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General discussion

Partitioning Mac hard drives

Aug 19, 2007 9:22AM PDT

This is just background information. Skip to the third paragraph to answer the real queston.

I got a new macbook the other day and also learned how amazing Ubuntu is (a distribution of linux). I installed windows on my mac (through boot camp) and then installed Ubuntu (I made a partition with space from the windows partition). The only problem is that when I boot up (holding the option key) I only see two operating systems: Mac OS X and windows. When I click on the windows partition there is a choice to boot into windows or Ubuntu (if nothing selecte it will automaticly boot from Ubuntu in 15 seconds) but the problem is I can't use the arrow keys to select what operating system I want to use so it boots into Ubuntu in 15 seconds. This means I cannot use windows.

I want to make a 4GB partition for Ubuntu and later make another partition for windows while using the boot camp assistant. I understand that you cannot use disk utility to partition the start-up disk (even though boot camp assistant manages). Without using the boot camp assistant how do I partition my hard drive?

Thank you

Discussion is locked

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"This means I cannot use windows."
Aug 25, 2007 11:02PM PDT

This means the boot manager is not recognizing the keyboard. If you ever do this again try the non-gui version of the Ubuntu boot manager. While I could change the boot option to Windows in Ubuntu (I am not going to duplicate ready web content on that) what I don't know is how to change it back easily. To do that you'll have to research the boot manager you installed.

Bob

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I give up
Aug 28, 2007 12:30AM PDT

I formated my hard drive and reinstalled all my OSs 4 times now and it is getting really annoying and boring. I will just stick with MAC OS X, and windows xp(only for playing games).
Maybe sometime in the future I will try installing 3 OSs on my Mac.

Thank you

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Now that you have given up
Aug 28, 2007 12:34AM PDT

you might want to consider using something like Parallels and run Windows and Linux as virtual machines.

No need to Partition the drives, just install // and follow the instructions regarding the installation of other OS's.

P

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Already haveparralels
Aug 29, 2007 10:21AM PDT

I already have Parallels but it is not as fast as running it alone. But I am fine with Mac OS X and windows because it takes care of all my needs. Anyway I got Ubuntu and Windows on a computer I made.

Thank you