Sharing an HD with Mac and PC

[EricMartello]

Here's what I'm trying to do. I have an external hard drive that I want to "share" with an Intel Mac (real one, not a hack) and a PC. My plan is to partition the drive into two parts and make one NTFS with Windows on it while the other one I format HFS within the Mac. Would that work or would the act of installing Mac OS overwrite the Windows bootcode?

What I am trying to accomplish is basically a transparent boot, where the drive will boot Windows when plugged into the PC and Mac OS when plugged into the Mac without the need to use a boot loader.

 

[Gooberlx2]

I think each OS will fight over the MBR section of the hdd with their own bootloader. However, you should be able to configure your chosen bootloader for both OSes/partitions.

link. Though you're not using a osx86/hackintosh, I think the concepts should still apply.

Usually these guides are meant for two OSes on two partitions, on one drive, on one computer. I don't know how/if sharing one drive between two computers will affect the process.

edit:

without the need to use a boot loader.

Doubtful.

 

[EricMartello]

Yea, I know about setting up dual boots between osx86 and windows, but in this instance I am trying to get it to work on a retail Mac system.

I have not tried using the OSX86 boot tools on a real mac because as far as I know they emulate EFI which isn't necessary on a real mac and seems like it would cause conflicts or instabilities.

My hope was that I could either get it to boot transparently, or as a compromise, hold the option key down on the Mac and select the boot partition from the menu. I dunno, it's tricky getting multiple OSes to coexist, especially when they were never intended to.

 

[Gooberlx2]

I think if you do the c:\chain0="Mac OSX" with the windows bootloader, you can just grab the chain0 file from your actual mac and copy it to your windows partition. No EFI emulation required (since you're booting a real mac).

According to this it should be located in /usr/standalone/i386/chain0

Perhaps someone else with a real mac can verify this file is actually there (sadly, I don't have one). According to the wiki, it seems to just be a boot time util/bootloader that searches for valid HFS+ partitions and boots from them. In that sense, there may not be anything different from the file on a real mac, and those provided by osx86 isos. I think the EFI stuff is all done in the kexts and other points in the system preferences, bios, etc...

 

[ChAoTiCpInOy]

You're going to have a hard time installing Windows on an external drive.

 

[Gooberlx2]

Well, keep us updated OP. I'm curious if it'll work.