installation. http://www.ihackintosh.com/2009/04/ipc-osx86-universal-1056-successfully-installed-on-sony-vaio-tz-150n/ Ask questions there if any.
Thanks for your reply. Is there any Snow Leopard ISO I can use? Will Snow Leopard Universal work with above instruction? I want Snow Leopard
. It looks awesome
look in the post above, I’ve provided a link to a lifehacker’s article for installing Snow Leopard on PC.
Awesome! Finally, I installed Mac with EasyBCD. However, mac leopard doesn’t load. I get apple screen with STOP symbol. At the bottom, the wheel is keep circling. It doesn’t load. Do you know why?
did it use to run before? If yes, then keep on trying, it must boot after successive tries.
I installed it successfully. After installation was completed, it prompted me to restart. Then, I install Winodws 7 and EasyBCD. EasyBCD works fine, but i get stuck in gray screen with stop symbol and spinning wheel. I wonder if it is video card issue. If so, then i wouldn’t able to install mac
UPDATE: “Owaeis”, thanks for your help. I found the problem. no solution yet
. I went into VERBOSE mode with -v command. I tried all the command listed in iPC website for solution. It didn’t work. If anyone has any solution, will be great.
Error: “Still waiting for root device” in verbose mode.
o_O Com’on Riad, you are doing good but you must had finished playing with OS X first. Once its going fine, then go for Win 7.
Honestly, still it is not working. I applied solution to remove *ATA* file and replace it from DVD per instruction from iClarified. Didn’t work. I wonder if I should change com.apple.plist file. Still search in google for different solution. If you know anything that will work, please let me know. Thanks again
Owaeis, Thaks a zillion, man. I got it to work
. It was so stupid that i missed to click “CUSTOMIZED” during installation wizard. From there, you have to select all kext files related to your hardware. No more “still waiting for root device” or error. It is running fine with Win 7 with EasyBCD.
My touchpad, keyboard, ethernet and wireless is n’t working. I don’t worry about sound.
Owaesis, since i got it to work with your help, i have to bug u again for this. is there any good Snow Leopard that i can do to install in my PC as dual OS? Initially, i wanted Snow Leopard. With your advise. iPC Leopard worked well
. Please advise or provide me any good link.
yay!
You need to install the kexts for ps/2 mouse to get the touchpad working, find it over the web. Its the first time I’ve see som1’s ethernet not working, try to find kext for that too. Have you tried lifehacker’s guide for Snow Leopard?
I have question. In that guide, it tells you to purchase a mac dvd. Is they saying to purchase actual MAC OS X DVD Installer or is that Snow Leopard 10a432 edition?
I tried to install it by restoring 10a432 into portable hd, and boot from there into my laptop. It can see the destination hd, but when I select it, it doesn’t do anything. I am going to try to use MAC OS X DVD.dmg (actual file from Apple)
Hi,
Is it possible to install Mac on a logical drive?
Not sure
so, if I do this, i would not be able to access a back-up from my external hard drive? I use a netbook and don’t own an external optical drive, but this looks awesome.
HI,
Does this work with OS X ‘Tiger’ as i dont have a Snow leopard DVD?
yup!
Is it really necessary to “format and partition your hard disk from scratch” because I've created partitions before and my date was fine. Why can't I just create my partitions and leave my C drive alone?
I tried installing Snow Leopard but I keep getting kernel panics before the install.
Is there a fix?
Thanks.
Does this work? I want to know if it does before trying it.
Thomas,
I have tried it and so far it has not worked. I haven't been able to successfully dual boot both. I get an error when trying to boot into Snow Leopard.
@thomas and silentfire619, it should work, I am running Mac OS X & win 7 on my laptop using the above method.
Same here, i did everything and installed snow leopard perfectly but it wont let me boot into snow leopard. has no problem with windows 7.
ive tried this 3 different ways, run into the same error everytime. ive done everything perfectly because everything works until i get to the Mac OS loading screen, i let it load up and it goes into error mode. i have pictures of what it looks like if anyone is interested in diagnosing and helping me make this work.
How do you get around OS X needing a GPT partition while Windows needs an MBR partition?
When I format the drive for OS X, it formats the entire drive as GPT. So then when I try to install windows on a separate partition, it won't install because it can't install on a GPT drive. There's no way to make one partition GPT and another partition MBR on the same drive, at least not that I can figure out.
If you strictly follow the above tutorial, you won't face this problem. Here
I'm explaining it again for you:
1. Do Windows installation prior than Mac OS.
2. During Windows installation, leave some unpartitioned space for Mac OS.
3. While doing Mac OS installation, locate unpartitioned space and format it
accordingly.
Hope, you get it.
OWAEIS:
Love this Guide and sorry to split hairs. However, this comment conflicts with your original post where you stated the following:
1. Backup your data
2. Partition the Hard Disk
3. Install Mac OS X Snow Leopard
4. Install Windows 7
5. Set up dual boot
Could you clarify which is the correct way since I may end up doing this?
Hi all,
i have a question
Can i install Mac OS X Snow Leopard on a other internal hardisk on my pc?
and then set up a dual boot between win7 and mac osx
that’s because i have already a working win7 on my pc.
The problem is (at least that I ran into), is that in the Mac disk utility is was not possible format a partition as GPT. It required the entire drive being formatted GPT. If I select just one partition, the GUID option is grayed out.
Could I format using disk management as it gives me some crap about if you format to dynamic the current os cannot be run from it(which im using b: which as far as I know doesn't have a os i installed.
RSP
Marc.
If I already have Windows 7 installed on my C: drive, can I just partition part of the drive and leave windows 7 alone. I can’t reinstall windows 7, lost the cd (stupid, I know), so do you have to wipe it completely off? If I have to wipe the disk completely clean, could I instead use a external hardrive, or would that be to slow with USB 2.0.
Hi, i like the guide. I have a problem when i’m trying to boot the usb with snow leopard inside. The only thing that appears is the coursor, nothing more. And never boots, what could it be ?
If my laptop is currently running windows 7 with files and things saved into it already, can I just partition my drive then install snowleopard with out backing up my windows and wiping my drive?
Question. Just like the others, bought a new laptop and there is no CD included, its on the Recovery partition of the drive. Can I just reserve 40GB of the HDD for OS X and then boot and install OS X onto the 40GB? But Im guessing if you did it this way you wouldnt be able to boot into Windows 7 again? Or following your method listed, how do you install windows 7 on the “80GB” partition if your windows 7 installation is on the default partition provided by HP?
Thanks, hopefully you understand what Im saying.
hey there… you could use “Shrink volume” from computer management to resize an existing partition on Windows 7, and install Mac OSX on that. Thats what I did.
So is it possible to just use the Windows 7 disc management utility, shrink drive C by 40GB and then install OS X and then somehow use a utility just like EasyBCD but for MAC and enable dual booting?
I tried Easy BCD after installing Windows 7 first and then Mac OSX. But after boot it shows a Windows Recovery screen when I try to boot into Mac OSX. When I use diskpart on windows it shows that the Mac OSX is installed on an extended partition 0 and logical partition 3 within that. I tried configuring EasyBCD on both 0 and 3 but none of them boots up MacOSX… any hints on how to get it to work?
May be you’d need to start over and avoid any mistakes you made.
oh yeh, and when I try to set mac partition as active, it gives an error saying this cannot be done on this partition type.
I can’t assist you on your own invented method. You used “Shrink volume” which was not my recommended method.
Does anyone see any issues with installing Snow Leopard on this system?
ASUS UL20 Series UL20A-A1
Intel Core 2 Duo SU7300(1.30GHz) 12.1″
2GB Memory
250GB HDD Intel GMA 4500MHD NoteBook
Windows 7 Home Premium
Blowing away Win 7 and re-formatting HD seriously considered.
I have an original snow leopard DVD can I work with this one or does it have to be the Hackintosh ?
I have windows 7 already installed on my laptop, so is it possible to install EasyBCD and setup the dual boot on Windows, then install Snow Leopard onto another partition? I can boot from a SL disc successfully, and even get through installation. However, when SL installation finishes and I reboot it comes up with boot0 error. I had to use Win7 recovery discs to restore my system, so I’m just wondering if it’s possible to install Snow Leopard as a dual booting system without having to reinstall Win7 and lose data?
I’m not sure and that’s not my recommended method!
Great tutorial!
I got one question, what partition table did you use? MBR or GUID?
Thanks.
I followed these instructions but when I reboot windows loads fine but if I choose osx I get “windows failed to start installation disk” file \NST\nst_mac.mbr
I’m using snowleo 10.6 and it was working fine. I partitioned my 160gb drive osx was installed on 40gb the rest for windows
i have a windows 7 update disk is it the same as an installation disk
So if I need to format my windows 7 partition down the line (I like to format windows every year or so) will that break my osx’s ability to boot? In other words, if I format the partition with my windows 7 os installation, re-install windows 7 to that same partition, re install the boot manager application you’ve recommended, will all be well?
How can you install back Windows 7 if it was already preloaded with your computer when you bought it? I’m afraid when I do this, and install mac and stuff, I won’t have my windows again.
SORRY I doubled posted, Lag..
The tutorial given on lifehacker to install mac on pc, requires another mac for preparing thumb drive. My problem is that i don’t know anyone with a mac. Is there any alternative?? I genuinely wish to install and use snow leopard on my pc running with windows 7.
Please help me!!
hi,
ive having real issues getting the dual boot to work, i can install osx 10.5.6 with no problems and i can install windows 7 with no problems, but once windows 7 is installed i just cant get it to boot in to the mac os anyone got any ideas what im doing wrong ??
thanks for any help
I already have windows 7 preinstalled on my computer. Can I just install Mac os x on unformatted hard drive space?
I’ve seen this question asked several times unanswered, so I half expect mine to go the same.
I have my genuine windows 7 install and recovery disks, as well as that $29 OSX Snow leopard disk. I have two separate HDDs, both 160GB.
Windows 7 is already installed on my PC. Is it possible to just install OSX onto the other HDD without partitions? Or can I partition the one and do that? I don’t have a Mac to use Lifehacker’s thumbdrive method.
hi, what about if i already installed windows first then later installed MAC. does mac overwrites the boot loader, how do i get into windows in order to perform the dual boot.
uhh just wondering but if you were a computer geek wouldnt you be running linu,x ( even though mac is linux) windows sucks, unless you dont know how to use a computer. In which case it’d be better for u to use a pen and a peice of paper. Linux is god
Hi. i am currently running windows 7 64 bit with a total of 921 GB ( My C Drive ) . Is it possible to set aside some GB for the mac and install it there. I dont wanna reformat my windows 7 as i have already installed my stuff
Hi,
I would like to know if u can dual boot mac os x snow leopard on a portable HDD and leave win 7 on the first hdd coz i already got win 7 in good running place.
or can i partition unused space and dualboot coz i dont want to format the hdd.
please reply or email me dushan@hotmail.com.au
Hi,
Does anyone know if this dual boot hack only works with the Snow Leopard edetion or also with a normal OS X DVD ?
thx
I have installed Windows 7 Ultimate about a year ago. It was installed in C:/ partition. I keep ALL MY DATA in D:/.
I have Windows XP SP3 in partition F:/. My idea is to FORMAT F, and then install Snow Leopard there, simply by putting disc and running installation through W7. Will it work that way for Mac OS(that is how i installed XP SP3)?
I think this is the simplest way to do that. Isn’t it?