[The Great Gatsby]

Short question: Can Chameleon boot Windows XP (x86) from a GPT partition?

According to this wiki entry, it is possible to install a 32-bit Windows XP to a fourth partition on a hard disk with a GPT. So a partition scheme like the following should - in theory - preserve XP's ability to boot:

1 EFI Partition (FAT32)
2 Ubuntu (Ext4)
3 Mac OS X (HFS+ journaled)
4 Windows XP (NTFS)
5 Mac OS X Install DVD (HFS+ journaled)

BUT ... : Is Chameleon able to boot Windows XP in this scenario? When I tried it with Windows XP placed on the second partition, it clearly wasn't. So I wonder if it is worth to retry it with Windows as the fourth partition ...

[richiem]

I don't think so, but I am far from an expert...

[The Great Gatsby]

I've further investigated the issue, and here's what I've found out:

1. You actually can install Windows XP (32 bit) on a drive with a GPT partition table.
2. Chameleon 2.0 RC4 is able to boot a Windows XP (32 bit) from a partition on a drive with a MBR, but not from a drive with a GPT.

Workaround: Here's how you can use Windows XP (32 bit) on a drive with a GPT in a triple-boot scenario together with Mac OS X Leopard and Ubuntu, even if you want to use Chameleon.

A) Create four partitions with Snow Leopard's Disk Utility according to the following scheme (starts counting from no. 2, because on GPT, there's always a first 200 MB EFI partition):

2. Mac OS X Snow Leopard (HFS+ journaled)
3. Ubuntu 9.10 (FAT32 -> to be re-formated to ext4 later)
4. Windows XP (FAT32 -> to be re-formated to NTFS later, apparently has to be the fourth partition)
5. Mac OS X Install DVD (HFS+ journaled)

B) Install Mac OS X Snow Leopard to the second partition as you're used to.

C) Install Ubuntu from the Live CD: Within the Ubuntu installer, use manual partitioning, choose the third partition (ext4, mount point "/", format) and ignore the "no swap partition" warning); in the last dialog, choose to install Grub onto the third partition (probably /dev/sda3), NOT into the MBR (installing Grub onto Ubuntu's partition is needed for Chameleon to recognize the ext4 file system).

D) You should then see Ubuntu from your Chameleon USB stick and boot it. In Ubuntu, open a terminal and install the program 'gptsync':

sudo apt-get install gptsync

This small programm is needed to re-sync the protective MBR to the GPT: Snow Leopard's Disk Utility already creates hybrid GPT partition tables, that also have a sort of "protective" MBR for operating systems unable to handle GPT. This MBR should be re-synced before installing Windows XP in a further step:

sudo gptsync /dev/sda

E) Insert the Windows XP Install CD and re-boot from it. Within Windows XP's installer, choose the fourth partition (the FAT32 partition that's left), re-format it to NTFS and proceed. Important: On the first re-boot, you need to bypass your Chameleon USB stick by pressing F12 and choosing your hard disk as the boot medium. The Windows installer should come up again and finish the second part of the installation (explanation: By then, Windows should have installed it's boot loader into the protective MBR of the hard drive and therefore should be able to boot, albeit from a disk with a GPT, if you bypass your Chameleon USB stick).

F) Now, you should be able to boot all three operating systems: Use your Chameleon USB stick when you want to boot Snow Leopard or Karmic Koala. Bypass it via 'F12' and choose to boot from your hard drive when you want to boot Windows XP.

That's it!

[richiem]

Hey Gatsby -- that's cool, but I don't see a rationale for having all those partitions on one GPT drive as opposed to having several (cheap, not very reliable) separate drives, with each OS in the format it prefers. Why did you choose to do what you did? Just curious.

[The Great Gatsby]

Originally Posted by richiem

Hey Gatsby -- that's cool, but I don't see a rationale for having all those partitions on one GPT drive as opposed to having several (cheap, not very reliable) separate drives, with each OS in the format it prefers. Why did you choose to do what you did? Just curious.

Hi richiem, well, there's a few reasons for that. First of all, I should mention that I plan to use the machine as an A/V workstation for restoration of analogue media (amongst other things). That involves capturing of uncompressed video which needs a high and - most of all - constant data put-through. In the past, I was used to have a system hard drive for the OS and at least one other hard drive exclusively for capturing with lossless codecs like HuffYUV. I'm not sure if with today's SATA hard disks, that is still necessary, but I've decided to keep that scheme and to install all operating systems on one hard drive and to have the user-generated data on a second, separate one.

Furthermore, I also have a ThinkPad which simply doesn't have two separate hard drives. So installing all operating systems on one GPT drive on my desktop machine was also a test for a future Snow Leopard install on the ThinkPad.

Finally, well, I think I also did it simply 'because we can' ...

[richiem]

Ah ... laptop ... Ahaaaaa. Prolly good for you, but I'm very glad I'm not there.

[elmangomez]

There is a way to get Chameleon to boot XP directly.... but this is a full 3 credit semester long class. In other words, it is complicated and requires devling into learning about the grub and grub4dos bootloaders. Not an easy thing. I did this close to a year ago, and it is not fresh in my mind. I can only point you to the methodology, but not the actual specifics.

The important thing to note is that XP will NOT boot if it is not on HD0,0. This is why the Efi-x loosers never supported XP. This is an XP shortcoming.

1- You have to create a separate partition on your booatloder drive. This has to be an EXT4, linux partition type. Label the partition "Boot XP".

2- On this partition, install GRUB.

3 - On the grub menu, create an antry to boot grub4dos (which is a file rather than something in the MBR). The grub4dos stuff has to be stored on this EXT partition.

4 - If you look at the sample menu in grub4dos, there is a method for booting into XP by a) searchingfor NTLDR, adn b) remapping the found drive where NTLDR is to be a hd0, and to then boot this drive.

There is no way for Chameleon to see a bootable partition with grub4dos directly. Thus the interim step. For me the whole process of finding and booting XP is only a few seconds. Chameleon will see the EXT partition and boot it invoking grub and then grub invoking grub4dos.

The pluses is that I don't have to be vigilant about hitting the F12 key, or having to know which is my XP drive on the drive list.

The minuses are, a huge learning curve on the grub stuff... you basically have to learn both bootloader's stuff. You have to do all this from Ubuntu, or similar.

The good news is that if you are using this on a laptop, reformat the whole this, by booting to a PartedMagic CD, and then partition your main drive with the first partition as an NTFS (this will be partition hd0,0). This is where XP gets installed, second partition gets Mac OS, and third partition gets Ubuntu... Install Ubuntu second, and lastly Mac, and final step is to install Chameleon. If on a laptop, install Chameleon directly to the Mac drive (non-vanilla).

I am sure I am forgetting something big... This is not something for the newcomer for the reasons described above.

Good luck.

[The Great Gatsby]

Thank you, elmangomez, for this long post! I think I'll try that ... after a full backup.

[covua]

Originally Posted by The Great Gatsby

I've further investigated the issue, and here's what I've found out:

1. You actually can install Windows XP (32 bit) on a drive with a GPT partition table.
...
F) Now, you should be able to boot all three operating systems: Use your Chameleon USB stick when you want to boot Snow Leopard or Karmic Koala. Bypass it via 'F12' and choose to boot from your hard drive when you want to boot Windows XP.

That's it!

Why do you need to use Chameleon USB stick when you want to boot Snow Leopard? It's too inconvenient!
I can boot Snow Leopard or winxp with out Chameleon USB stick.
Use Chameleon USB stick boot your Snow Leopard, then install Chameleon 2 RC4. Then you can boot Snow Leopard or windows XP without Chameleon USB stick!
How to make a data partition? I want to make
partition like:
1 EFI Partition (FAT32)
2 Mac OS X (HFS+ journaled)
3 Data partition (FAT32 or NTFS)
4 Windows XP (NTFS)
Please help me!
Thanks