Installing Windows on Mac with Ubuntu

Question

Level 1

8 points

Installing Windows on Mac with Ubuntu

I am trying to triple boot windows, ubuntu, and osx. I have already installed Ubuntu on a partition using rEFIt and that all went very smoothly. I did that a while ago. Now I want to install windows but I am having all sorts of difficulty.

1) Bootcamp doesnt work. A warning comes up at the very beginning saying "The startup disk cannot be partitioned." Well it already is. Is there any sort of work-around for this?

2) When I dd the windows iso onto a usb drive, rEFIt does't even recognize it so I cannot boot the Windows installer.

I am pretty helpless right now. Any advice would help. I really don't want to uninstall Ubuntu. I could use Ubuntu to install Windows but I am not sure that would help. I really want this to work in a very simple unified way under rEFIt, only EFI is not recognizing my USB Windows Installer.

I dont have a CD/DVD drive on my new Macbook Pro, but perhaps I could get one and try burning a disk. Not sure if that would solve this issue or not. I am real need of someone who knows about this stuff.

Thank you for your help,

Chet

MacBook Pro (Retina, Mid 2012), OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.3)

Posted on Jun 25, 2013 1:07 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Best reply

BobTheFisherman

Level 9

79,111 points

Jun 25, 2013 7:36 AM in response to ccorcos

As you have learned, you can not use Bootcamp Assistant to create a Bootcamp partition if your drive already has more than the OSx partition. This is documented in the Bootcamp Guides.

You can not triple boot a Bootcamp partition with two additional OSs.

If you want to run Windows, OSx, and Ubuntu at the same time use a virtual machine like Parallels, Fusion, or VirtualBox.

Reply

Answer 2

ccorcos Author

Level 1

8 points

Jun 25, 2013 9:57 AM in response to BobTheFisherman

Hmm. I'd really like to avoid a virtual machine. I've always had bad experienced with them slowing down my machine. I'd really like to just be able to boot into windows from startup with refit. This doesn't seem impossible...

I'm going to try to use the installation disk via remote disc. I'd like to conclusively rule out everything else before deciding to use a virtual machine...

Thanks

Chet

Reply