Dual boot MacBook and Windows 7 64 bit

13 inch MacBook  MC516LL/A | Model A1342

Tuesday, July 03, 2012

I recently got an older version of Mac Book (13″ White Mac Book; MC516LL/A; Model 1342; running Lion o/s). It came with a 250 GB Hitachi Hard disk. I wanted to run some Windows specific programs that were not available for Mac platform so I sought the help of  computer resources person and so that I can install Windows 7 64 bit on the white Mac Book. He helped me a lot. I will put together some details of how we did this below:

1. Backup

Before we start we need to download two programs that will be useful to us in later stages so let us download them and have them available on all disk (you can also have them available on an external USB Mac formatted thumb drive). The programs are:

1. Carbon Copy Cloner from www.bombich.com
2. GPT fdisk from http://sourceforge.net/projects/gptfdisk/

Then we took a 500 GB external (USB) hard disk and formatted it in Mac format (HFS). Attached the USB disk to the Mac Book and ran the Time Machine program on the Mac Book and saved the disk carefully.

Then we took another 500 GB external (USB) hard disk and formatted it in Mac format (HFS). Then attached the second USB disk to the Mac Book and ran the carbon copy cloner  (CCC). While running CCC we selected the Mac Book as the ‘Source’ and the external hard disk as the ‘Destination’. We needed to make a ‘Recovery Partition’ on the MacClone before copying all the contents. When completed we ejected the disk and kept it aside. So we now have Time Machine hard disk and Carbon Copy Cloned hard disk. With somewhat identical but different type of back-ups of the original disk.

2. Remove and replace hard disk

Then we shut down the Mac Book. Then we opened the back cover of Mac Book by removing the 8 Phillips screws. Then we proceeded with removing the original 250 GB Hitachi hard disk and replacing it with 320 GB  Seagate hard disk (both have SATA interface). The Mac Book manual shows how to do this. The original hard disk with all contents of Mac Book was labeled and stored safely. The back cover of the Mac Book with larger hard disk was closed. Now we a third copy of the original content in the form of the original hard disk.

3. Booting off external disk and formatting the new drive

With the new hard disk inside, connect the Carbon Copy Cloned hard disk via USB port and start the Mac Book while holding the ‘alt’ or ‘Option’ key. With this special booting mode, the window you show you two options: ‘MacClone’ or ‘Recovery HD’. Here, select the MacClone and boot the Mac Book using it. Then using the Disk Utilities in the MacClone disk, partition the Mac Book’s new hard disk into one large Mac formatted disk (HSF).

Now use the CCC in MacClone disk and copy back your MacClone to the new (labeled MacBookNew). The source this time will be ‘MacClone’ and destination will be ‘MacBookNew’. Once again it will ask for ‘Recovery Partition’ and ‘Regular area’ accept both and copy it.

Still using the ‘MacClone’s Disk Utilities now shrink the one big partition to 210GB (leaving 110 GB) as an empty area. Now using the MacClone’s gptdisk utility make  hybrid MBR.

Now shutdown the Mac Book.

4. Installing Windows

Before you restart the Mac Book, slide Windows 7 64-bit installation DVD into the Super Drive. Then boot the Mac Book with ‘Alt’ aka ‘Option’ button held down. You will now see four options to choose from ‘Mac HD’, ‘Recovery Partition’, ‘Windows’, and ‘EFI’. Using the arrow keys or mouse pad select ‘Windows’ and hit ‘Enter’.

You will now go through the regular Windows 7 64-bit installation. It may ask you to reformat the 110 GB partition to be in NTFS mode, go ahead and do it. Continue the Windows installation. Take the DVD out and shut down.

Restart while holding the ‘alt’ button and select Windows and get all updates and install all necessary software (you may have to go over several reboots to get all updates).

5. Bootcamp DVD

It is very likely you will not have the necessary Windows drivers for Wi-Fi, Ethernet, Video for the (nVidia MPC86 chipset). So while running under Windows mode, slip in the Mac installation disk and run boot camp. This will install all the Windows drivers.

You are done.

 

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Lost Canon Camera, MacBook Laptop, Acer Laptop at JAX Parking Lot

Lost Canon Camera, Mac Book, and Acer Aspire Windows laptop at airport

Jacksonville International Airport Economy Parking Lot 1

Saturday, March 24, 2012, 8-9 PM

After a week long trip to San Francisco and having had a good time we hit a bad spell when we lost our point-and-shoot Canon camera, MacBook laptop, and Acer Aspire Windows laptop on Saturday, March 24, 2012 between 8 and 8:30 PM at the Economy Parking Lot 1 of the Jacksonville International Airport (JAX). We forgot to load it into our car and drove off home. We realized after 3 hours (after reaching) in Tallahassee.

When we called the parking lot and drove back the bag was already gone. No one reported it as lost and found. So a combined value of close $1000 was lost and NO ONE thought to report it despite the fact that it contained multitudes of our contact numbers, business cards, phone numbers, name labels, airline bag-tags.

The bad part is loosing valuable property but the worst thing is loosing all the photos we had taken during the trip and our family pictures are completely gone. Someone will probably will simply delete and reuse it or resell it.

The details of our lost items are:

Canon SD1300IS Powershot Camera

Canon SD1300IS Powershot Camera

Canon SD1300IS Powershot Camera

Model Number: D ELPH SD1300IS(BL)

Box Number: 4218B001 (AA)

Body Number: 122064139747

MacBook  2.4 GHz

MacBook MC516LL./A

MacBook  2.4 GHz

250 Gb Harddisk

Part Number MC516LL/A

Model A1342

Serial Nubmer W8029ARWF5W

White in color

Airport ID: 60 33 4B 18 28 7C (60:33:4b:18:28:7c)
Ethernet ID: E8 06 88 FB 7F B8 or (e8:06:88:fb;7f:b8)

Acer Aspire 1.3GHz 1410-2497

Acer Aspire 1410

Acer Aspire 1.3GHz 1410-2497

Windows computer

Windows 7 32 bit

Blue in color

Ethernet ID:  00 26 9E B8 77 AE or (00:26:9e:b8:77:ae)

So if you happen to come across these items it is likely that it was obtained the wrong way. So please contact me. Thanks.