Bootcamp 3TB *fix*
Hi. I Just wanted to know whether anyone has tried the temporary bootcamp *fix* on their 3TB Fusion Drive, and does the iMac successfully boot into Windows with full spec. Thanks
http://www.twocanoes.com/support/winclone/installing-windows-via-boot-camp-on-a- large-(2.2-tb-or-larger-)-drive-in-lion-(10.7)-and-later
Yeh sorry I should have been more specific. By full spec I meant by booting into Windows, will I still obtain the full 3.4ghz processing speed and 2GB GPU etc.
I have not ordered my iMac just yet, but will be in the next few days. Like most people, I am drawn between getting the 1TB Fusion or 3TB. The only problem is I use bootcamp a lot, yet I would much prefer the 3TB.
So was just hoping this guide would work as apple have not clearly stated whether they will be updating bootcamp.
Similar Messages
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Bootcamp & 3tb non fusion drive - Windows 8.0 and 8.1
Is it true that on an IMAC 2013 with 3 tb non fusion drive it is possible to install, via bootcamp, windows 8.0 and not 8.1. I have read on internet a lot of discussions about the the 3tb problem and the fusion problem, but only speaking about the windows 8.1.
Besides if you read on the release notes of bootcamp 5.1 seem Aplle solved both problems related to 3tb and fusion drive; is this solution related only to windows 8.0 ?
Please, can someone give me a clear statement about this before buy the IMAC and windows?my imac 21" mid 2011 run windows 8.1 update 1 just fine
got it with Lion
installed windows7 64bit ultimate from dvd in bootcamp
updated to mtn lion
updated digital windows 8 on win7
updated to maverics
updated digital windows 8.1
updated digital windows 8.1 update 1 -
Installing 2 SSD's to 27" iMac 2011
Hello everybody,
I've been for looking to upgrade my iMac by adding an SSD and i finally got comfortable enough with the idea of doing it so i went ahead and purchased a 256GB Samsung 840 pro to run OS X (mountain lion), now last minute i ended up purchasing an additional 128GB OWC SSD with the optical drive kit to add it as well to run windows on it.
I've been preparing myself to do this for a few months now by writing down a to do list with things I need to make triple backups of and what software i have to re-register and so on and I think I'm good to go.
My questions are mostly about getting everything installed since i want to do a fresh install of mountain lion on the SSD and migrating my data instead of restoring my time machine drive and i wanted to see if anybody here had done the same thing I'm about to do or something similar and maybe i could get some pointers from you guys. Here's what the set up would be like:
2TB HDD > this is the one I've been using and i want to use it now to hold my USER folder since i have large iTunes, iPhoto and Final Cut X libraries
256GB SSD > this one will have OS X and a few files that i use often which may include some Logic projects
128GB SSD > this one will replace the optical drive and will have windows 7 with bootcamp
3TB External > This one has my time machine backup, this will be my last resort in case something goes wrong and i have to restore to the 2TB HDD
2TB External > This one will have manually moved data, basically Jim going to copy my USER folder and Applications folder to this one so i can move the files from here to the internal 2TB after i have OS X installed on the SSD and i format the 2TB
Here's the game plan I have so far:
1. Install both drives into the iMac
2. Install ML to the SSD from the HDD
3. Format the internal 2TB HDD
4. Tell OS X that my users folder will now be on the HDD
5. Move my USER folder files from the external drive into the new USER folder on the internal 2TB HDD
6. Install Windows 7 with bootcamp from a USB drive.
7. Format my TM backup and start a new backup for the new set up backing up only the OS X SSD and the HDD
8. Enjoy my new Set up.
My questions to you are:
- Is the process I'm listing doable?
- Can I install ML into the SSD before I format the HDD that currently has my OS or should I do the ML install with the USB drive method?
- After telling OS X that my USER folder will be on the HDD, will iTunes, iPhoto and Final Cut X work ok if I just copy their respective folders into the new USER location?
- Is there a better way to have my large libraries on the HDD than changing the location for the USER folder?
- Have any of you ever done something like this successfully?
Any advice or suggestions will be VERY appreciated, I won't be starting this process until Friday at around 6pm EST since the Optical Drive Kit and SSD won't arrive until tomorrow and I want to spend the weekend getting things done.
This is my work computer (i work from home so it's my bread and butter) and I do a lot of media work including FCX, LOGIC and mainly Graphic and Web Design so getting this machine up and running as quick as possible is something very important to me and why I'm curious to know what you guys think
Thank you in advance!
ps. this is my machine as of right now: 27" 2011 iMac, 3.4GHz i7, 16GB RAM, 2TB HDD, AMD 6970M, 10.8.2 (12C60)My hope is you have seen the procedures ( either videos, photos and/ or wriiten instructions) for breaking down and installing new items into your iMac and reassembly.
Everything you are doing is not user serviceable or upgradeable.
Be advised if you purchased 3-year extended AppleCare, you will be voiding the remainder of your AppleCare and you will in your own if something goes wrong or something doesn't go right or you "brick" your iMac.
If you only has the initial year and you attempt this and something goes wrong you are still own your own.
We are all USERS here. Most of us have not cracked open their iMacs to upgrade them simply because iMacs are truly the most difficult, un-user-friendly and tedious iMac to hardware upgrade. Anything and everything can go awry There might be a small amount of users who have attempted what you are doing , hopefully, they will respond to your posts if something should go wrong.
Good Luck! -
Trouble adjusting brightness in Windows 8.1
I know there are other threads on this, but none of the solutions seems to be working for me.
I manage multiple MBP-13in Retinas (Late 2013) and I'm having trouble adjusting the brightness of the laptop screen on all of them.
I have tried everything mentioned in other posts
Adaptive Brightnss
Disabling the Generic PnP driver
Reinstalling everything
Changing the resolution
The best work around I can figure out is hitting Comman + P (Windows Key + P) switching the display mode to extend (or anything else) and then switching it back to PC Display only. After doing that it works everytime.
It also seems to finally work if I leave the computer on for about 15 mins or so, or if I shut the lid and then open it back up again.
Would love a new release of BootCamp to fix this, any work arounds that people have discovered specifically for the 13in MBPr Late 2013 would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!Clean install 8.1 via boot camp
We make a few consistent changes but I can't imagine these are related but here's a full list
Disable hibernation, page file, adaptive brightness, system restore
Power settings never sleep while plugged
On display settings, try for best performance it will likely uncheck everything (we keep 5 but can't recall) -
Lion on MacMini server fails on mirrored drives
Hello
last year I bought an MacMini server (10.6). Which I installed with mirrored harddrives (2 partitions, one partition for OS and one for the ServiceData).
Everything worked fine.
Upgrading to Lion messed up the whole system so i decided to start from scratch.
I formated the mirrored boot volume and inserted a bootable Lion USB stick.
Then I selected the fresh formated volume.
The installation process then copies everything onto the named partition and reboots the machine.
After waiting in front of the machine for 20-30 mins a windows pops up telling me that it cannot install the ecovery partition.
So my questions are:
1) Does anyone know how to prevent the attempt to install a recovery partition
2) Is it possible to install immediatly Lion server insead of making 2 steps ?
3) Is it possible to have under lion again a seperate ServiceData partition from the beginning instead of having the time consuming task in moving everything by hand after installation ?
ThxTK321 wrote:
I had to remove the drive.
It was quite a while ago now, so maybe there has since been a software fix to either Windows or BootCamp to fix.
There has not. -
I have always had problems with my MacBook Pro with regards to headphone usage, but now things have just become intolerable. Ever since I got it, plugging headphones in didn't switch it over to 'headphones' mode immediatly - it didn't even give me the OPTION to under prefs (and no red light). It simply waited a few minutes, THEN switched over to headphones with no warning. However, recently it has barely been switching over at all, and then switching BACK a few minutes later, again with no warning or apparent cause. To make things perfectly clear, I plug the headphones in, no red light, no nothing. I wait a while (sometimes hours), then it switches over to headphones mode. Then, some time later, it switches BACK to internal speaker mode, without the headphone plug being removed.
Some more info:
- It is a MacBook Pro, running 4.11. It MAY have BootCamp (I didn't configure it), all I know is that it has a Windows Drive, the problem is the same on both OSes, and all of the BootCamp audio fixes I could find haven't worked.
- I don't have the OPTION, either in prefs or soundsource, to switch audio modes. Whatever audio mode it's currently in is always the only option.
- I've tried multiple pairs of headphones, removed and re-inserted them tons of times, and I am using the right jack.
- According to someone else who uses the computer, the RECENT problems may have something to do with the angle the computer is on - it switches to headphones more frequently at an angle in someone's lap as opposed to on flat surface.
Any ideas?You have some kind of hardware problem that nobody here is going to be able to fix. Make an appointment with your Apple Genius Bar in your city to have it repaired.
-
IMovie 11 Exporting Movie and No File and External Drive Falling Asleep
Help! Had a frustrating day and night with iMovie, which has been happening a lot lately.
We are making a highlight video for my son from his many sports events which are on a 3TB fixed external drive and a 2TB portable one. After putting the highlight video together with clips from both drives it is time to Export the movie which I am doing to the 3TB Drive. However after completion, there is no file anywhere. Upon taking the same steps with same filename, there is no warning about existing file. I have tried to export to local drive on Mac as well.
Also, if I do a higher quality export it takes a while and the external portable drive falls asleep. Any way to keep it awake without sitting there and accessing the drive manually. I looked in the drive settings through the mac and it does not tell it to put the drive to sleep. In hindsight we should have had all videos on the 3TB drive but I am afraid to move them now.
And...we put some arrows in pointing to him with a freeze frame and PIP. The arrows are there when I select them manually but don't appear when running through the movie as we preview the entire footage.
HELP!!!! ThanksHelp! Had a frustrating day and night with iMovie, which has been happening a lot lately.
We are making a highlight video for my son from his many sports events which are on a 3TB fixed external drive and a 2TB portable one. After putting the highlight video together with clips from both drives it is time to Export the movie which I am doing to the 3TB Drive. However after completion, there is no file anywhere. Upon taking the same steps with same filename, there is no warning about existing file. I have tried to export to local drive on Mac as well.
Also, if I do a higher quality export it takes a while and the external portable drive falls asleep. Any way to keep it awake without sitting there and accessing the drive manually. I looked in the drive settings through the mac and it does not tell it to put the drive to sleep. In hindsight we should have had all videos on the 3TB drive but I am afraid to move them now.
And...we put some arrows in pointing to him with a freeze frame and PIP. The arrows are there when I select them manually but don't appear when running through the movie as we preview the entire footage.
HELP!!!! Thanks -
Install Windows 7 on MacMini Server 0x80300024
I have a MacMini Server running Lion - latest updates.
It has two internal hard drives.
One hard drive will be formatted with Lion, the other with Windows Professional 7 SP1.
(no partitioning)
I used Boot Camp to create a Windows Installer on an attached USB drive using a Windows 7 Pro with SP1 ISO image.
Boot Camp begins the Windows install process.
I am prompted to Select Disk 0 Partition 2 BOOTCAMP, and format it with NTFS.
After doing so, I get the "Windows is unable to install to the selected location. Error: 0x80300024."
After Googling I see this is because Windows doesn't like additional drives attached.
Basically people are recommending either removing other drives or erasing other drives.
Neither of these options works, because the other drive is what has Lion and Boot Camp on it.
I wouldn't mind erasing it, as there is no end user data on it yet, but then how could I run Boot Camp to install Windows?
Is it possible to erase or remove the internal disk with Lion on it and boot from that USB drive without the aid of Lion/Boot Camp?
Suggestions?TK321 wrote:
I had to remove the drive.
It was quite a while ago now, so maybe there has since been a software fix to either Windows or BootCamp to fix.
There has not. -
I'm installing windows 7 64-bit on my imac which I've done before but I get a message that the partition is GPT even after I format the bootcamp partition. I just upgraded my hard drive to a 3tb and I'm allocating 1tb for windows. How can I fix this?
No easy fix for a few reasons:
1) Bootcamp requires a hybrid MBR for the partition table. That is: both an MBR and a GPT partition table at the same time with the GPT one having all partitions and the MBR one having only the ones that are relevant, but at most 4 of them (including the protective partition and the Macintosh HD one). Which leads us to:
2) The MBR part of the hybrid partition table cannot work with 3TB hard drives. MBR is limited to 2TB.
I am working on a small EFI app that can boot Windows in EFI mode on a Mac and that would mean that you can go GPT only on your system. The progress of the app is slow due to the nature of EFI and for now requires that you do an unattended Windows install with slipstreamed graphics drivers, but we are adding VGA loading on top of EFI quite soon after the rest of the app stabilises. The status of the app is documented at:
Win7 x64 booting natively via EFI (no bios emulation)
Windows does actually successfully boot in EFI mode on most Macs (anything with a 64bit EFI should work), but does not have graphics support even if you load the driver due to the VGA pci registers not being set by the firmware. Furthermore, in Setup and Safe Mode, Windows uses VGA instead of GOP which is a failure by design since VGA is a BIOS standard and not really compatible without hacks with EFI. Other EFI implementations also add VGA compatibility at a high cost to the firmware complexity for the VGA cards available on the market that don't actually contain anything in their ROM except the VGA BIOS.
My recomendations:
1) Install on a second smaller hard-drive; or
2) Wait for the EFI app to come out officially and use that to boot Windows Vista SP1 x64 and Windows 7 x64 (RTM and SP1) in the native EFI mode.
3) Wait for Windows 8 which supports VGA-less booting acording to the AMD presentation at UEFI Plugfest. -
Two days ago I rebooted to Bootcamp Windows 8.1 and it blue screened. I have been trying for two days to fix my system following helpful posts here and I'm just digging myself further into confusion and complications. At this point I'm extremely in over my head. I have removed the Bootcamp partition using Boot Camp Assistant and tried re-installing Windows again and again using BCA…
At the moment I am back to no Windows partition, just a 3TB OS X partition, but when I try to create a Windows partition it gets created as a logical core... heck, I don't understand enough, just know it's not right.
How do I get my drive tables all right again and then be able to create a working Bootcamp partition? What screenshots do I need? I appreciate any help I can get.Okay, I used Bootcamp to create a EFI-bootable USB drive with Windows 8.1
I had my drive back to a single 3TB partition.
I created a Free Disk (empty) partition of 750GB (which was then set as 876.82GB).
I rebooted.
Created a new partition, got the notice that Windows will create a smaller 128 MB partition.
It did create the 128 MB partition, or showed such.
Then when I go to format the other, last free space partition it seems to work.
When I go to install Windows 8.1 in that partition I am told Windows cannot find a partition to install into.
Here is my diskutil list as it is now.
… and I just saw the "must be under the 2TB limit" again… I don't know how I had Bootcamp working until last week. It was cleanly set up on my new Mac as ~750GB the first time with BCA and worked for months until whatever changes were made with 10.10.3. -
First off I have a 3tb fusion drive.
I created a 200gb bootcamp, I tried deleting the bootcamp because I thought I messed it up and googled how to delete a mac partition which told me to use Disk Utility, did that and then erased it and somehow it got locked and wouldn't let me do anything to any partition on my hard drive (everything was greyed out)
After looking up and googling for hours I found a post saying the only way to fix it would be to go into CMD+R and go into the terminal window and type out disklist and then find the first UUID number and do something along the lines of disklist delete (UUID) i forget the exact formula. I did this, and then I had 3 separate untitled hard drives.
One in the size of 1.9gb on in 800gb and one in 121.3gb (which is the SSD), I put my time machine backup onto the 1.9gb untitled and now my computer is booting slowly (because it's no longer running off of the SSD and the original bootcamp is still there.
To be honest I am absolutely confused on what else to do!
Is there anyway I can fix this?How do I go about deleting and then re-adding the hard drives? Completely lost on how to make it back to being a 3gb fusion drive.
Thank you for all your help, I honestly really appreciate it.
I followed your instructions and got the following
diskutil list:
-bash-3.2# diskutil list
/dev/disk0
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *121.3 GB disk0
1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk0s1
2: Apple_HFS Macintosh HD 120.5 GB disk0s2
3: Apple_Boot Recovery HD 650.0 MB disk0s3
/dev/disk1
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *3.0 TB disk1
1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk1s1
2: Apple_CoreStorage 1.9 TB disk1s2
3: Apple_Boot Recovery HD 650.0 MB disk1s3
4: Apple_CoreStorage 251.9 GB disk1s4
5: Apple_Boot Boot OS X 134.2 MB disk1s5
/dev/disk2
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: Apple_partition_scheme *1.3 GB disk2
1: Apple_partition_map 30.7 KB disk2s1
2: Apple_HFS OS X Base System 1.3 GB disk2s2
/dev/disk3
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: Apple_HFS Untitled *1.9 TB disk3
Logical Volume on disk1s2
FD9357F1-1A71-44A0-A01E-41C84F1C8047
Unencrypted
/dev/disk4
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: Apple_HFS Untitled *251.5 GB disk4
Logical Volume on disk1s4
31B60F49-6981-47A3-9815-6396AD3A9BD6
Unencrypted
/dev/disk5
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: untitled *5.2 MB disk5
/dev/disk6
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: untitled *524.3 KB disk6
/dev/disk7
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: untitled *524.3 KB disk7
/dev/disk8
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: untitled *524.3 KB disk8
/dev/disk9
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: untitled *524.3 KB disk9
/dev/disk10
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: untitled *524.3 KB disk10
/dev/disk11
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: untitled *6.3 MB disk11
/dev/disk12
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: untitled *2.1 MB disk12
/dev/disk13
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: untitled *1.0 MB disk13
/dev/disk14
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: untitled *524.3 KB disk14
/dev/disk15
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: untitled *524.3 KB disk15
/dev/disk16
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: untitled *1.0 MB disk16
/dev/disk17
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *319.4 GB disk17
1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk17s1
2: Apple_HFS IMAC TMB 319.0 GB disk17s2
/dev/disk18
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: untitled *6.3 MB disk18
/dev/disk19
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: CD_partition_scheme *804.4 MB disk19
1: Apple_partition_scheme 700.4 MB disk19s0
2: Apple_partition_map 32.3 KB disk19s0s1
3: Apple_HFS WD SmartWare 237.5 MB disk19s0s2
-bash-3.2#
diskutil cs list
-bash-3.2# diskutil cs list
CoreStorage logical volume groups (2 found)
|
+-- Logical Volume Group 687E889E-B4A1-4F20-8B36-43D7A3701076
| =========================================================
| Name: Untitled
| Status: Online
| Size: 1946162462720 B (1.9 TB)
| Free Space: 5402624 B (5.4 MB)
| |
| +-< Physical Volume 7BCD8D9C-AEB2-4D48-B248-257EFC7EA922
| | ----------------------------------------------------
| | Index: 0
| | Disk: disk1s2
| | Status: Online
| | Size: 1946162462720 B (1.9 TB)
| |
| +-> Logical Volume Family 3A8A9627-5963-49BA-8E2F-96DC7A1B033D
| ----------------------------------------------------------
| Encryption Status: Unlocked
| Encryption Type: None
| Conversion Status: NoConversion
| Conversion Direction: -none-
| Has Encrypted Extents: No
| Fully Secure: No
| Passphrase Required: No
| |
| +-> Logical Volume FD9357F1-1A71-44A0-A01E-41C84F1C8047
| ---------------------------------------------------
| Disk: disk3
| Status: Online
| Size (Total): 1945804734464 B (1.9 TB)
| Conversion Progress: -none-
| Revertible: No
| LV Name: Untitled
| Volume Name: Untitled
| Content Hint: Apple_HFS
|
+-- Logical Volume Group 98213AE6-9EA8-4FB7-8B72-8E08BFBFD82C
=========================================================
Name: Untitled
Status: Online
Size: 251864797184 B (251.9 GB)
Free Space: 5226496 B (5.2 MB)
|
+-< Physical Volume 20CEF763-635D-4A0D-A107-40E8FB161D06
| ----------------------------------------------------
| Index: 0
| Disk: disk1s4
| Status: Online
| Size: 251864797184 B (251.9 GB)
|
+-> Logical Volume Family 2D3173B3-5B04-47E6-B331-49D1BA58E9F2
Encryption Status: Unlocked
Encryption Type: None
Conversion Status: NoConversion
Conversion Direction: -none-
Has Encrypted Extents: No
Fully Secure: No
Passphrase Required: No
|
+-> Logical Volume 31B60F49-6981-47A3-9815-6396AD3A9BD6
Disk: disk4
Status: Online
Size (Total): 251507245056 B (251.5 GB)
Conversion Progress: -none-
Revertible: No
LV Name: Untitled
Volume Name: Untitled
Content Hint: Apple_HFS
-bash-3.2#
Disk0
-bash-3.2# gpt -vv -r show /dev/disk0
gpt show: /dev/disk0: mediasize=121332826112; sectorsize=512; blocks=236978176
gpt show: /dev/disk0: PMBR at sector 0
gpt show: /dev/disk0: Pri GPT at sector 1
gpt show: /dev/disk0: Sec GPT at sector 236978175
start size index contents
0 1 PMBR
1 1 Pri GPT header
2 32 Pri GPT table
34 6
40 409600 1 GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
409640 235298960 2 GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
235708600 1269536 3 GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
236978136 7
236978143 32 Sec GPT table
236978175 1 Sec GPT header
-bash-3.2#
Disk1
-bash-3.2# gpt -vv -r show /dev/disk1
gpt show: /dev/disk1: mediasize=3000592982016; sectorsize=512; blocks=5860533168
gpt show: /dev/disk1: PMBR at sector 0
gpt show: /dev/disk1: Pri GPT at sector 1
gpt show: /dev/disk1: Sec GPT at sector 5860533167
start size index contents
0 1 PMBR
1 1 Pri GPT header
2 32 Pri GPT table
34 6
40 409600 1 GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
409640 3801098560 2 GPT part - 53746F72-6167-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
3801508200 1269536 3 GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
3802777736 1912
3802779648 491923432 4 GPT part - 53746F72-6167-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
4294703080 262144 5 GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
4294965224 1565567911
5860533135 32 Sec GPT table
5860533167 1 Sec GPT header
-bash-3.2# -
Hi all,
I installed a brand new 3TB Seagate Barracuda HD in my iMac late 2009 after read that apple provides a patch to use 3TB discs with bootcamp with 10.8.3.
I tried to install windows in my 3TB disc 4 o 5 times, reinstalling from scratch, formatting the disc from terminal, etc... I tried everything and I keep getting the same message: The startup disk must be formatted as a single Mac OS Extended (Journaled) volume or already partitioned by Boot Camp Assistant for installing Windows.
The disc has a single 3TB Mac OS Extended (Journaled) partition, but bootcamp keep saying that is not... and doesn't allows me to install windows. I read a lot of discussions here and other communities but as I said, none solution worked for me.
Any of you could manage to fix this issue?? Is Apple aware of that problem?
Any idea will be welcome!
IvanHi,
Anybody in the forum have managed to use bootcamp with a 3Tb disc?? or get any answer from Apple...
Regards,
Ivan -
This is a copy of a post from my blog, you can also Read it on my blog...
Introduction
After I received my new iMac with a 3 TB Fusion Drive, I was disappointed when I realized that Bootcamp was not running on this model and prevented me from installing Windows on it. I wanted to take advantage of the powerful iMac hardware to play games but I couldn't.
There are a few ways of working around this limitation, but I found most of them quite complex and most of the time they required formatting the internal hard drive or repartitioning it and go for a brand new installation of Mac OS X. I was not comfortable with that.
But there is another way, and that is to install Windows on an external hard drive, using either USB or Thunderbolt. Personally I used a Lacie Rugged 1 TB drive that has both USB3 and Thunderbolt connectors. Both work very well.
This guide may interest you if:
You have an internal hard drive of more than 2TB and you can't run bootcamp at all (like late 2012 iMacs with a 3TB drive)
You have limited space or you don't want to dedicate disk space on your internal hard disk drive to a Windows installation
What this guide will make you do:
It will make you erase all your data from your external USB3/Thunderbolt hard drive
It will make you install Windows on your external USB3/Thunderbolt hard drive
It will make you install bootcamp drivers
What this will not make you do:
It will not make you modify anything on your internal Mac hard drive
It will not make you use or install the bootcamp assistant
It will not activate the Preference Pane for the default boot drive. You have to boot by pressing the ALT key to manually select your boot drive each tome you want to boot Windows.
What you'll need
An external hard drive with a USB3 and/or Thunderbolt connector. This drive will be formatted so ensure you saved your files before going further. You can use either an SSD drive or a classic hard drive.
A Windows 7 or 8 install DVD or ISO (check whether to install 32 or 64 bits versions based on your Bootcamp drivers) and the corresponding Windows serial number.
One of the following:
Mac OS X with a Windows 7 or 8 Virtual Machine (use VMWare Fusion or Parallels Desktop for example. Note: VMWare Fusion seems to have some issues with Thunderbolt and USB3. Plug your drive to a USB2 enclosure or hub to work around this -it worked for me-, or use another VM software) → Read the important note below
A PC running Windows 7 or 8 → Read the important note below
Windows AIK (free) running on your Virtual Machine or on your PC, or just the imagex.exe file (the rest of the Windows AIK package is not needed)
Download imagex.exe
Download Windows AIK (this download and installation is not required if you have already downloaded imagex.exe)
Bootcamp drivers for your Mac. You can get these either by running bootcamp from your Mac (Applications > Utilities > Bootcamp) or, if like me you have a 3TB drive and can't run bootcamp at all, use the direct download links here.
A USB stick to store your bootcamp drivers
IMPORTANT: If your Mac has a 64 bits processor, your Windows Virtual Machine on OSX, your Windows installation on your PC and your Windows DVD/ISO must also be in 64 bits!
Step by Step guide
Step 1: Get the install.wim file
If you have a Windows ISO file:
Mount the ISO
If you're on OS X: double click on the ISO file
If you're on on Windows 7: Use a software like Virtual Clone Drive (free)
If you're on Windows 8: double click on the ISO file
Open the mounted drive, then go to the "sources" folder and locate the "install.wim" file. Save this file to C:\wim\ on your Windows installation or virtual machine.
If you have a Windows DVD: open the "sources" folder on the DVD and locate the "install.wim" file. Save this file to C:\wim\ on your Windows installation or virtual machine.
IMPORTANT: If instead of a "install.wim" file, you have "install.esd", you can not continue this step by step guide. And an ESD file can not be converted into a WIM file. So you must get a version of the Windows installation DVD/ISO that has an install.wim file.
Step 2: Clean, partition and format your external hard drive
On your Windows installation or virtual machine, plug in your external hard drive (can be plugged using USB2, USB3 or Thunderbolt at this stage)
Open the command prompt in administrator mode (cmd.exe). To run it in administrator mode, right click on cmd.exe > Run as admin.
Type the following and hit enter to open the disk partitioner utility:
diskpartType the following and hit enter to list your drives:
list disk
This will display a list of disks mounted on your computer or virtual machine. Make sure your drive is listed here before you continue.Identify the disk ID of your external hard drive. Replace # by your real external disk ID in the command below:
select disk #Clean all partitions by typing the following (warning: this will erase all data from your external drive!):
clean
Create the boot parition by typing the following followed by the enter key:
create partition primary size=350
This will create a 350MB partition on your external driveFormat the partition in FAT32 by typing the following:
format fs=fat32 quick
Set this partition to active by typing:
active
Assign a letter to mount this partition. We will use letter B in our example. If B is already used on your PC, replace B by any other available letter:
assign letter=b
Windows will detect a new drive and probably display a pop-up. Ignore that.Create the Windows installation partition using all the remaining space available on the external drive by typing the following:
create partition primary
Format the new partition in NTFS:
format fs=ntfs quick
Assign a letter to mount this partition. We will use letter O in our example. If O is already used on your PC, replace O by any other available letter:
assign letter=o
Windows will detect a new drive and probably display a pop-up. Ignore that.Exit the disk partitioner utility by typing:
exit
Step 3: Deploy the Windows installation image
Still using the command prompt in admin mode (you didn't close it, did you? ), locate the imagex.exe file mentioned in the "What you'll need" section and access its folder. In our example, we have put this file in C:\imagex\imagex.exe
Type the following and hit enter (remember to replace o: with the letter you have chosen in the previous step):
imagex.exe /apply C:\wim\install.wim 1 o:
This will take some time. The Windows installation image is being deployed to your external driveOnce done, type the following to create the boot section (remember to replace o: and b: with the letters you've chosen in the previous step):
o:\windows\system32\bcdboot o:\windows /f ALL /s b:
If you get an error message saying that you can't run this program on your PC, then most probably you are running on a 32 bits installation of windows and you're trying to deploy a 64 bits install. This means you did not read the important notes in the beginning of this guide
If you get an error message on the options that can be used with the BCDBOOT command, then it's because you're installing Windows 7, and the /f option is not supported. If that is the case, remove /f ALL from the command and retry.
Step 4: Boot from your external drive and install Windows
Plug in your external drive:
If you've done all the previous steps from a Windows PC, unplug your external drive from your PC and plug it to your Mac, either on a USB3 or a Thunderbolt port.
If you've done all the previous steps from your Mac using a Virtual Machine, ensure the external drive is plugged in to a USB3 or Thunderbolt port. Using USB2 should also work but you'll get very poor performance so I don't recommend doing that.
Reboot your Mac and once the bootup sound is over, immediately press the ALT (option) key and release it only when the boot drives selection screen appears. If you did not get the boot drives selection screen, reboot and try again. The timing to press the ALT (option) key is quite short. It must not be too early or too late.
On the boot selection screen, choose "Windows" using the arrow keys on your keyboard, then press enter.
The Windows installation starts. Follow the on-screen instructions as normal. The installation program will restart your computer one or 2 times. Don't forget to press ALT (option) right after the bootup sound, and boot on Windows again each time to continue the installation.
Step 5: Install bootcamp drivers
Once the Windows installation is complete, plug in the USB stick where you stored the bootcamp drivers (see "what you'll need" section), open it and right click on "setup.exe" and select "Run as admin". Follow the on-screen instructions.If you have an error saying that you can't run this program on this PC, obviously you have installed a 32 bits version of Windows and the bootcamp drivers for your Mac are made for a 64 bits version. You have to restart the whole guide and make sure to get a 64 bits version of Windows this time!
Once the bootcamp drivers are all installed, reboot and press ALT (option) after the bootup sound to boot on Windows again. And Voilà, you have Windows installed on your USB3/Thunderbolt drive running on your Mac.
Now each time you want to boot on Windows, press and hold the ALT (option) key after the startup sound and select "Windows", then press Enter.Hi i'm trying to follow your guide, I installed windows 8 on bootcamp to do it planning to remove it after the operation is done, but i get stuck at part 3: every command i give to imagex i get a pop-up ftom windws asking how do I want to open this kind of file install.wim and imagex does nothing, what do i have to do to stop those pop-ups?
-
Hello, i hope someone can help,
i have repeated this whole process 3 times already, it has taken 8 strait hours of my time and i still have had no success.
QUICK SUMMERY
To put it simply, After windows is up and running on my mac, the wireless network wont work, so i cannot download the hot fix, and the support driver files from bootcamp will not open because it says they are not "32 Valid" ?. But im using a 64bit disk.
The wireless network adaptor automatically doesn't work on windows right after installation,
so i had to load the Hot Fix onto an SD card along with the bootcamp drivers, then open the hotfix file in windows.
The first time i was able to install the fix, windows restarted and installed the update, logged back on... and nothing changed.
At that point i attempted to open the "Setup" file in the bootcamp support folder, and an error message came up saying it wasn't valid.
LONGER EXPLANATION OF MY COMPLETE PROCESS: (to cancel out any questions)
i was able to find my support driver from here:
http://swscan.apple.com/content/catalogs/others/index-leopard-snowleopard.merged -1.sucatalog
its some old fashion coded page that has a bunch of apple drivers you can download by pasting one of the codes in your browser,
i searched for bootcamp support drivers, and found the code for my exact model (Mac Pro 8,2)
i was able to manually downloaded the drivers instead of using bootcamp assistant.
As a side note,
i was able to download the bootcamp drivers via boot camp assistant after the 5th try,
so now i have both files that i know are supposed to work 100%. they are loaded and unzipped on an SD card like they are supposed to be for when i open windows.
I have a Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium x64 bit CD from the inlaws so i used that CD after i partitioned my drive in bootcamp.
Bootcamp run like it was supposed to, and i followed step by step instructions in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVfRQ0YIDUI&feature=related
once windows was finished installing,
it automatically would not detect a network card, so i couldn't connect to the internet and download the apples bug fix. (The Hot fix)
instead i downloaded the hot fix on a separate SD card, turned windows back on and loaded the hot fix from the SD card.
Windows installed the hot fix update, restarted, but nothing changed.
Ive even tried skipping right to uploading the drivers, and windows wont activate the support because it says its not "32 Valid"
I completely removed windows 7 vis bootcamp to rinse and repeat hoping i made a simple mistake, but no same thing happened.
Conclusion
-im Wondering if i should "Istall important Windows Updates" during the begining of windows preperation...
maybe that will fix the issues of it not reconizing wierless network, and not being able to upen up the bootcamp file?
(it says you are not supposed to install any windows updates untill the HOT FIX and BOOTCAMP SUPPORT is activated on windows)Keith Doherty3 wrote:
You have been too cleaver for a Boot Camp install.
The partition system does NOT like anything other than a standard arrangement which creates 4 partitions.
EFI -200mb
OSx - Extended Journaled
Buffer-200mb
Windows -NTFS
Return to OSx -Open Boot Camp tool from the utilities folder reset to a single partition.
Start again and when you get to Windows - Let all the drivers load on the CREATED partition. Use the External for storage !
Just for your information, as it doesn't seem you have ever used BC.
When starting the boot camp assistant the first thing it want to do is download the Windows Support drivers and asks you to save them to a DVD, it will also allow you to save them to your OS X hard drive or to any drive connected to the system. Once those drivers are downloaded it then starts the Win install. What you must do is copy those support drives to a media that Windows can See and Read from. Like a DVD or a thumb drive formatted FAT32
No where in the OPs post does he say anything about fooling with any partitions on his internal drive other then creating the BC partition.
His problem is he saved those support files to a Mac OS X formatted external drive. Windows can not read Mac Extended (Journaled) formatted drives. So he can't load the drivers for Windows until he copies those support files ove to something that Windows can read. -
Sorry, I'm new to the Mac world. I recently got a new IMAC and installed my Epson CX5800F printer and it worked fine. Then a few weeks later I installed Windows7 through Bootcamp and I think it reconfigured a port or something and now I get a communication error and it won't print. Can anyone help me with this problem, and/or help me get the port back the way it was? Thanks, Barry
While looking through profile first aid, I came across this that might help explain my problem.
Searching for profiles...
Checking 20 profiles...
/Library/Printers/EPSON/InkjetPrinter2/ICCProfiles/Standard.profiles/Contents/Re sources/Epson IJ Printer.icc
Tag 'desc': Tag size is not correct.
Tag 'dmdd': Tag size is not correct.
Tag 'desc': Description tag has a bad Macintosh string.
Tag 'dmdd': Description tag has a bad Macintosh string.
The file is locked. Could not be fixed.
Repair done - 0 out of 1 profiles fixed.
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