There is a newer version of this guide. Find it at Advanced 2 in the NetbookInstaller section.

DellEFIAdvanced 2: Multi-Boot Configuration

This will describe what needs to happen in order to install multiple operating systems on your Dell as well as Mac OS X. You could technically avoid this by installing to an external drive, but sometimes you just have your computer, and external drives can be a hassle. Since this not as simple as merely installing Mac OS X by itself, I will first detail what happens in a multi-boot configuration, describe how to migrate your current installation to a multi-boot configuration, and finally I will describe how to install from scratch both Windows 7 and Mac OS X in a dual-boot configuration.

How Multi-Boot Works

DellEFI is a very specific beast. Since the app automatically assumes that you installed only Mac OS X in the typical manner, we have to work around it's specific requirements. First of all, DellEFI assumes that you are installing to a GUID partition scheme, which includes a hidden EFI partition at the front of the drive. Since this partition is blank, Mac OS X actually gets installed to the second partition, and the DellEFI bootloader will be set to autimatically boot from the second partition. Mac OS X can be installed to a MBR (Master Boot Record) oartition scheme, but the Installer does not automatically creat a hidden EFI partition, so that can cause issues. (This statement needs to be investigated further.) Fortunately, DellEFI 1.2a5 uses the new Chameleon 2.0 bootloader, which allows you to boot from any partition at startup, but it is set to run from the second partition.

Understanding this, it is only necessary to make sure that you install Mac OS X to whatever the second partition is: on GUID, there is usually a EFI system partition at the front of the drive, and on MBR, you need to create that partition yourself.

Migrating Your Mac OS X Installation

If you have an installation of Mac OS X currently running that you don't feel like setting up again, there is a way to convert it into a multi-boot with reinstalling everything.

Let's look at how to repartition the drive, both on GUID and MBR. You can simply back up your installation to an external drive before setting up your other operating systems. This is actually more simple than it sounds. First, boot into the Mac OS X Installer and run Disk Utility. (You need to do this because you can't back it up while it is running.) Click on the Mac partition on your main drive, and then click the little grey bubble at the top-right of the window. This will enable a menu, where you will select New Image, and save the image to your external drive. However you name it does not matter, but I typically save it as <name of partition><date>.img. (i.e. If I were making a backup on May 12th, 2009 and my partition were named OSXMINI9, I would call it osxmini905122009.img) This may take some time, so make sure to let it finish. Eject your external drive before closing Disk Utility.
For more information on backup and restoration, please see Advanced 1.

Now partition your drive according to the following guidelines:

MBR Partition Scheme:
The first partition can be whatever size you want, and named whatever you please. Typically I install my first non-Mac operating system here. The second partition needs to be your Mac OS parition, so name it accordingly. Any other operating systems will require you to define the size of the second partition so that they will fit. Any partition beyond your Mac partition can be configured however you need them to be for their respective operating systems.

GUID Partition Scheme
If you are using Disk Utility, you can just reduce the size of your Mac partition and create more partitions after it on the drive. That may work, but you will still have a blank 200 MB EFI partition at the front of your drive. You can use another tool, such as Gparted, to set up the drive or just resize the partitions in order to reduce the size of the EFI partition, or use the tools in a compatible operating system like Windows 7 to set up the drive. Using other software to set up the GUID scheme is not covered in this guide, but there are some helpful links at the bottom that may help.


Now that we've got the partitions set up, you should restart the computer and install the other operating system(s). (If you simply resized the Mac partition on GUID, this next step is not necessary.)

Once that is done, boot into the Mac OS X Installer once more, and restore the Mac OS installation. Select the partition that Mac needs to be on (GUID: 1, MBR: 2), click the Restore tab and drag the partition into the Destination field. Click "Image..." next to the Source field and find the image file on the external drive. Click Restore, confirm the decision, and wait until it is done. Reboot into the Mac partition using either a DellMiniBoot or DellEFIBootMaker enabled drive, and then reinstall the bootloader and extensions via DellEFI.

Installing Windows 7 and Mac OS X

This is how I installed my current dual-boot setup earlier in May 2009. This setup uses the Windows 7 RC, 16 GB SSD with MBR partition scheme, and after my initial installation of Mac OS X I restored an earlier copy that had all of my programs and settings already installed. I won't detail too much of the Windows 7 process but will mention the essentials. This guide is essentially Method 1 v3.02 with some tweaks. As this is a general guide, the specifics can be adapted to a USB DVD drive or other methods, but will not cover those subjects. However, using this general guide as it is you should have a working dual-boot setup similar to mine.

Requirements:

*Note: If you use a disc older than 10.5.6, make sure to extract the Mac OS X 10.5.7 update package from the DMG file to a USB drive and have that drive, whether it is you DellEFIBootMaker drive or another one, plugged in when you boot into the OS for the first time. This is a common glitch, 10.5.6 is okay with this.*

Prep Work

1) Download the following software first:
DellEFIBootMaker (note which version to use in the Downloads section)
DellEFI 1.2 alpha 5 (hereafter referred to as DellEFI 1.2a5)
Mac OS X 10.5.7 Combo Update (discs 10.5.5 and below) or Mac OS X 10.5.7 Incremental Update (10.5.6 discs)

2) Insert the Mac OS X Leopard Install DVD into your Mac, as well as the 8 GB drive. Open Disk Utility (in the Utilities folder of Applications) and select the 8 GB drive in the list. Select the Partition tab, set the Volume Scheme as "1 Partition", name it OSXDVD, and select "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)" as the Format. Click "Options...", select "Master Boot Record" and click OK then Apply, then click Partition and confirm your decision by entering your password. (This should only take a minute or two.) Now switch to the Restore tab, drag the OSXDVD partition icon from the left into the Destination field and drag the DVD volume named "Mac OS X Install DVD" to the Source field. (Do not drag the CD Drive model, that will mess things up.) Press Restore, confirm the decision by pressing Restore in the next window, enter your password, and then wait for it to finish. Depending on the drive and disc quality, this can take anywhere from 30 minutes to 1.5 hours. When that is done, close Disk Utility, and modify your drive to allow installation to MBR partitions by following Advanced 3. (You don't need to enable the other contents to be shown, but you can make all of the modifications if you like. We only need the MBR to work.)

3a) Run the DellEFIBootMaker app (you'll need to unzip the file first), simply click the "Make DellEFI USB Boot Key" button, enter your password and click okay when it is done. You'll want to unzip and copy the DellEFI 1.2a5 app to the drive as well. (This next step isn't necessary, but if you have any more room, or if you have another drive available, you should open the Mac OS X 10.5.7 Combo Update image and copy the file inside to a disk as well.) Eject the DVD and the drive from your Mac, either by a right-click (control+click for you one-buttoned people) or by dragging the icon to the trash.

3b) On a Windows computer, create a USB Windows 7 installer drive using your 4 GB drive and this guide on Techknowl.com.

Installation (On the Dell)

4) Insert the Windows 7 USB drive into your Dell. Turn the Dell on and enter Setup by pressing "2" (the number two.) Navigate to the Advanced tab, and make sure that "USB BIOS Legacy Support" is Enabled and "USB Wake Support" is Disabled. (If you don't have BlueTooth or do not have a need for it, turn off BlueTooth as well.) Select "Exit Saving Changes" in the Exit tab and your Dell will restart. Now press "0" (the number zero) when you see the Dell logo, and select "USB Storage". This will boot into the Windows 7 Installer, and you will click the Install buttons, agree to the license agreement, and then select "Custom (advanced)". Here, you will partition the drive by clicking "Drive options (advanced)", delete any partitions currently the drive, and then click New. The first partition is your Windows 7 partition, so give it a size that is at least 6 GB large. (Mine is set to 6300 in the box.) When that is done, select New again, and create your Mac OS X partition, again at least 6 GB (actual, not literal, so use 6300 or greater). There is no need to waste space, so balance these two as you see fit on your drive.

*Note: Sometimes the utility in Windows 7 likes to create a 200 MB system partition at the front of the drive. I don't know why it does this, but you should be able to eliminate it by creating another partition and deleting the first partition you made as well as the 200 MB one that the utility created. Make a new partition in the empty space. This can be trial and error, and you may need to restart the installer to get it to quit.*

Install Windows 7 on the first partition, and after a reboot or two it should bring you to the Windows 7 first-time setup the next time it prompts you for something. Set up your installation as you see fit, and if you want you can set up the whole thing by installing programs and updates. As of now, if you were to restart your computer it would boot into Windows 7. But when you are ready, we will be moving on to installing Mac OS X.

5) Remove the Windows 7 USB drive, shut down the computer, and insert the Mac OS X USB drive. Press "0" during boot, and select "USB Storage". A grey screen with drive icons should appear, select OSXDVD. After this you should see a bunch of scrolling text, and then the Installer screen will appear. Select your language, press Continue, and Agree. Now click Utilities in the Menu Bar, and open Disk Utility. This time we want to highlight the second partition on the SSD drive and click the Erase tab. Volume Format is "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)" and Name is OSXMINI9. Click "Erase..." and confirm the decision. Once it is done formatting, close Disk Utility, select your OSXMINI9 partition, and click Continue. I recommend no matter what your configuration is to press Customize and deselect anything you do not need, such as Language Translations, Additional Fonts, and Printer Drivers, but adjust according to your needs. Click Done, and then Install. This can take anywhere from 20-50 minutes.

6) Installation will most likely fail, but that's okay, it's normal. However, do not press Restart; instead, go up to Utilities and select Terminal. When the Terminal window appears, type "postinstall" (without quotes) and after a few seconds it should say, "You are now ready to reboot to a fully functional OSX Install!" Now type "reboot" and your Dell will begin the restart process. It may take a minute or two, so be patient. When your computer does reboot, enter Setup again by pressing "2" (the number two.) Navigate to the Advanced tab. If you have BlueTooth and intend to use it, turn "USB BIOS Legacy Support" is Disabled. If you do not have BlueTooth, or do not intend to use it, keep "USB BIOS Legacy Support" Enabled and set BlueTooth to Disabled. Select "Exit Saving Changes" in the Exit tab and your Dell will restart again. Let it start up as normal and it should show the grey screen again, and will ask which drive to boot from (or perhaps it will automatically boot from the SSD.) Select your OSXMINI9 partition.

Post-Install

7) You may or may not see the startup video, depending on the version of your Install DVD. Setup your account as you see fit. When it comes to the Migration Assistant, do not transfer settings. When it is all done, you should see your Desktop, with drive icons for your SSD and USB drive. If you are on 10.5.6, you could just leave it like this since all the drivers and the bootloader work just fine, but that would not be ideal since you are not up to date.

8) Now it's time for DellEFI. You should have copied this to your flash drive earlier, or you could download it now, but either way run the app. If it prompts you about needing to remove or delete a file first, press No. You will need to run a Custom Installation with the following settings:

(You can also select "Remote CD" if you want to use that feature.) Press Install, confirm the decision, and let it run until completion. However, when it comes up with the prompt that says, "All done, ready for reboot" select No.

9) No matter what version you originally installed, you'll want to install the 10.5.7 update. Either use the Mac OS X 10.5.7 Combo Update for discs 10.5.5 and older, or the Mac OS X 10.5.7 incremental update for 10.5.6 discs. (You can either obtain from the website via your Dell, or it could be stored on another drive, but please note that older disc installations (10.5.5 and below) will probably have a problem opening the DMG. To circumvent this, extract the update package from the DMG to an external drive and plug it in before booting). When the install completes, press Restart.

10) This time when it reboots, you will see a little progress bar underneath your SSD icon. Hit the "-" (minus) key before the progress bar disappears, and then type "-x" (no quotes.) If you look in the bottom left corner, you should see white text that says, "boot: -x"; hit enter. This will boot Mac OS X into Safe Mode. Once you log in back to the Desktop, run DellEFI one last time. Use these settings in a Custom Installation:

Click Install, confirm the decision, and this time press Yes when it is done installing. Ignore the box that appears during the restart process, it is just letting you know that it is still updating some files. This time, you will boot into a fully functioning Mac OS X updated to 10.5.7. Congratulations!

You can now go ahead and rename the OSXMINI9 partition to whatever you please, install any other software and adjust any settings at this point. If you want to boot into Windows, simply press any button while the blue ribbon is on the screen during boot and you can select your Windows partition. The first time may boot in verbose, meaning a bunch of text will scroll instead of the normal Windows bootup screen. This is normal, and subsequent boots should be back to normal. To access your files between the operating system, look for the Software section in the "Post-Install Tips and Troubleshooting" section, coming soon.

Helpful Links

These are for a better understanding of multi-boot procedures and some general troubleshooting.

mechdrew DellEFI Advanced 2 Version 3.01a