Dual-Booting Mac OS X and WinXP in MSI Wind Part I

This is one heck of a tutorial about dual-booting your MSI Wind with Windows XP and Mac OS X. The official OS X in MSI Wind forums can be read here. Right there you can find almost all the information about running Mac OS in Wind. You can also visit another notable post which you can read here. This is the Paul's complete guide in Mac OS X installation in MSI Wind. This guide uses the Kalyway installer while I choose to use the Stellarola's MSIWindOSX.iso for its simplicity, which you can find at the nearest torrent site in Google. A really big thanks for the works of this wonderful and very talented person.

Now let's get the ball rolling.

1. Your first wind. - Of course right before you experience mac/wind (MacOS X over MSI Wind), you need to purchase one. Here in our place I bought mine in PC Corner, 4th floor megamall. They had this upgrade promo of 2GB RAM, 160HD and a 6 cell battery pack for only 21,499k PHP. I think this Christmas season they had this sale promo which makes the price less over a hundred, 20,999k PHP. To those fo you who are off my location, you can purchase a wind online or any other online gadget store nearest you.

- Primarily there are a couple of MSI Wind variants which has been released. The first foremost certified wind-like is the Advent 4211, which makes every component cross compatible. The second one is a German brand, the Medion Akoya . The third one I know as of this wrting is the Tsunami mover from Portugal . All of these brands found to be compatible with MacOS X's custom build.

2. Updating your BIOS. - To update your BIOS, it is a pre-requisite to make your bootloader first. This is the best method since floppy disks had been extinct.

- download the MSI BIOS update here. Latest build was version 1.0A, updated last 12-10-2008
- Unzip your downloaded copy and put it in a folder. You will be seeing:

eafudos - A batch file
EAFUDOS - An EXE file
EN011IMS - An update file

- Now, you need to make your thumbdrive/SDcard bootable. Download the HP USB Disk Format Tool
- Run and install the program, format your thumbdrive/SDcard and choose the option of a startupdisk
- Next is to copy the 3 files you have downloaded from MSI into the thumbdrive/SDcard
- Given that your thumbdrive/SDcard is currently inserted, reboot your wind.
- Upon seeing the MSI logo, press delete a few times so you will be put in the BIOS options. Change the boot order to the device you are using, the "thumbdrive/SDcard"
- Save your options and exit.

- Upon seeing the MSI logo again, press F10 so you will be shown with the boot options. Choose your thumbdrive/SDcard and boot from it.
- After the wind boots up, you will be put in a DOS prompt.
- Run the batchfile eafdos.bat and wait for it to complete to 100%
- Power down your wind, remove the batteries for 10 secs, insert your battery.
- Turn-on your wind, press delete a few times, go to the system information option and check if your bios version.

3. Overclocking. - Overclocking is the process of forcing a computer component to run at a higher clock rate. Practicing this makes us run the pc out of the usual default, out-of-the-box settings for higher performance.

- Reboot your wind and enter your bios.
- Navigate to the Advance tab, you will be able to see DOC.
- Select between 8%, 15% and 24%. This is the overclock rate.
- Make sure speedstep is enabled. This will allow Atom processor to run at lower clock rate when idling.
- Press F10 to save and exit results.
- Download the MSI SCM (System Control Manager). Please take note that you will be needing this in running XP/Vista in overclock mode. There is also a copy of this software in your MSI CD.
- Download CPUZ so you will be able to check your system resouces.

- Once running in AC power and while on Windows, pressing Fn+F10 should display 'Turbo On'. Your power LED should turn orange.
- The overclock is pretty noticeable when running ram hungry apps like photoshop.

- When running on battery, pressing Fn+F10 will give you the 'Eco Mode' and power LED will turn green.

5. Wiping out, installing and partitioning. - Now that everything was set, we are ready to begin the installation and partitioning of the disk. There are lots of ways in order for you to wipe-out, partition and install both operating systems, but we'll make advantage of the Windows XP's fdisk for this. http://www.petri.co.il/install_windows_xp_pro.htm

- Boot the Windows XP installation disc on your DVD drive. Setup will load all the needed files and drivers.
- Select To Setup Windows XP Professional Now. Don't forget to accept the licensing agreement.
- Since there is a previous installation, we need to wipe-out (delete) existing partition to free-up a large unpartitioned space by pressing D.
- Create the partition on which you will install Windows XP by pressing C.
- You will be ask for the size of the partition in megabytes. My personal choice is to divide the partition in half, 50% for XP and 50% for MacOS.

To be continued...