T61: Clone to larger HDD, repartition & add Win 7 & Mac OSX

[crashnburn]

T61: Clone to larger HDD, repartition & add Win 7 & Mac OSX

Mods - I am posting this to 2 forums for a simple reason.. If you think this is out of policy please dont remove it, etc, just let me know and I'll try to REMOVE / EDIT the relevant material so that there is no / minimal OVERLAP between the threads.

For 1 - Windows Forum
I'd like more responses from people who've done Lenovo / Windows Migration
but dont bother / wont reply to Mac OSX related stuff

For 2/3 - OSX Forum
I'd like to get responses from OSX & Multiboot experts

The bigger PICTURE to be visible.. to the Mac OSX / Non Mac OSX experts.

[ Expect deeper insights in Windows Forum ]
1. Migrate entire HDD as-is to new HDD with Lenovo special Partitions intact (at beginning & end of HDD)
- I have several apps such as Partition Magic / Acronis Partition / Disk Director / Disk Image etc.

[ Expect deeper insights in OSX Forum ]
2. Partition the remaining space in between for Windows 7 & Mac OSX / Leopard / Snow Leopard.
- I am currently on WinXP Pro and will continue to be for a bit, but would slowly evaluate the Win 7 and then eventually migrate to it as a Primary OS. At that point I'd start moving more and more from Win XP to Win 7 and finally would like to delete / eliminate the Win XP Partition and I am guessing Resize the Win 7 partition to take the space

3. My trysts with Mac OSX Leopard and Snow Leopard may involve 1 or 2 separate partitions / instances. Once one of these stabilizes on my system I'd like to keep it as Secondary OS.

Few hesitations in my mind:

1. Can the Lenovo stuff be copied / cloned / migrated bit for bit?

2. From what I have seen / read on Insanely Mac, & some places.
- Mac OSX Partitions / Volumes dont easily move / resize (more/less) and maybe most of it not at all.
- I dont know if there is any Acronis like tool that can easily CLONE them etc.
Please correct me if I am wrong.

What should be my strategy / execution outline for these set of activities?
Where should I position my Partitions / Volumes as such and in what order for least effort / complexity?

[Sebinouse]

To boot with Windows and MacOS X, you will have format your larger HDD in MBR with 4 partitions for instance (WinXP, 7, Snow, Leo).
To copy bit by bit your former HDD you can use terminal in MacOSX (use a real mac/hack or boot a retail DVD, or with a USB key ... more info here) :

• fdisk : to find the exact size of your XP partition, and create a new partition with this exact size

• You can read this tread to understand how fdisk works

• dd (disk dump) : to copy bit by bit

• Code: Select all

  dd if=/dev/disk6s3 of=/dev/disk5s3 bs=512

• if : input file ... partition to copy

• of : output file ... destination partition

That's exactly what I did for my X60 : I had 3 professional partitions I had to copy on the larger HDD, and I wanted to add a 4th partition with Leo/Snow.

[crashnburn]

To boot with Windows and MacOS X, you will have format your larger HDD in MBR with 4 partitions for instance (WinXP, 7, Snow, Leo).
To copy bit by bit your former HDD you can use terminal in MacOSX (use a real mac/hack or boot a retail DVD, or with a USB key ... more info here) :

• fdisk : to find the exact size of your XP partition, and create a new partition with this exact size

• You can read this tread to understand how fdisk works

• dd (disk dump) : to copy bit by bit

• Code: Select all

  dd if=/dev/disk6s3 of=/dev/disk5s3 bs=512

• if : input file ... partition to copy

• of : output file ... destination partition

That's exactly what I did for my X60 : I had 3 professional partitions I had to copy on the larger HDD, and I wanted to add a 4th partition with Leo/Snow.

- Well.. I'd like to have my Thinkpad "Service Partition" intact at the end of the drive & accessible if I ever need it. (lets say I can use Acronis or similar tool or "disk dump" to clone the IBM Service Partition at the end of the Drive.

- I was asking if Mac OSX Partition / Volumes can be moved around / repositioned on the Larger Drive (inner or outer ring) and / or resized? (As conveniently as Acronis moves & resizes Win etc partitions). ?

What if I had more than 4 partitions.. would my strategy involve extended partition with logical partitions inside?

Should I keep the Mac OSX partitions at the start of the drive or near the end (before Service Partition) ?

Some screenshots of OSX installations I saw involved choosing GUID or something instead of MBR.. for installing.. Thoughts?

Should I use Chameleon / EFI Boot or some Boot Manager from Acronis / Paragon / System Commander?

[Sebinouse]

Disk dump should be perfect for your "Service partition" (it copy EXACTLY bit by bit ... it worked for me ... to only difficulty is to have the exact same size ... that's what you do with fdisk).

I have no idea about Resize/Move partition.

As far as I know you can only have 4 partition with MBR (no ideas about logical/extended ... this notion doesn't appear in fdisk ...)

You can organize your partitions as you want. I decided to keep the original configuration and add a MacOSX partition at the end on the free remaining space:
Partition 1 : WinXP (System Professional)
Partition 2 : WinXP (Data Professional)
Partition 3 : WinXP (Personal)
Partition 4 : MacOSX
(1,2 and 3 were on my original disk, smaller disk ...)

About boot, you only have to flag the MacOSX partition and install Chameleon (or AsereBLN) bootloader then you will have a graphical interface to choose your boot partition

You can easily install MacOSX on a MBR table ... there are 2 files to change on your usb boot disk ...more info here