Triple Booting the Hackintosh

Alright, after much messing around I FINALLY figured out how to dual/tri boot operating systems. Current setup:
HDD 640GB: Snow Leo
HDD 160GB: Win7 (64bit)
HDD 30 GB: Ubuntu

Here is how it is done.

First: Install snow leopard any way you would like. Make sure that when you install this operating system that ALL OTHER HDDs ARE DISCONNECTED. If they are not you may mess up the installation. Once you install apply all the kexts you need and when you are done install chameleon RC4 bootloader. I did this via terminal with the following commands:




Assuming your Root disk is /dev/disk0s1

Step 1. Gain Root privileges and navigate to Chameleon Directory

sudo -s

cd Desktop/Chameleon-2.0-RC4-r684-bin/i386

Step 2. Install boot0 to the MBR, Check your rdisk number!! This can be found by opening up disk utility and clicking on your SL drive. Then click "Info". It will be listed there:

sudo fdisk -f boot0 -u -y /dev/rdisk0

Step 3. Install boot1h to the partition’s boot sector. Again, check your partition number. Same method as before, but instead you click on the SL partition and click info to find the number.:

sudo dd if=boot1h of=/dev/rdisk0s1

Step 4. Install boot to the partition’s root directory:

sudo cp boot /

Once you have completed that reboot and make sure all is working before you move on.

Step 2: Now that you have SL working, turnoff your computer and unplug it. The disconnect the SL HDD and connect the next one that you will be using. This happened to be my ubuntu drive. Turn on your computer and install ubuntu however you wish on that drive. Once done, reboot and make sure everything on the ubuntu drive works.

Step 3: Now as before turn off everything and disconnect the power. Then go and disconnect the ubuntu drive, leave the SL drive disconnected, and then plug in the windows 7 drive. Boot up and install Win7. Install all updates and make sure everything is working.

Step 4: When you are sure everything on windows is working shut down your computer and unplug it from the power source. Now plug in the SL HDD. Make sure that when you boot up, you go to the BIOS and check that the SL HDD is the FIRST drive to boot out of all the HDDs connected. Once you have done that you can boot up and chameleon should load showing Windows NTFS and Snow Leopard HDD. You can now boot into either of them! If you are dual booting, you are finished! If not, follow the next step.

Step 5: Connect the Ubuntu drive and Connect the Mac drive but NOT the windows drive! Now boot into ubuntu. You won't be able to do this through Chameleon, it won't recognize the drive. Hold F12 on boot up to select the Ubuntu HDD. Now, once in, follow these instructions to install Grub. This will allow Chameleon to recognize ubuntu.

1. Boot into Ubuntu like you normally would.

2. Launch Terminal.

3. Type df and press RETURN or ENTER.

4. Note the first entry on the list – the one mounted as /. This is the one we want. In my case it was /dev/sda3.

5. Type sudo grub-install /dev/sda3 – replace /dev/sda3 with the correct entry for your system.

6. Enter your Password and press RETURN or ENTER.

7. Close the terminal window and restart your system.

8. Boot into OS X and reinstall Chameleon.

9. Leave a comment below about how everything went for you.

Due note you may not have to install chameleon again when you are finished.

Step 7: Once you can boot into mac and chameleon, reconnect the windows drive. Now boot up and you have a successful triple boot on three separate HDDs!

Thanks to Daily Blogged for the steps on how to dual boot ubuntu.

~Dave