Bootcamp Limited to 2 Partitions?

I have just set up my iMac to run Win 7 on Bootcamp. I then repartitioned to add a further 2 partitions to my original Mac HD partition and find that I have lost access to Win 7.
Is it not possible to set up the HD in more than 2 partitions when running Bootcamp?
I have seen the thread here:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2431211&tstart=0
but would rather not muck about too much to get around this issue. I would rather have my 3 Mac partitions and no Windows partition if it is likely to make the iMac unstable in any way.

Hi John,
for the BootCamp Assistant to be able to partition an internal harddisk, it has to find the drive to be filled with one single volume using the 'Mac OS Extended (Journaled)' file system and the GPT (GUID Partition Table) as partition scheme.
If already partitioned with Disk Utility for example, the BootCamp Assistant usually refuses to 'touch' that harddisk.
A later done partitioning to add additional partitions to a harddisk alters the position of the BootCamp partition in the partition table so that the Windows Bootloader can not 'find' the Windows partition.
With Windows XP it helped to simply edit the Boot.Ini file and point it to the WIndows partition.
With Vista and Windows 7 there no longer is a boot.ini but EasyBCD http://neosmart.net/dl.php?id=1 can do the same.
One thing to remember though is, that even Vista and Windows 7 'suffer' from the limitation of four partitions on one harddisk immenent to the Master Boot Record (MBR) since Apple EFI/GPT/MBR emulation can not handle Extended Partitions and Logical Partitions inside an Extended Partition.
Regards
Stefan

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BootCamp on a double partitioned drive

So the hard drive in my MBP is partitioned into two separate partitions. One for OS X and the other for all my data. I want to install XP for some games and so I would like to use bootcamp to do so. My question is, is the drive that bootcamp will partition limited to the one with OS X already on it? Or can I use it on my other partition that has all my data.
And second, should I want to revert back and delete the windows partition, will everything go back to the way it was? Or will I have to format and re-partition anything.
Thanks in advance.

Hi,
the BootCamp Assistant (BCA) in OSX will only partition the harddrive when it is a single OSX volume with only one partition on it.
With your harddisk layout the BCA won't do anything.
Nonetheless, have a look here for ways to do what you have in mind http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20071101065229169
When using the BootCamp Assistant for the partitioning, you can use it again later for completely removing the WIndows partition and assigning the diskspace back to OSX.
When using the other solutions you have to do that on your own with Disk Utility.
Regards
Stefan

Can I force the bootcamp wizard to skip looking for the bootcamp drivers? I have already downloaded the latest drivers and loaded them on a FAT usb drive. All I want is for bootcamp to create the partition and allow me to install windows 8 pro

Hi Everyone,
Can I force the bootcamp wizard to skip looking for the bootcamp drivers? I have already downloaded the latest drivers and loaded them on a FAT usb drive. All I want is for bootcamp to create the partition and allow me to install windows 8 pro.
The bootcamp drivers have been downloaded from apple's website. Filename: BootCamp5.0.5033
I have a iMac 27" late 2013 model.
NOTE: I have downloaded the drivers manually from apples support site as the bootcamp wizard fails third of the way through the download.
Appreciate any assistance.
Regards,
asdutoit

There is a missing point in this thread, and it is that the Boot Camp drivers for the Late 2013 iMac can only be downloaded from Boot Camp Assistant. The Boot Camp drivers available in the Apple site are not compatible with that iMac.
Delete the Boot Camp drivers from the USB drive, open Boot Camp Assistant and try to download the Boot Camp drivers again. If you get a message telling you that they could not be downloaded, I would try reinstalling OS X through OS X Recovery, by holding down Command and R keys while your Mac is starting up

Strange error when Bootcamp attempts to create partition for Windows

I get a strange error when I tell Bootcamp to create a partition for Windows. I get to the Create a Partition stage. I select 20GB for Windows leaving 91GB (39GB free) for OS X. I then click Partition and it gives me the following error
*The disk cannot be partitioned because some files cannot be moved.*
Back up the disk and use Disk Utility to format it as a single Mac OS Extended (Journaled) volume. Restore your information to the disk and try using Boot Camp Assistant again.
My disk is formatted in Mac OS Extended (Journaled), I have closed all applications (besides Bootcamp Assistant) and I have even restarted and tried again to see if that might help. Nothing. I can't get it to partition. Any thoughts? Can I partition my disk manually through disk utility and then select it in Bootcamp?

Hi,
this gets asked at least a thousand times by now.
Have a look at this thread for solution http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=10540273&#10540273
Regards
Stefan

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.

Bootcamp not using full partitioned amount.......

So my Bootcamp hard drive is partitioned for 25gb. However, it is only using 15gb. I am trying to install a game that is about 14gb but I don't have enough room for the other software I need. So, in short, Why won't it use those other 10 gb????!!! It's driving me nuts! They don't register as empty, but no matter how hard a search through all my files there's only a max of 14/15 gb of stuff on there. But I still keep getting these warnings saying that I have no hard drive space left.
Does anyone know what's going on?

It's up to you. I've never dealt with WinClone so I'm not sure how well it does or doesn't work. I do see it recommended on the boards often, though, and it's an application that works while you're in OS X. Worth looking at, at least!
When you repartition the drive, the Boot Camp Assistant may say it doesn't have enough space to create the partition, even though your hard drive certainly DOES have the space there. The issue is that the Assistant needs contiguous space (basically a large chunk all in one spot) and it can't find a spot big enough due to fragmentation on the drive. Applications like iDefrag could help, but, personally, I'd just reformat the drive and start over.
~Lyssa

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.

Can i install windows 7 via bootcamp (MB Air) while using remote disc? I put the windows 7 disk in my macbook pro drive, and connect to my brand new macbook air. In bootcamp i allocate the partition then i click install and bootcamp will not see the disk.

Can i install windows 7 via bootcamp (on my MB Air) while using remote disc? I put the windows 7 disk in my macbook pro drive, and connect to my brand new macbook air via remote disk. In bootcamp (on my air) i allocate the partition, then i click install, and bootcamp will not see the disk from my macbook pro's drive. How do i get the bootcamp assistant running on my MB air to automatically find the disk in my macbook pro with the ISO image of windows 7? The remote disk on my air can find the cd but bootcamp will not begin installing it. Anyway to do this without buying the damned usb drive?

I don't know first hand if you can use the Remote Disk option with Windows but as of 10.7.2 you can now use BCAssistant to make a bootable USB (thumb drive or external disk) W7 installer with the Boot Camp drivers installed also. Have you tried that yet?

When I load Windows 7 in Bootcamp it freezes saying partition is not formatted for NTFS(?)

I have to set up a partition on my new iMac to get a piece of business software to load. I tried Crossover and Parallels. Set up a 250 GB partition in Bootcamp and things seemed to be going fine with the windows 7 Ultimate loading but then i get a message like Hard drive not formatted for NTFS. Suggestions

I Just figured it out! I Have a Mac Mini 2012 with 2 Kingston 128 GB SSDs. I thought it was having 2 internal drives that was making problems... Had exact same issue as all of you. First I would get a no NTFS partition error after I used Boot Camp Assistant to make a USB install stick for Windows 7 Ultimate x64.
My solution was simple, removing EVERYTHING connected to my mac mini, including my Wireless mouse and Keyboard. All I had connected was my Apple wired keyboard, the install USB drive, and my monitor. Having a Second internal SSD drive was not the issue.
I formatted the BootCamp partition, and POW! it actually worked. The error that setup couldnt install on this drive, and see error log didnt show up! Try that! it might work!

Easy to install Lion with BootCamp + Win 8 + NTFS partition for data?

Hey, I have a MacBook Pro (2011) currently on OS X 10.6.8, but I bought Lion 10.7 and want to use that.
Here's what I want to do:
* install Lion (fresh, not upgrade)
* install BootCamp
* install Win 8 (DevEd) (for games and some other apps)
And here are my questions:
1) What's the best (free) way to save/"ghost" the current OS so I can quickly get back to that in case something happens when I install Lion?
2) What order do I install BootCamp and Win 8 in? Any fool-proof tutorial for how to do this?
3) If I do a backup with Time Machine as the last thing I do before installing Lion, I just copy the data back from the TM drive after install, right?
4) I would like to use Win 8 and some programs there to read and write to the HFS+ OS X partition - is there a free and/or good way to do that?
5) On PC I can use WinAmp, the great plugin "DeleteCurrentSong" and a shortcut key to delete the currently playing track. Is there a way to do something similar in any program in OS X?
6) If not, would it be possible to - early in the install process - make a big NTFS partition and put most of my data there so it can be accessed from both OS X (with Paragon) and Windows? And Time Machine wouldn't back it up as long as it's NTFS, right?
Thanks a lot for any answers!

Answer to question 1:
a. Get a USB disc the same size or better larger than your internal HD
b. Download Carbon Copy Cloner (free)
c. Clone the internal HD to the external disc
d. Reboot with the 'option' key held down. Choose the external disc to check that the clone was successful and is bootable.
e. If yes, reboot again, hodling down the 'option' key. Choose the internal HDD.
f. Dismount/eject the external HD and disconnect it from your computer.
g. Go to app store and download Lion.
h. When the download is complete, DO NOT run it. First, copy the file (Applications > Lion Install.app) to another location on your disc (the downloads folder will do). This is because after you run the installer it will delete itself from the Applications folder, and you may very well either want/need to do a re-install later without wanting to wait for hours for the download.
i. Run Applications > Lion Install.app

Bootcamp is showing wrong partitions at O/S selection screen.

Hello everyone,
i recently purchased a MacBook Pro (15 inches). I used to own the previous 2009 model, the Santa Rosa model, and a PowerBook G4.
Today, i decided to replace the superdrive by the OptiBay caddy of my previous Unibody to be able to have both my SSD and my mechanical HDD in my machine.
- So, i have put the mechanical hard drive is located on the OptiBay (Former SuperDrive SATA port), and the SSD is in place of the regular hard drive (Primary SATA port, because it's SATA III and only this port allows me to enjoy that speed).
- After doing that, i cleanly reinstalled Snow Leopard (Vanilla 10.6.7) on the SSD, and i used the BootCamp assistant to split the mechanical hard drive into two partitions (439GB for data / 59GB for windows).
- Then, i tried booting the CD (Which was on an external USB enclosure)...
Nothing happenend. Instead of booting the Windows Installation program, the screen either stayed black with the white blinking cursor, or if i try with RefiT it stops after the "Press any key to boot from the DVD"... It looks to me that it's impossible to install if the target disk is in "lieu and place" of the SuperDrive...
Probably a GPT / GUID / MBR mapping problem, not an issue for me. So i installed the trial version of Parallels, and completed the first installation step within it under MacOS. After that, i used the MBR generated by parallels, booted into a MacOS installation disc, and forced the MBR to be injected into the real hard drive (dd command, if=parallels mbr, of=/dev/disk0 for instance).
Everything is working fine now! However, there is a huge glitch at the OS selection time. i see my Snow Leopard partition (on the standalone SSD), but then i see two Windows partitions... Only the last one seems to boot, the first one giving me an message like "Missing Operating System"...
The thing is that i know pretty much what i'm doing... And i am also positive that i didn't mess up with the MBR.
What would be the issue here?
Thanks a lot for your time and expertise!
Pierre.

I use Malwarebytes along with MS Security Essentials
A couple people have had trouble. Seems some Windows update perhaps.
There are updates to Chrome and FF you want to grab along with Flash.
Run CCleaner 3 regularly
Do a Start: Run: %TEMP% and delete all the files in there, a few will not.
You should have at least 10-15GB free space
Windows is actually tighter on RAM than OS X will be so that has been one thing I find lately being a factor.
Before even using a disk drive or partition it is a good idea to test the disk for sectors. I use WD Lifeguard first and then reformat as needed along with chkdsk. Windows 8 will tell you if there are any I/O errors or needs to do a scan.

Bootcamp and vmware: same partition?

Let's say I install windows 7 using bootcamp. If then I install vmware under Mac OS, can I "point " it to the same partition where bootcamp installed version of win 7 is? Or, I will necessary have to reserve another piece of disk and install another version of windows7 just to use with vmware ( or parallels).
Thanks.

I used Fusion to access my Bootcamp partition on my previous mac using Windows Vista. The only issue I had (which I hope they have now solved) is that despite installing all the correct patches etc, everytime I opened windows in Fusion after having booted into it via bootcamp windows thought it had been installed on a new machine and wanted to activate every time - I ultimtely had to stick to one form of access to windows as I got stuck in an activation loop which then invalidated my legitimate copy of windows. However, this was about a year ago so this issue may have been fixed.
You may have a specific reason for wanting to use a physical bootcamp partition but I find using windows strictly as a virtual machine is absolutely fine, especially with Windows 7 as it's quite a lightweight operating system compared to Vista. You can also adjust the allocated hard disk space Windows has access to as and when you need to if it is created as a virtual machine which gives you more flexibility than a bootcamp partition.

Bootcamp trouble, only one partition shows when windows boots

I recieved my macbook pro today and I am having trouble trying to install windows xp with bootcamp. I create a partition with bootcamp and insert the install disk. The blue screen for windows appears and asks me which partition to choose. There is only one partition that has 131000 MB. This isnt the amount I asked for.
I followed every step. I even found out that other people are having the same problem as me on other forums and I havn't seen a solution yet. Please help me!

Hi and welcome to Discussions,
such 'behaviour' usually is a hint that your Windows XP does not include the SP2 (Service Pack 2) or later, but is a SP1 or earlier.
Check the label of the CD for mentioning of SP2.
If SP1 you can use these instructions http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/windowsxpsp2slipstream.asp to make yourself a XP SP2 Installation CD.
XP SP2 or later is a must for BootCamp to work.
Regards
Stefan

BootCamp can't install partition

Hi All,anyone could help me to resolve ....The disk is not journaled. You must enable journaling using Disk Utility before using the Boot Camp Assistant.

You may as well backup anyway, erase, then by restoring have all your free space in one consolidated contiguous chunk, so that you can create a partition (you aren't installing).
Boot Camp
Installation Guide
Instructions for all features and settings.
Boot Camp FAQGet answers to commonly asked Boot Camp questions.
Windows 7 FAQAnswers to commonly asked Windows 7 questions.
http://www.apple.com/support/bootcamp/

Cant't make bootcamp to make a partition in ntfs and not in fat

Hi, I started my bootcamp asistant, when I put continue, it ask me, how many "gb" I want to dedicate to windows. I do everything the assitant told me, but when I try to instal my windows 7 64 bit. It says to me that I have to use a partitioned "ntfs" space not a "fat" one. But i didn't find any part in my assitant that ask me wich kind of partition I want to do. Anyone can help me?

The Windows installer provides a formatter to use prior to installing Windows. You can use it to format the partition NTSF. If you don't know how to install Windows and format the drive, then read the Boot Camp documentation within the Boot Camp Assistant or post a query for assistance in the Windows Compatibility or Boot Camp forum.

Bootcamp Limited to 2 Partitions?

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