How To: Dual Boot Mac OS X Snow Leopard and Windows 7 on a PC

Geeks love Macs because Macs are really cool. They are slick, stylish and freaking awesome! What about windows 7, by the way? Yea, it is also cool, slick, stylish, bug free and freaking awesome! Being a hardcore geek, what will you go for? A Mac with Snow Leopard or a PC with Windows 7? Not sure? Why not go for both of them?

Oh! Don’t have the money to afford both? Don’t worry! TheGadgets.net is here to help you out! You won’t even need to buy a Mac! Lo! This step by step guide will help you install Mac OS X Snow Leopard as well as Windows 7 on a single PC! You don’t even need a high end PC! Just your current computer will work!

Step by Step Guide to Dual Boot Mac OS X Snow Leopard and Windows 7 on a PC:

Note: You need to follow the steps in the given hierarchy. Performing them out of order will not work.

1. Backup your data:

The first and the most important thing is to backup your data. It is not optional at all because you need to format and partition your hard disk from scratch. Best option is to write the important files to a DVD ROM so that you are able to access them anytime, anywhere.

Tip: DVD ROMs work even in worst conditions when USB and network ports may fail.

2. Partitioning the Hard Disk:

One of the most fundamental things in getting a dual booted Mac OS and Windows system is the proper partitioning. For partitioning, you can use any method of your choice. I know you are pretty used to doing this simple stuff. You may use partition magic or you can even partition your hard drive by booting your system with a windows XP CD.

I assume that you have a hard drive with 120 GB of total capacity. You are about to divide it into 3 partitions of 50 GB, 30 GB and 40 GB. But for now, you’ll make only one partiton of 40GB and leave the rest of the space unpartitioned.

3. Install Mac OS X Snow Leopard:

The next step is to install Mac OS X Snow leopard on your PC*. Lifehacker has a pretty nice and handy tutorial for doing that. You don’t even need to do any hacking! Install Snow Leopard on the 40 GB partition. Do not touch the unpartioned space.

4. Install Windows 7:

Now you need to install windows 7. When you go through the boot process you can easily find the unpartitioned space. Divide it into two partions of 50GB and 30 GB each using the installation wizard. 50 GB is going to be the C:\ drive whereas the 30 GB one will be the data storage drive. If you prefer having only one drive, then you may go for a single partition of 80 GB. Install Windows 7 on the desired partition.

When you finish installing, you’ll be booting into Windows 7 only. There will be no operating system selection menu while starting up. No need to worry!

5. Set up dual boot:

Here comes the climax! Now you have to set up the dual boot of Windows 7 and Mac OS X Snow Leopard. It is as easy as 1 2 3!

Dual boot windows 7 and Snow Leopard

• Boot into windows 7
• Open the browser and head to http://neosmart.net/
• Look for the latest version of EasyBCD and download it. Current version is EasyBCD 1.7.2. You can download it here. It should work fine for Snow Leopard.
• Install and run EasyBCD on your computer.
• From the main screen of EasyBCD select the “Add/Remove Entries” option on the left side.
• Select “Mac” tab.
• Select “Generic X86 PC” from the drop down menu. Try the other options if it doesn’t work but that’s a very rare case.
• You are all done. Reboot your PC and you can now see the boot menu showing Windows 7 as well as Mac OS X Snow Leopard. Select any of them and bingo!