How to configure triple boot Chrome OS, Windows 7 and Mac OS X on MacBook Air
Recently I made my MacBook Air (late 2010) to triple boot 3 OSes.
The following is the instruction on how to make it happen.
Things you need:
- MacBook Air (of course!)
- Two USB external hard drives
- A 4GB USB disk + another 1GB USB disk
- Mac OS X reinstall USB disk
- Windows 7 install disk or ISO
- VMWare fusion (trial version is OK too, other Mac VM software might work too)
Step 0 – Backup
- Very important! Back up your computer first! You will need to wipe your local drive in your MacBook Air!
- Download boot camp help program and store that in a USB disk (small one will work)
Step 1 – Install Chrome OS on local drive
- Follow the instruction here to install Chrome OS on your MacBook Air
Step 2 – Install Mac OS X on external hard drive
- plug in your Mac OS X reinstall USB disk and a USB external hard drive to your MacBook Air
- Restart your MacBook Air and hold the option key when it starts
- Choose to boot the Mac OSX reinstall USB disk
- Use Disk Utility to re-partition your USB external hard drive and use GUID partition map
- Select the USB external drive to install Mac OS X
- Wait for the installation to finish
Step 3 – Modify the partitions on local drive to use bootloader in NTFS partition
- Start your MacBook Air and hold the option key
- Boot into Mac OS X on USB external hard drive
- Install VMWare fusion (or VM software of your choice)
- Download GParted Live CD here
- Create a Linux VM
- Create a virtual disk file to access the local drive (Reference: Using raw disks/partitions from VMWare Fusion)
The command you need is:sudo /Library/Application\ Support/VMware\ Fusion/vmware-rawdiskCreator create /dev/disk0 fullDevice /MyRawDisk0 lsilogic
sudo chown yourunixusername /MyRawDisk0*Be sure to replace yourunixusername.
If you are not using VMWare fusion, you will need to find your own way to access the local disk inside your VM - Attach the virtual disk file and the GParted Live CD ISO to the Linux VM
- Boot the Linux VM to GParted Live
- There should be 3 partition in your local drive.
Move the third partition to make some free space (like 30GB before the partition)
Delete the second partition and re-create the partition to use up the free space between the first and the third partition and use HFS+ format for this partition.
Create a forth partition to use up the remaining free space. Use NTFS format for this partition. - Apply the change
- Now your local drive should have 4 primary partitions
1 – Chrome OS partition
2 – HFS+ partition (will store Mac OS X)
3 – Chrome OS partition
4 – NTFS partition (will store bootloader and Windows) - Shutdown the Linux VM.
- Now create a Windows VM and install Windows 7 on it.
- Attach the virtual disk file (to access the raw disk) to the Windows VM while it is turned off.
- Download and install EasyBCD inside the Windows VM
- Start EasyBCD and go to BCD Deployment to install Windows Boot Manager to the NTFS partition of the local drive
- Load the newly deployed BCD store
- Go to “Add New Entry” then “NeoGrub”. Click Install.
- Click Configure and add the following entry to menu.lst
default 0
timeout 0
hiddenmenutitle Chrome OS
root (hd0,2)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz quiet console=tty2 init=/sbin/init boot=local rootwait ro noresume noswap loglevel=1 noinitrd root=/dev/sda3 nomodeset cros_debug reboot=pci acpi_backlight=vendor - Save the file, Shutdown the Windows VM and shutdown Mac OS X
- Detach any USB device
- Start your MacBook Air and hold the option key
- Select local drive to boot, and you should be able to boot into Chrome OS using the new boot loader
Step 4 – Install Windows 7 on local drive
- Attach the USB external hard drive to your MacBook Air
- Start your MacBook Air and hold the option key
- Boot into Mac OS X on USB external hard drive
- Start the Windows VM
- Attach your Windows installation disk / ISO to the Windows VM
- Copy sources/boot.wim to the NTFS partition of the local drive
- Start EasyBCD and open the BCD store of the local drive
- Go to “Add New Entry” and then “WinPE” tab
- Add a new entry
Type: WIM Image (Ramdisk)
Name: Windows Setup
Path: select the boot.wim
EMS Enabled: Yes - Shutdown the Windows VM
- If you are using Windows Installation ISO, copy all the content inside to a USB thumb drive
- Shutdown Mac OS X
- Detach all USB devices
- Start your MacBook Air and hold the option key
- Select local hard drive
- The bootloader should have 2 entries Chrome OS and Windows Setup
- Select Windows Setup
- Before you begin install, attach your Windows installation disk or USB thumb drive
- If it prompts you for any file during the installation, find that file in your disk or USB
- Let the installation finish and install boot camp helper program
Step 5 – Install Mac OS X on local drive
- If you want a clean Mac OS, repeat step 2 with another external hard drive
- Attach your Mac OS X install USB and the external hard drive to your MacBook Air
- Starts your MacBook Air and hold the option key
- Choose Mac OS X install USB disk
- Open Disk Utility
- Go to the restore tab and select the Mac OS X partition from external hard drive as source and the HFS+ partition on local drive as destination
- Click restore
- If the above step did not work (it works if it is Snow Leopard but not for Lion), you can boot to Windows and use other disk copy program (e.g. Ghost) to copy the Mac OS X partition on external hard drive to the local drive
- Shutdown your MacBook Air and detach all USB drives
Step 6 – Try booting all 3 OSes
- Starts your MacBook Air and hold the option key
- You will be able to see two option – Macintosh HD and Windows
- If you select Macintosh HD, Mac OS X will boot
- If you select Windows, the Windows bootloader will start and you can select Windows / Chrome OS
Step 7 – Select Default OS
- Select Mac OS X to boot by default
- Boot into Windows
- Start Boot Camp control panel
- Select Macintosh HD and click restart
- Select Windows 7 to boot by default
- Boot into Windows
- Start EasyBCD (you may need to download and install it again)
- Go to “Edit Boot Menu” and select Windows 7 as default
- Click “Save settings” and close Easy BCD
- Start Boot Camp control panel
- Select the Windows partition and click restart
- Select Chrome OS to boot by default
- Boot into Windows
- Start EasyBCD (you may need to download and install it again)
- Go to “Edit Boot Menu” and select Chrome OS as default
- Click “Save settings” and close Easy BCD
- Start Boot Camp control panel
- Select the Windows partition and click restart
If you have any problem or question, please leave a comment for me. Thanks.