Parallels and triple-boot WITHOUT Boot Camp

Hi all,

I recently received a Macbook Air rev 4.2 (2011 version) and want to triple-boot it with Lion, Windows 7 and a flavour of Linux, but at the same time I'd like to be able to use the Windows and Linux partitions as VMs while running Lion.

I will be partitioning the disk using Disk Utility to have 4 primary partitions, and I'd like to know whether Parallels is still able to see the Windows and Linux partitions on the disk (and therefore use them as its base for the VMs) WITHOUT the help of Boot Camp - the use of the latter messes with Linux's modifications to boot setup and vice-versa, as I found out the hard way a couple of years ago.

I'm especially interested to know whether licensing will still work with Windows 7 - I understand that using Boot Camp, you register first on the Boot Camp partition and then repeat the process under Parallels to make sure Microsoft is happy. Does this still work when not using Boot Camp to partition the disk?

Thanks in advance for your help.

 

Some considerations:

* Lion uses more than one partition, it has an hidden partition called recovery partition, and so does Windows 7. So be careful with that.

* Google for a guide on how to triple boot with OSX Lion installed.

* As for licensing, AFAIK I don't think it has to be a Bootcamp partition, Windows licenses are related to the hardware, the computer, it doesn't matter how it's installed.

* As for not using Bootcamp Assistant, as far as I remember all triple boot guides start by using bootcamp assistant, I think the logic is to make it create a partition big enough for later being divided into 2 (Windows and for Linux) by another tool. Another tool that might treat GPT correctly is iPartition.

 

Thanks for the quick reply Specimen!

Hmm... I didn't know that Lion had a recovery partition. I'll have to look carefully at that before I commit to anything. I had a look in Disk Utility and it lists the internal SSD as being smaller than it actually is - perhaps the recovery partition is invisible to Disk Utility for safety reasons.

I was going to use this guide since it uses the exact Macbook Air that I have:
http://www.billsdon.com/2011/12/triple-boot-13inch-macbook-air-4-2-2011-model/

If my assumption is correct then this looks like it should work OK... I'll research whether Disk Utility can affect the recovery partition for OSX in any way before doing anything though - will post more info for if people find this useful in the future.