So I managed to get Snow Leopard working under VMware, and it works pretty well, but it would be good to have it installed on a separate partition (on the same hard drive) alongside Windows 7. I've got a few questions:

1. How easy would it be to install 10.6 on a separate partition and dual boot it alongside Windows?
2. What is the chance that I would be able to get internet (wireless) and audio working? I would need them both to make it worth while.
3. Would I have to keep a boot DVD in the drive the entire time, or would it boot normally (straight off the hard drive) once installed?
4. Would USB work?
5. Would the performance be good, and would it work with all of my components?

Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 @ 2.66GHz (supports SSE3)
MSI P31 Neo (MS-7392)
4 GB DDR2 RAM
Nvidia GeForce 8800GT 512MB
Single 500GB SATA HDD
SATA DVD burner
PS/2 keyboard and USB mouse connected to PS/2 using adaptor
Realtek RTL8187 Wi-Fi adaptor
Integrated Realtek HD audio

Basically, I would hope to get it up and running so that I could switch on the PC, select OS X, and boot up into it, with internet and audio working properly. Obviously, I know this will not be as simple as just putting in a disc and clicking install.

Thanks in advance

Originally Posted by ellisbodds

So I managed to get Snow Leopard working under VMware, and it works pretty well, but it would be good to have it installed on a separate partition (on the same hard drive) alongside Windows 7. I've got a few questions:

1. How easy would it be to install 10.6 on a separate partition and dual boot it alongside Windows?

Pretty easy. that's what I did using the Chameleon bootloader to boot either Win 7 ultimate and SL

Originally Posted by ellisbodds

2. What is the chance that I would be able to get internet (wireless) and audio working? I would need them both to make it worth while.

For wireless, pretty good if you are running in 32-bit mode and slim to none if you are on 64-bit mode ( google it e.g this post in insanely mac ).

Do what I do, my Intel WiFi got no OSX drivers so I bought a cheap EnGenius USB WiFi ( which have OSX support on the box and used that instead

For audio, VooDooHDA seemed to work for almost any REALTEK audio ( works on mine )

Originally Posted by ellisbodds

3. Would I have to keep a boot DVD in the drive the entire time, or would it boot normally (straight off the hard drive) once installed?

Nope

Originally Posted by ellisbodds

4. Would USB work?

"Simple" stuff like external disks are no problems .. but "exotic" things like TV tuners, WiFi etc would depend if there are drivers ( or kexts )

Originally Posted by ellisbodds

5. Would the performance be good, and would it work with all of my components?

Performance as compared to ? and no might not work ... Don't forget that OSX is designed by Apple for Apple hardware ( to sell Apple hardware ) .. they don't give a crap whether it will work with MSI/ASUS or Creative or Realtek etc and they are not in the business to care abt it either ( besides, it should be those parties to provide drivers but since OSX is in the minority, they don't care to provide OSX drivers either )

Originally Posted by ellisbodds

Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 @ 2.66GHz (supports SSE3)
MSI P31 Neo (MS-7392)
4 GB DDR2 RAM
Nvidia GeForce 8800GT 512MB
Single 500GB SATA HDD
SATA DVD burner
PS/2 keyboard and USB mouse connected to PS/2 using adaptor
Realtek RTL8187 Wi-Fi adaptor
Integrated Realtek HD audio

Basically, I would hope to get it up and running so that I could switch on the PC, select OS X, and boot up into it, with internet and audio working properly. Obviously, I know this will not be as simple as just putting in a disc and clicking install.

Thanks in advance

Thanks for the reply.

Pretty easy. that's what I did using the Chameleon bootloader to boot either Win 7 ultimate and SL

And how do you load the Chameleon bootloader onto the hard drive? Somebody on the chat told me that I should use Empire EFI instead. What are the pros and cons?
I managed to find OS X 10.5 drivers for my wireless dongle, and I assume they will work in 10.6. How do you choose to run it in 32-bit or 64-bit? I don't mind losing .75GB of RAM if the compatibility in 64-bit will be poor.

Performance as compared to ? and no might not work

Compared to a virtual machine, I suppose.

Thanks for the reply.

And how do you load the Chameleon bootloader onto the hard drive? Somebody on the chat told me that I should use Empire EFI instead. What are the pros and cons?

Download the latest RC4 and there is a doc folder in there with 2 files and it will tell you ... Chameleon give a pretty nice graphic interface .. no diff really, i just choose the one that works and the one I am comfortable with .. both does the same thing

Rule of thumb is you need to start from the very beginning ... you need a USB drive to boot OSX

1. Run OSX installer and partition the disk, one as a HFS extended and one as DOS ( for Win 7 ) in OSX disk utility. I found that OSX don't work if partitioning is done in Windows
2. Install OSX and get everything working
3. reboot and install Win 7 on the DOS partition ... you can delete the DOS partition and install it on that raw partition ( Win 7 will create another 2 partitions, one System Reserve and the other where Win 7 actually resides
4. Complete Win7 set up including updates .. you system will boot in Windows only
5. Insert the USB drive and boot OSX from there ... and run some commands to "put" back the EFI stuff
6. booting to Windows will now fail ... repair it from the Windows installation disk and boot to windows ..
7. run diskpart and make the OSX partition active and viola .. Chameleon will now boot with a menu of disks/partition ... choose the System Reserve to boot to Win 7

I managed to find OS X 10.5 drivers for my wireless dongle, and I assume they will work in 10.6. How do you choose to run it in 32-bit or 64-bit? I don't mind losing .75GB of RAM if the compatibility in 64-bit will be poor.

Don't assume, there are some plumbing changes in 10.5 and 10.6 and some 32 bit 10.5 drivers don't work in 10.6

boot with -x32 flag for 32 bit and -x64 for 64 bit ...

Compared to a virtual machine, I suppose.

A virtual machine ? of course performance is much much better .. a virtual machine is a simulated environment ...

boot with -x32 flag for 32 bit and -x64 for 64 bit ...

Is this when installing or when booting after the install?

The problem is, I already have Windows 7 installed, and I don't want to re-partition my hard drive at this time. I could easily shrink my current Windows partition to make room for OS X, however.

Originally Posted by ellisbodds

Is this when installing or when booting after the install?

The problem is, I already have Windows 7 installed, and I don't want to re-partition my hard drive at this time. I could easily shrink my current Windows partition to make room for OS X, however.

Just when Darwin starts, press F8 and you will be presented with a simple menu. Just type -x32 and also -v ( for verbose so you can see the boot process or you will get a white screen with an apple logo and the equivalent of the hourglass ). you can do the default ( 64 bit ) during install but need to switch to 32 bit to use your 32 bit kexts ( if no 64 bit kexts are available ). You can default it it to boot to 32-bit once everything is installed by modifying the com.apple.boot.plist

I've never been able to successfully get OSX to properly recognise Windows ( vista or 7 ) created partitions whether partitioned as DOS ( which Windows 7 only support exDOS via the GUI ) or raw so I usually use OSX ( or Linux ) to do the partitioning first. My advice is, since you are messing with a "production" setup, get a spare hard disk ( 80 Gb should be sufficient ) and play with that until you are comfortable and get the hang of it ( and keep your live hd in a safe place ). Partioning hd is extremely risky and more likely than not you'd screw things up so bad that you have to re-do it anyway

At the moment I am saving up for a new guitar, and I don't really want to spend any money at the moment, but I was thinking of buying a 1TB HDD for backup / extra storage. Only thing is, I only have one free molex connector on my PSU (it has no proper SATA connectors, just converters) so I can't get 2 new HDDs

When you say to store my live HDD in a safe place, do you mean to take it out of the computer? If so, would it boot normally when put back in?

Originally Posted by ellisbodds

At the moment I am saving up for a new guitar, and I don't really want to spend any money at the moment, but I was thinking of buying a 1TB HDD for backup / extra storage. Only thing is, I only have one free molex connector on my PSU (it has no proper SATA connectors, just converters) so I can't get 2 new HDDs

When you say to store my live HDD in a safe place, do you mean to take it out of the computer? If so, would it boot normally when put back in?

Yah I mean physically remove it and plug in the spare .... when you are done for the day ( whether successful or not ), remove the spare and plug the live one back in and reboot to use your PC. The installation will not mess up your BIOS settings ( the worst it does it reset it back to factory defaults )

Well hard disks are rather cheap nowadays and note that while OSX can be installed and booted off the USB, Windows do not ( it has to be in a physically connected via SATA or IDE )