Boot Camp Error "You cannot partition an external disk drive"

Hi all - I am trying to install Windows XP Pro via Boot Camp for the first time. I have all four bays of my MacPro (circa 2007) filled with hard drives. I boot off the first bay, and have a cal digit raid card that controls the other three hard drives into a RAID5 array. I believe that the raid card may be the culprit.
I am trying to install boot camp/WinXP on the first drive. I get the error in the title above when I try to run Boot Camp. I have ejected the RAID5, and I have rebooted to no avail.
I cannot wipe my first drive/boot drive clean. I just wish to partition it via BC so I can switch between XP and Mac OSX. Any guidance is appreciated.
Thanks.
Tri

Try removing the other drives is almost always essential with a Mac Pro to get Windows to work. Even Windows 7 doesn't understand seeing Apple GPT/EFI during install - they can be reinstalled later.
Or it could be that any hardware RAID controller also has to be removed. Like Apple's Pro RAID or ATTO FC.
Even w/o the CalDigit and just Apple GPT you would have gotten an error message.
BCA is still after all these years unable to understand and work with a Mac Pro properly. A one-trick/ one-drive only utility that is stumped when it runs into a dual drive setup. Which way why I gave up on using Mac Pro for dual-boot and built some PCs just for Windows 7. I install Windows on PC, then transfer the drive to Mac Pro and it works just fine!
Xserve RAID Card: Boot Camp does not support RAID configurations
Xserve RAID Card: Boot Camp does not support RAID configurations ... Boot Camp does not support the installation of Windows onto a Mac using hardware or software RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Drives). This includes Microsoft Windows built-in software RAID as well as the Mac Pro RAID Card.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2855

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How-to: desperate need of help in partitioning an external disk drive

Some time ago, after installing PARALLELS, my external disk drive lost one of the two HFS+ partitions it had (465 GB total, 50% one and 50% the other).
Now, after having sent it to assistance, the technicians have recovered all possible data, with one issue: they have created a NTFS partition with all recovered data.
The external disk drive is now as shown on:
http://www.tyrexionibus.com/pictures/partition-diskutility.png
** WHAT'S THE MATTER ? **
I want to save the data contained in the first partition and partition the disk with two HFS+ partitions (60% and 40% of the disk space, particularly). In other words, I need to CONVERT (from NTFS to HFS+) and RESIZE (from 50% to 60%) the first partition and MAKE (40% of disk space) another HFS+ partition WITHOUT losing data.
Please note that I _DO NOT_ have sufficient disk space in my MacBook Pro's HDD to move all data from the external disk drive to it, create a new partition and then move all data to the new partition again.
How can I solve this issue?

I don't read Italian, but from the screen shot it appears that the first partition is not formated as NTFS. Am I missing something?
The safest thing to do would be to use a second external drive to back up everything while you are changing formats and partitions. I guess you create a new partition on half the disc, more all the data to the new partition, then modify the first partition; but that seems risky.

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Hi all,
I have Windows XP installed with Boot Camp. All was working fine (even though I installed Service Pack 3 and THEN the Boot Camp update), but today I received an external hard drive I ordered for use with Time Machine. It's a Western Digital My Book (500GB) connected via Firewire 800. This was working fine in Leopard (of course) but when I restart and go into Windows, the startup process freezes at the Windows XP logo (the animation continues though).
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Ok, so officially, you have to install it on your Mac's internal drive. Good, thanks for clearing that up.
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Hi I have a 15" MBP (the old type) with a disk functional disk drive. I want to install windows on an external hard drive to be booted off the MBP. However the external disk drive does not like any OS CDs other than MAC OS X ones. It tells me I can boot but when I try it says "Missing Operating System". Is there a way to boot windows (or Ubuntu) from an external disk drive?

Not as is. Neither OS will boot from an external drive without modification. Visit Ubuntu's web site for help with it. You should be able to find some articles via Google on how to modify Windows to boot from an external drive.
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Well Hi everyone, here goes in public! *I didn't read the manual carefully enough*
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but my keyboard has been completely frozen, the only way to restart is a forced restart with the power button.
Even when i try a forced start from the mac os instal DVD, you know- restart - 'D' key all i get is the apple hardware test utility which works only with my mouse and doesn't go any further in helping free my keyboard. although it does say there's no problem with the hardware.
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Is there any way of freeing the keyboard so i can try again?
Any help will be greatly, and humbly, appreciated.
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I've had to go through this a number of times, and it's just something that you cannot get around.
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If you leave the FS intact, it will install part of the OS and reboot, and you'll get this screen. What you would to then is hold the power button down for 10 sec, restart the machine and immediately press and hold the C key. This will tell the machine to boot from the CD, in this case, the Windows install disk. Once you do this, go in and tell the installer to format the drive.
If for whatever reason this doesn't work, boot back into OS X by restarting and holding the "Option/Alt", select Macintosh HD. Once OS X boots, find the boot camp assistant and give the Windows partition back to OS X, and start over.
So long as you DON'T select "Leave file system intact", you will not have to deal with this.

How to install boot camp on a pre-partitioned HD ?

Hi,
I have just done a clean install of my mac. Before installation i used disk utility to create a few partitions, one of them made available for Boot Camp.
Now when i start the Boot Camp Assistant it tells me:
"The startup disk can not be partitioned or restored to a single partition.
The startup disk must be formatted as a single mac os extended (journaled) volume or already partitioned by Boot Camp Assistant for installing windows"
What the h.... do i really have to start over AGAIN?!
I need 3 mac partitions and 1 windows, if i re-install, then use boot camp assistant to create a windows partition i'll be left with just 2 partitions.....
Any help is very welcome at this point.
Jay

You don't need to run Boot Camp Assistant since you've already partitioned the drive. Just boot to your Windows disc and follow the installer set up. All Boot Camp Assistant does is partition the drive for you.
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Let me know how you've set it up.

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I'm running OS X 10.8 and Windows 7 x64 Pro.
After properly setting up Boot Camp to dual-boot Windows on my Mac mini, I decided to test whether or not it was true that creating another partition (a data partition for OS X) would interfere with Boot Camp. Wikipedia claims it does interfere but without citing a source, whilst the Boot Camp documentation itself only specifies that the disk must be a single partition _prior_ to setup - there's no mention of whether the disk must be _kept_ that way afterwards.
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No bootable device --- insert boot disk and press any key
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Hi,
@Christopher Murphy:
Okay, you seem confident. Let's give this a shot. I use the command-line myself for the odd thing, so I'll try not to bail.
Results of the "sudo gpt -r -vv show disk0" command:
gpt show: disk0: mediasize=500107862016; sectorsize=512; blocks=976773168
gpt show: disk0: PMBR at sector 0
gpt show: disk0: Pri GPT at sector 1
gpt show: disk0: Sec GPT at sector 976773167
      start       size index contents
          0          1         PMBR
          1          1         Pri GPT header
          2         32         Pri GPT table
         34          6
         40     409600      1 GPT part - REDACTED UUID
     409640 156303528      2 GPT part - REDACTED UUID
156713168    1269536      3 GPT part - REDACTED UUID
157982704 659841040      4 GPT part - REDACTED UUID
817823744     262144
818085888 158687232      5 GPT part - REDACTED UUID
976773120         15
976773135         32         Sec GPT table
976773167          1         Sec GPT header
Results of the "sudo fdisk /dev/disk0" command:
Disk: /dev/disk0          geometry: 60801/255/63 [976773168 sectors]
         Starting       EndingSignature: 0xAA55
#: id cyl hd sec - cyl hd sec [     start -       size]
1: EE 1023 254 63 - 1023 254 63 [         1 - 976773167] <Unknown ID>
2: 00    0   0   0 -    0   0   0 [         0 -          0] unused
3: 00    0   0   0 -    0   0   0 [         0 -          0] unused
4: 00    0   0   0 -    0   0   0 [         0 -          0] unused
Does this indicate a fix is possible?

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Yes, they are related...
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Boot Camp Is Unable to Partition My Drive

Hello,
The first time around I managed to set up Boot Camp and Windows 7 Home Basic very successfully and effortlessly on my MBP mid-2012.
Then I found out I could not get activation key for it because Microsoft no longer sold the Basic version. I downloaded the Windows 7 Home Premium version and bought an activation key from Microsoft and am now trying to get it on my computer.
Using Boot Camp Assistant I was able to delete the partition on which old Windows resided. Then using Boot Camp Assistant I built a USB drive that included the new ISO for the Windows 7 Home Premium edition and then the process went well and all necessary support files were downloaded.
We got to the point where I selected the size of the partition and Boot Camp Assistant tried to partition it except that it is not able to. It doesn't giver any reason, it just says: "Your disc could not be partitioned. An error occurred while partitioning the disk."
Anyone here knows what could be the cause of the problem and possibly how I can resolve it?
By the way, I have checked and the base format of the drive is Mac OS Extended (Journaled), and the disk has only one partition.
Thanks much.
Farzad

I am doing a TM backup now. I looked at the iDefrag and the drive definitely needs defragmenting, according to the software, but I thought with Macs we don't need to worry about those things. I want to do one other thing I read somewhere else as a remedy for this inability to partition the drive before taking the leap and doing the full erase and reinstall.
Here is the link on the internet: http://crounji.wordpress.com/2014/01/28/a-solution-to-your-disk-could-not-be-par titioned-error-on-boot-camp-assistant/.
And I believe another forum has discussed this topic.
Here is another approach I want to try: Boot Camp: Partition alert message when using Boot Camp Assistant
Farzad

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HT1461 For Boot Camp, if you save a file when you are on the Windows side, when you return to the Mac side, can you see the file or can it only be "seen" on the operating side you create it in?

For Boot Camp, if you save a file when you are on the Windows side, when you return to the Mac side, can you see the file or can it only be "seen" on the operating side you create it in?

Why don't you (generic most every post lacks critical details) be clear and say you never used Mac OS etc.
But, I did try to anticipate and give you what you needed.
Excel is one of those rare programs that, if they are extremely large complex spreadsheets still tend to run better under Office for Windows.
A VM won't do for that but it does make it easier to transition. As in: install Windows natively, then use VMware Fusion or Parallels to attach to the partition and OS. That way you can run Windows as Guest OS VM under Mac; and still run Windows natively dual-boot when needed.
The word "see" was not what you wanted, was it? really? you want to open and make changes and keep it on Windows side rather than Save As or copy to Mac
You use Windows and don't know it has NTFS (NT FileSystem)?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTFS
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hierarchical_File_System (HFS) native file system used by Apple
And there is much more UEFI style "bios" and other things I suppose.
Great thing about Google and encyclopedias or dictionary, you can look up what you don't know.

Boot Camp Error "You cannot partition an external disk drive"

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