Bootcamp and multiple partitions

Hello,
I need some help, i am new to mac, macOS and thinking mac.
*What i have:*
Macbook Pro 13" with a 750 Gb Harddrive.
*What i would like:*
3 partitions,
1st to run mac os snow leo.
2nd to run windows.
3th backup partition, for storage, backup, etc.
*What i do, and what does not work:*
I partition my disk with Gparted (linux based partition program) b4 installing any OS.
1 partition of 250 Gb no file system (unallocated space)
1 partition of 500 Gb no file system (unallocated space)
I launch MacOS Snow Leo OS installer and when the installer askes on what disk/partition i would like to install (i cant those anything @ this point)
i open the MacOSdisk utility and i format my first partition to HFS+ and with no problems i install macOS on this partition.
Once macOS runs i launch bootcamp, bootcamp sees my entire disk and only proposes my to work with the WHOLE disk and not my partitions !!!! AAARRRGGGG.
I tried several workarounds like:
installing MacOS --> installing windows --> resizing the windows partition. FAIL
installing MacOS --> installing windows --> resizing the HSF+ partition. FAIL
Can anybody help me, tips? Other programs to install the EFI, more flexible bootcamp like tools?
Thnx, and have a good day.
Message was edited by: mpfijn79

Hi and welcome to Discussions,
here's an older but still applicable one http://tripoverit.blogspot.com/2008/01/imac-dual-boot-mac-os-x-and-win-xp-with.h tml for doing what you want.
Depending on how you want to format the third (backup) partition JHFS+ (for OSX) or NTFS (for Windows) you can skip the Step 5.
Regards
Stefan

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IMac 27" (late 2011), Mountain Lion, Bootcamp, and OSX partition disappearing and refusing to mount

Hey all,
I'm putting this as a question in the discussion forms for bootcamp as I'm not sure where else to put it, but I resolved an issue I was having and having spent all of yesterday and the day before reading through this community and some others looking for answers and mostly seeing "hope you have backups, time to format!" (which to me is not always the best answer), I thought I would put it here for search purposes (with all the key words I had to use) in case anyone else has a similar issue.
My scenario was this:
2011 27" iMac with Mountain Lion installed and Windows 7 installed on a boot camp partition.
1) Haven't been in windows in a while, wanted to play some windows only steam games. Load windows 7. All is well. Have fun. Time to reboot into osx.
2) Reboot using bootcamp toolbar icon.
3) Wander away from computer. Come back to find windows 7 has loaded again. "That's weird", I think. Reboot again, this time hold down option key to select boot device.
4) Discover the only options are the Bootcamp partition and the Recovery partition. OSX "Macintosh HD" partition has disappeared. Huh.
5) Load recovery partition and load disk utility.
6) Review disk utility to discover the Macintosh HD partition shows up in the list, but won't mount. Run verify and repair tools. Errors are as follows: Invalid node structure, invalid key length, invalid record count, etc etc. Running a repair fails - disk utility advises me to back up and erase the drive and that the partition is unrepairable. No offense disk utility, but I think I'll try a few more options first.
7) Purchase DiskWarrior on advice of multiple posters in other threads and general online consensus of it being capable of fixing these sorts of errors. Go through process of loading bootable dvd.
8) Diskwarrior cannot see the Macintosh HD partition. This is bad. Review more threads. Advice is that if diskwarrior can't fix it, hope you have backups and wipe the drive. Likely to be hardware failure. I'm skeptical of hardware failure, because windows is chugging along running fine if I boot into it, and I ran a scan of the windows partition and it came back clean. SMART status is also showing the drive is ok. However, running out of options and starting to lose hope.
9) Follow advice in this support topic: http://support.apple.com/kb/ts1417?viewlocale=de_de Both safe mode and disk utility aren't options (safe mode won't work without it seeing the partition) so sounds like fsck is the final option.
10) Start up in Single User Mode (http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1492). Run fsck per instructions. It reports back ok.
11) Realize fsck is checking the recovery partition, and not my damaged OSX partition. Realize I don't know anything about unix commands and have no idea how to tell fsck to check a different partition.
12) Learn that I need to find out what the drive id is for the damaged partition. Reboot, load up disk utility, select greyed out "macintosh HD" partition, click info. Write down the id: disk0s2 (likely to be the default for you as well if you have one drive in your imac and a default bootcamp install).
13) Go back into single user mode and type the following (without quotes): "fsck_hfs -fy /dev/disk0s2"
14) (Forgot to copy down exactly what it said at this point, but gist of it was that the drive had errors and isnt repairable). Feel like ****, thinking this is unlikely to resolve itself nicely.
15) With nothing to lose, try to force fsck to rebuild the catalog - "fsck_hfs -rc -d /dev/disk0s2" I found this syntax on some forums and can't find the thread again. I have no idea what the -rc and -d do that -fy don't, but if someone can let me know, that'd be cool. Either way, this resulted in something actually happening. Tells me it is "rebuilding catalogue b-tree". Still, finishes with a bunch of errors about improperly linked files, more node errors, etc etc.
16) Retry "fsck_hfs -fy /dev/disk0s2". It seems to be doing stuff now, even though there are lots of errors. Continue to re-run fsck using this syntax. Probably ran it 10-15 times. Takes over an hour. Finally, minimal errors being reported.
17) Realize that perhaps I should try Diskwarrior again now, since I've managed to do soemthing to the partition with fsck.
18) Run Diskwarrior from bootable DVD. Success! It now sees the damaged partition. Reports that it has a bunch of damaged crtitical files, and needs to be repaired, but hey, at least it can see it.
19) Let Diskwarrior do its thing, and reboot.
20) Boot from repaired OSX partition. Rejoice. Immediately plug back in the timemachine drive you foolishly unplugged to take away over the holidays and neglected to plug back in before you had commenced work on stuff you didnt want to lose through formatting, which is why you are so desperate to recover files rather than wiping and restoring from time machine backups and avoiding this whole mess.
TL;DR - If Disk Utility and DriveWarrior fail you, try running fsck (using different syntax that apple recommends) as many times as it takes to get the partition to a stage where diskwarrior can see it. All advice I saw for similar questions was to erase, reinstall OSX, and restore from time machine backup. For those of you who are foolish like me and had files that werent time machine'd, or those who operate without, maybe try this.
Hope this helps!

What -rc & -d do.
From: The fsck_hfs manual page.
https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/Darwin/Reference/ManPages /man8/fsck_hfs.8.html
-d      Display debugging information. This option may provide useful information when fsck_hfs cannot repair a damaged file system.
-r      Rebuild the catalog btree. This is synonymous with -Rc.
-R flags Rebuilds the requested btree. The following flags are supported:
                         a       Attribute btree
                         c       Catalog btree
                         e       Extents overflow btree
I had the same problem as you but unfortunately "fsck_hfs -rc -d /dev/disk0s2" is failing saying: "The volume   could not be verified completely." I believe it's supposed to be telling me the partition's name (normally "Macintosh HD") between 'volume' and 'could' because there's 3 spaces in between the words.
"fsck_hfs -fy /dev/disk0s2" is failing with the same error.
I tried "fsck_hfs -r -d /dev/disk0s2" since the c appears redundant with a lowercase R. and it again says it cannot be verified completely and adds "volume check failed with error 7". Which unfortunately is not documented on the fsck_hfs man page!
Unfortunately for me, Diskwarrior still can't see my busted Mac OS partition.

Bootcamp and XP partition

Hi There,
Have ordered my first iMac and would like to ask 2 questions.
1. I intend to use Bootcamp for installing XP on a 2nd partition.
I have XP OEM version from Dell, will it work?
2. Once XP has been installed, I plan to boot XP and use the
windows tools to resize partitions and create a 3rd partition
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XP.
I guess that when i boot XP, it won't see the Mac OS
partition.
So will the partition resizing in XP and the creation of the
3rd partition work?
Many thanks!

Thanks TheHatter,
Would further need your comments to the below points:
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Will the retail version not work?
2. I have no intention to move Windows later to a PC.
I use only labtop which comes with OEM version
3. Why Mac OS boot manager won't work if i have 3 partitions?
Is it constrained only to 2 partitions like bootcamp?
My first partition will be Mac OS, 2nd will be Windows 7 and
3rd will be for data.
Default booting will be set either to Mac OS or Windows.
Booting with manual choice would be OK, no?
4. I have seen an interesting free tool for resize/create
partitions, that is free: PartedMagic which is OS independent
and does support also HFS.
May be I don't need to buy iPartition or CampTune?

FireWire Target mode and multiple partitions or volumes

Hello,
If I take my laptop and split it into two partitions, then put it in FW mode and attach it to another mac, with both volumes mount, or just the first one as laid out on the disk?
Let's say only the first volume mounts, can I put files there, and then install Leopard on the 2nd partition and have Leopard boot ok or does it need to be on the first partition??
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Both partitions will appear. Both can be made bootable.

Hi, trying to install win7 over bootcamp and the partition is not accepted although its formatted ntfs

trying to install win7 over bootcamp with usb flash drive, the partition is not accepted under windows although its formatted ntfs, there is shown a faillure which could be read in the logs of win install but i don't find them

You'll probably have better responses over in the Boot Camp forum....here's a link for you:
https://discussions.apple.com/community/windows_software/boot_camp

Difference between using bootcamp and building partitions with disk utility

hy everybody,
i successfully bought a mac (that was easy , installed windows 7 with bootcamp (quite easy) and now i 'd like to add linux also (considering ubuntu).
before i try to do it with bootcamp i'd like to know what the impact could be...
so i wonder; what does boot camp do and why shouldn't i do it manually with disk utility?
all inputs are welcome
cheers

Why not start by filling out hardware in your profile .sig as it makes a difference.

Install Windows on a multiple partitioned HD

This is me:
MBP Retina late 2013
Mac OS X 10.9.4
So I want to install Windows on my Mac, the problem is that I already have it partitioned with Mavericks and certain beta software, so i can't use bootcamp because the disc is already partitioned. I don't want to delete the beta software, install Windows via bootcamp and then partition again the disc for the beta since it is widely known that the bootcamp partition stops working. So this is what I did: partition my HD in 3, one for Mavericks, one for the beta software and the last for Windows (with ExFAT format). I already re-installed the beta software and lastly I am going to install Windows without bootcamp (for the reasons I've already mentioned). I already have prepared the bootable USB with the ISO image and the drivers and I plan to reboot, press alt, select the USB and install Windows normally in the designated partition (which is now empty), and lastly install the drivers..
This is my HD
And this is the output from terminal:
I have covered in red the name because it seems I can't post the name of this beta software, but i know you know which software I'm talking about.
So, any suggestions? I really do need running both my Mac partitions and a Windows partition, any advise, warning, suggestion would be greatly appreciated? Do you have a better idea? I really don't think that what I am about to do is going to ruin my computer, but is there anything I should know before doing this? Thank you a lot!

Regarding "Thanks for your answers, but is it possible at all to install windows on a partition of an external drive?"
You could:
1. format your external drive "Mac" and install a bootable version of OSX on the external drive.
2. remove the external drive's HD and install it in your Mac (assuming it is 2.5" -- if 3.5", you'll have to have leave it outside the machine tethered to the SATA connector of the laptop).
3. boot the machine and install a BootCamp partition and Windows on the external (now effectively, "internal") HD.
4. put the drives back in their original locations.
5. boot the machine, use VM software to "see" the BootCamp partition on the external drive.

Is it possible to have multiple partitions on my hard disk drive and use Bootcamp to install Windows?

Hi all,
Here is my question: I have MBP early 2011 and was trying to install Windows 8 using Bootcamp but the option to install Windows is grayed out so I can’t click the box next to “Install or Remove Windows 7.” Is this because I have multiple partition on my hard disk drive? Is there anyway I can install Windows 8 using Bootcamp without deleting my partitions on my hard disk?
Few more details:
Mountain Lion 10.8.2
Bootcamp 5.0.0
Thanks for your response

You can't create a Boot Camp partition on a drive you've already partitioned, and you can't install Windows 8 through Boot Camp at this time.
(71680)

Bootcamp and windows 8(partition problem)

I am trying to install windows 8 and until now with no sucess. The instalation by the bootcamp runs smoothly, but when I boot from the USB, start the instalation process on windows and it asks me what partition I want to install the windows, I try to choose the Partition 4: BOOTCAMP and it doesn't work. It says it's a problem because the partition is EFI and for installing windows it can't be or something like that
And if I don't press the Alt button, when the bootcamp finishes the instalation and reboot the mac, it goes to a black screen where said that I don't have any boot devices connected and to connect one and press a key.

I believe you are supposed to format the partition labeled BOOTCAMP to NTFS from the installer. It is stated in the BootCamp suport guide.

How do I convert my Windows 7 Folder to an ISO image to burn to a USB, in order to use Bootcamp Assistant to partition my MacBook Pro for Mac and Windows?

How do I convert my Windows 7 Folder to an ISO image to burn to my USB Flash drive (16GB) in order to use Bootcamp Assistant to partition my MacBook Pro for Mac and Windows?

Sorry - confusing - My question has NOT been solved yet - can anyone help?

I recently tried to remove widows7 on my macbook air using bootcamp and halfway through it grayed out .The windows 7 is removed but i cant free up the 62gig partition the windows was occupying on my 121gig ssd harddrive please help

i recently tried to remove widows7 on my macbook air using bootcamp and halfway through it grayed out .The windows 7 is removed but i cant free up the 62gig partition the windows was occupying on my 121gig ssd harddrive please help

You may have to see about using the Recovery HD partition to attempt to erase and restore useful function of the capacity lost to the former Windows installation.
And you may have to backup your contents outside the computer to do it. Disk Utility on the Mac OS X historically has not been able to touch a BootCamp created partition; so if BootCamp cannot remove it, then you have to see how to do the equivalent of a reformat of the entire drive (less Recovery partition?) then reinstall your OS X. Maybe from internet recovery, then get your applications, etc from the Mac App store, etc.
A complete system clone of your OS X on an external HDD would be another method to restore after reformat, of the portion you want whole again, not necessarily the space where Recovery may live.
There may be (an)other way(s).
Perhaps someone with recent experience
in this matter can reply & discuss options.
With my antiques, they almost know what I want before I tell them.
Hopefully yours will after you talk to it awhile.
Good luck & happy computing!

HT4818 I want to have an exFAT parition in addition to the Mac OS X and Windows partition. If I create it before running BootCamp, it wants me to delete it. If I create it in either Windows or Mac OS X afterwards, I can no longer dual boot.

I want to have an exFAT parition in addition to the Mac OS X and Windows partition. If I create it before running BootCamp, BootCamp wants me to delete it before continuing. If I create it in either Windows or Mac OS X after running BootCamp and installing both OSes, I can no longer dual boot. What is the magic sequence to get this to work?

I've got the same quandary.
After upgrading my hard drive to a Momentus XT Hybrid and doing a clean install of Mountain Lion, I was surprised that I couldn't format partitions separately and then restore from my clone of the old Windows 7 Partition. I found that I had to use the BootCamp Assistant to manage it all, which essentially meant getting rid of the partitions and starting again...
I now can't get my Windows / BootCamp partition to boot, after adding a 3rd, ExFat, partition, when it was working perfectly fine before. I just get a lot of dos booting failures and a final message that "No boot device is available, press Enter to continue".
See the attached message, that I get when trying to boot the bootcamp partition, through Parallels 7; which also worked perfectly fine before.
Be good to know if there is a work around this in Mountain Lion as, if not, I'm thinking I might skip Bootcamp altogether and just install a machine drive via Parallels. As suggested here:
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1420754
I might even keep the virtual windows machine on a separate hard drive and then I'll have no need for the ExFat partitions altogether as that was designated for sharing between Windows and Mac.

How can I uninstall Bootcamp and Recover the partition for the Mac HD

How can I uninstall Bootcamp and recover the partition for the IMac HD?

Boot into OSX. Go back into the Bootcamp utility in the Utilities folder and re-run it. It will give you the option to remove the Windows partition and make the OSX partition fill the whole drive again. OSX will NOT be lost in the process. No re-installing necessary. Only takes a few minutes or less to complete.

I am unable to install Lion. I have a Core 2 Duo iMac with 4GB of Ram and 120GB of free space - and no Bootcamp or other partitions - and yet repeatedly get the 'no recovery' error. Can anyone help?

I am unable to install Lion. I have a Core 2 Duo iMac with 4GB of Ram and 120GB of free space - and no Bootcamp or other partitions - and yet repeatedly get the 'no recovery' error. Can anyone help?

Run Disk Utility located in /Applications/Utilities before trying to upgrade to Lion in case the startup disk needs repairing.
Using Disk Utility to verify or repair disks

Bootcamp with XP SP2 and NTFS partitions (Paragon) – Best Setup?

Intro
Just got the new Mac Pro and I'm not sure where to place Windows for use in Bootcamp and (using the same installation) in Fusion 2. I got a smaller drive (600GB) and will get two 1TB ones soon. The first is for OSX and the other two for work files and music etc.
I want to be able to easily clone/recopy my OS X System drive independently from the data so I'd like to keep the two separate. I'll probably use the two others as RAID to mirror the content (=1TB).
Question
Should I split the first disc into two partitions and install Windows XP on that one, or should I install windows on the other (two)? I'm not sure if I'll work more in Bootcamp or more in Fusion. Some things (3DSMax) might be too slow in Fusion. Do Fusion and OS X work well on the same disc or do they hinder each other? Is there any other reason to not put OS X and the Bootcamp partition on the same hard drive?
What about the backup of the Windows Volume. Does it matter if it's on the same harddisc as the OS X Volume?
I know there is NTFS support on Mac (Paragon), to allow OS X to write on an NTFS disc, I'll get that.
I'd like to use NTFS on the Windows partition instead of FAT32, does Fusion work well with that? Could I then use part of the mirrored 1TB harddiscs in NTFS format to read and write from Windows and OS X to them?
Thanks a lot for your time. Here's the questions again:
1. Windows on the same disc as OSX? Y/N
2. Windows and/or Windows work files on OS X Raid? Y/N
3. Windows and/or Windows work files in NTFS format on Raid? Works/doesn't work

Someone else may come along with a for-sure suggestion/idea, but the first thing that comes to my mind is that you used an unsupported method for installing Windows. Boot Camp requires a Windows XP DVD with service pack 2 included, and that's not what you used.
Like I said, I can't say for sure, but that's my first guess.
~Lyssa

Bootcamp and multiple partitions

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