MacBook Pro 15 inch mid-2010 install dual bootcamp - High Sierra OSX plus Windows 10 plus Windows Vista

Question

I have a old M-Audio FireWire 410 device. I use a HP DV7-1025nr laptop/notebook with a IEEE 1394 4-pin port, but on both Windows 7 and Windows Vista, the "M-Audio FireWire Control Panel" cannot found the M-Audio FW 410 device, nor the Windows Device Manager can recognize the device.

I then use a MacBook Pro 15 inch mid-2010, with a FireWire 1394 9-pin port, with OSX HighSierra and BootCamp Windows 10 installed. On this BootCamp Windows 10 (Not officially supported by M-Audio FireWire 410), I run the "M-Audio FW Device Enabler", then I can see the Sound device "%MAFWFU.DeviceDesc%", then I click Enabler, then I can open the "M-Audio FireWire Control Panel", but the "mixer", "output" and "hardware" tabs are all empty. I suppose the last M-Audio FireWire 410 V6.0.01 Driver only supports Windows Vista 64-bit and Windows 7 64-bit. Thus I tried to install one more Windows Vista instance on the same disk.

I then use Disk Management on the BootCamp Windows 10 to shrink the BootCamp volume and leave out another empty partition of 100GB. I tried to create a "New Simple Volume", but there is a warning of "....will convert the basic disk(s) to dynamic disk(s).... will not be able to start installed OS from any volume on the disk(s) (except the current boot volume)....". I am afraid to lose the HighSierra OSX boot, so I do not create the "simple volume".

I then try booting a Windows Vista installation DVD, but to the step of selected the partition, I have Disk0Partition1 - Primary; Disk0Partition2 - Primary; Disk0Partition3 BOOTCAMP - Primary; and finally Disk0Unallocated Space 100GB. I tried to select the 100GB UN-allocated space, but there is a warning "Windows cannot be installed to this hard disk space. The selected disks has the maximum number of partitions of this type." and I cannot proceed with the installation.

I checked and found that the disk is in MBR format, which should allow for up to 4 primary partition, but still I cannot install an extra Windows Vista on top of OSX High Sierra and Windows 10 BootCamp, in this MacBook. I am not sure if I should change the MBR format to GPT format, which I am afraid that I cannot boot up the OSX nor the Windows 10 anymore.

Please help to see how can I add an Windows Vista instance in this MacBook Pro 15 inch mid-2010, with installed OSX High Sierra and Windows 10 BootCamp.

Thanks Alex

Update:

Below is the output requested by David Anderson.

A. Output of diskutil list:

/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *512.1 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk1         255.0 GB   disk0s2
   3:       Microsoft Basic Data BOOTCAMP                256.9 GB   disk0s3

/dev/disk1 (synthesized):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +255.0 GB   disk1
                                 Physical Store disk0s2
   1:                APFS Volume MacOSX                  74.8 GB    disk1s1
   2:                APFS Volume Preboot                 20.1 MB    disk1s2
   3:                APFS Volume Recovery                516.7 MB   disk1s3
   4:                APFS Volume VM                      4.3 GB     disk1s4

B. Output of sudo gpt -r show /dev/disk0:

gpt show: /dev/disk0: Suspicious MBR at sector 0
gpt show: error: bogus map
gpt show: unable to open device '/dev/disk0': Undefined error: 0

C. Output of sudo fdisk /dev/disk0:

Disk: /dev/disk0    geometry: 62260/255/63 [1000215216 sectors]
Signature: 0xAA55
         Starting       Ending
 #: id  cyl  hd sec -  cyl  hd sec [     start -       size]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
 1: EE 1023 254  63 - 1023 254  63 [         1 -     409639] <Unknown ID>
 2: FF 1023 254  63 - 1023 254  63 [    409640 -  498046880] Xenix BBT   
*3: 07 1023 254  63 - 1023 254  63 [ 498456576 -  290342679] HPFS/QNX/AUX
 4: 27 1023 254  63 - 1023 254  63 [ 998514688 -    1697792] <Unknown ID>

Answer 1

The short answer is that you do not want to attempt what you are trying to do. At this point, I would recommend concentrating on undoing any damage that you might have caused by the steps you have already taken. You should edit your question and post the output from the following commands.

diskutil list
sudo gpt -r show /dev/disk0
sudo fdisk /dev/disk0

Note: You will have to disable System Integrity Protection (SIP) before entering the gpt and fdisk commands.

The above command will not change your disk. The command just output the current state of the internal disk partitioning. Also, I have assumed you have just one internal drive.

The more complex answer would be the following. Yes, you could have Windows 10 installed in one primary partition and then install Vista in another available primary partition. This could be set up as a dual boot arrangement. (This dual boot arrangement is unrelated to the dual boot between macOS and Windows.) However, I would first install Vista without a dual boot arrangement. In other words, to switch between Window 10 and Vista you would have to manually change to active partition. If you still wish to install Vista (I assume your Mac is Vista compatible), then I would still want to see the output from the commands given above.

Answer 2

Please keep in mind few things.

1) Keep your question that addresses one problem in one thread.

2) You’re lucky that you’ve been messing with disk partitions for two BootCamps and haven’t killed your machine to death. Keep a backup plan ASAP.

3) You can look into this thread for multiple windows instances but it all happens on one BootCamp.

4) Your audio driver is nobody’s concern here.