Changing boot camp partition size

How do I change the Boot Camp partition size? I need more space on the Mac side and less space on the Windows side. Thanks.

Just posted this yesterday -
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=13231342&#13231342
CampTune can do it w/o having to blow away the Windows partiton

Similar Messages

  • HT3777 Reducing Boot Camp partition size

    I've never used Boot Camp since I bought my MacBook Pro in 2008 since it came with a free VM Fusion program.  I have Boot Camp with nothing in it taking up 33 GB of space and I need the space.  How do I reduce the Boot Camp partition size?

    Here is where you will find the answer. 
    https://discussions.apple.com/message/17425487#17425487
    https://discussions.apple.com/message/15323005#15323005
    https://discussions.apple.com/message/13236559#13236559
    This topic has been asked and answered so often that some contributors can be irritated when no effort to use the search function is made.
    It's like the French proverb;
    “Fortune helps him that's willing to help himself.”
    Be angry if you wish but realize we are all volunteers on these forums and being impatient does not encourage
    gratis.

  • Increasing Boot Camp Partition Size

    How do I increase the boot camp partition size without erasing contents?

    Hi and welcome to Discussions,
    WinClone http://www.twocanoes.com/winclone/ and a how-to is in their FAQs http://www.twocanoes.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=515
    Paragons CampTune http://www.paragon-software.com/home/camptune/ has worked for some (haven't tried myself, though).
    Regards
    Stefan

  • Recommended Boot Camp Partition Size for Windows XP

    All,
    What size is recommended for a Windows XP Boot Camp Partition? 100Gb? 50Gb?
    Main use is to run a few programs that are not available for Mac. Most everything else will be transferred over.
    Thanks
    PAX
    JD

    Kalebd wrote:
    All,
    What size is recommended for a Windows XP Boot Camp Partition? 100Gb? 50Gb?
    Main use is to run a few programs that are not available for Mac. Most everything else will be transferred over.
    Depending on the programs you want to install, you can get by with very little. I have virtual XP systems that live within 8GB virtual disks. If you've got the drive space, go for ~30GB. I've found that to be a nice size for running Windows 7 within, and thus you likely won't have to mess with re-partitioning should you update the OS in the future.

  • Boot Camp Partition Size/External HDD recommendation

    After updating software, hardware, downloading Boot Camp Asst, and installing Windows XP Pro (have not yet downloaded Mac drivers or software, nor have I submitted registration of my WinXP Pro software, still have 29 days), I realized that I set the partition size too small and need to resize it. I read in other postings that I can copy the Windows partition to an external HDD from the Mac OSX side, then run Boot Camp again, delete the "too small" Windows partition, then run Boot Camp again and reset the partition size larger. Does anyone have detailed instructions to do this?
    Also, can anyone suggest an external HDD for this purpose? I need to be able to share files between a PC and my 17" MBP running OS X 10.4.6. Specifically, I need to share (for editing purposes) audio files created with PC-based software with the Windows side of my MBP. The PC has XP Pro and MacDrive6 for Windows installed. I read the "Sharing a FireWire drive between Mac and PC" document on "The X Lab" website and, based on this, am leaning toward getting a FW (not USB) HDD and formatting it in Mac OS Extended format (not sure how to do this but cross that bridge when I get there). Does this sound reasonable? When I run Boot Camp again and have to choose between NTSF and FAT32 should I choose NTSF? Will I also need "SharePoints" or other software to share the Mac's FW drive with the PC?
    I may have the option to share and backup files over the workplace network (if I take the time to set it up). Does anyone know if there advantages/disadvantages to this option?
    Thanks for answers to these questions. Any help would be very much appreciated. Best!

    Frank,
    You might want to check the Boot Camp discussions:
    http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=1165
    In case no one in this part of the board knows.

  • Boot Camp Partition Size?

    I'm thinking of installing a boot camp partion. Does boot camp choose the size or do I. If I do, what's a good size to make it. I really will only run Office 2003 and my BlackBerry Desktop software and some browsing with IE.

    Brand new Mac user here who just made "the switch".
    I've also wondered "how large should I make the partition?"
    On the Windows partition, I intend to install XP SP3, Microsoft Office Suite, Project, Visio, and Adobe Acrobat/LiveCycle/Photoshop (at least those are the "heavy hitting" apps.) I also plan to run Parallels.
    I was alarmed to see that the suggested partition size for Vista is 60-70GB. But I never migrated to Vista because of all of its issues, bloatware, etc. and stuck with the tried and true XP. When I look at the tech specs for XP, the suggested available space is substantially smaller than the space required for Vista.
    I see that Boot Camp Assistant defaults to 32GB and that anything higher than 32GB prevents sharing between partitions.
    So some questions:
    1. Is 32GB enough/not-enough/more-than-enough size for my intended OS/applications indicated above? As it is, my HDD is 320GB.
    2. Do I care about sharing between partitions? More simply put: if I am running Parallels and running MS Word (which would be living on the Win side of the house), will I have the option to save my doc on the OSX side only if the partition is <32GB?
    3. And as follow on to #2, what are the ramifications of creating a Win partition >32GB from a usability standpoint? I'm having trouble discerning what those really are in layman's terms.
    4. Please confirm: when I run Boot Camp Assistant, should I create the Win partition as NTFS? Is this dependent on the size of the partition and if yes, what are the suggested formats in regards to size?
    Any guidance would be immensely appreciated.

  • Boot Camp Partition Size Problem

    Hi there,
    I've got a strange sort of problem:
    Running a MacBook Pro, late 2011, with an Apple 256 SSD (installed at purchase), running latest Mountain Lion.
    Currently, when I get info from my HD, I have 80+ gigs free.
    I want to install Win7 in Bootcamp (I have Parallels but I want to play some heavy graphic games which respond really slowly with virtualization). So I run Bootcamp assistant, and the biggest partition it says I can make for Windows is...30 gigs.
    Why? I know that Mac requires at least 10gigs free (that's fine), but that should still let me get up to around 40 gigs (which is what I figure I'll need with all the installs I want to do). So....what can I do to fix this?
    P.S. I know that defragging an SSD is a bad idea, and probably dosn't work anyway, so I'm not doing that (and I know you don't need to defrag in OS X anyway)
    Thanks for any input. I'm a tad frustrated at this point. I already did a full backup with time machine in case anything would go wrong, downloaded the drivers to the USB thumb drive, have my Win7 CD ready...and I just can't get beyond this.

    Wow that's very strange. It says I have 42 gigs free, but when I get info on my drive, it says 82 gigs free.
    Ok, so I read the article, and I see the problem. I just used terminal to kill snapshots (as I really don't need that...).
    I tried finding the backups in /Volumes, but all I have in that folder is an alias to my HD. Any idea where else they could be? I tried using search in the finder to no avail.

  • Change Boot Camp Partitions

    hey everyone, no idea if this is the right place to put this but anyway.
    I recently found a program called CampTune by PARAGON, I think that's it anyway....
    I was wondering if anyone had any experience or knows about it.
    I tried to dig around but couldn't find much. So is it safe? how would I use it? and would it work with windows 7 installed via snow leopard?
    thanks.

    Ok - I see. It's not as easy as I hoped for. And the thing is, that I fortunately haven't installed a lot of programs yet. So I think that I'll rather start over from the beginning... But thanks to the both of you. I got the answer that I needed ;o). Best regards from Ditte

  • HT5639 On my iMAC using Mountain Lion v. 10.8.3, is there a way to increase the size of my Boot Camp Partition after I installed Windows 8? Thanks.

    On my iMAC using Mountain Lion v. 10.8.3, is there a way to increase the size of my Boot Camp Partition after I installed Windows 8? Thanks.

    Yes, purchase Paragon Camp Tune for the job.

  • Any way to reduce the size of Boot Camp partition?

    I made my Boot Camp partition way big and now I'd like to smallify it by about half, down to 60G or so (it's 130G now). Is there any EASY way to do this?
    Many thanks,
    Pier

    In Vista (Ultimate in my case), RightClick My Computer -> Manage: select Disk Management. In Vista you can shrink your (C:) Boot Camp partition which leaves OS intact but allows another install to new (D:) (extended) volume created within space. In XP, I think same can be done with Diskpart.exe which is in \System32. As I have, you can install another Windows OS to the new partition.
    I can't see data from Leopard OS for the extension made, though I can see Ntfs files and copy/paste from original Windows (C:) volume bootcamp set up. I do not know if formatting the new split to Fat 32 would make it a share space for Leopard.

  • Can no longer see Boot Camp Partition

    Hello all,
    I was having problems with booting into Boot Camp/Windows 7 (I was just getting a black screen), so I attempted to delete the boot camp partition and reinstall it.  When I did that, the program hung for a while, and finally said there was an error deleting the partition.  However, it appears it like halfway deleted it, as it no longer shows up!  When I go into disk utility, Macintosh HD shows blue, and then there is a 50 GB partition (the size of my bootcamp) that is white, but it is unlabeled.  I cannot adjust the partition to make it the whole HD, and if I go to boot camp assistant, and try to make a new bootcamp partition, it bounces back with an error message as well.  I am wondering how I can restore the partition back to the original all mac hd partition..ANy help would be greatly appreciated!!
    Kevin

    WinClone 3 $20
    When you move to a new OS: clone your system, make sure you have backups you can use - for each - the partition table "rules" change with each new OS. And you want to reformat a drive from time to time especially then.
    Carbon Copy Cloner 3.4 is a good way to clone your OS X partitions.
    Basically, "start over" and restore to one HFS volume with OS X then run Boot Camp Assistant, then restore with Winclone image you made easier.
    www.apple.com/support/bootcamp
    Find CCC and WinClone www.macupdate.com

  • Cloned boot camp partition won't boot

    I've bought a new SSD, installed OSX and used Disk Utility to make 2 partitions. 1 for OSX and another fat32 partition for win XP.
    I cloned my old windows xp boot camp partition with dd.
    then I followed the instructions to add a new hybrid master boot record and marked the partition bootable (sudo fdisk -e /dev/disk0, flag 4).
    But the Boot camp partition doesn't show up during boot while pressing ALT and vmware is not able to boot into windows.
    dietmar-mac:~ dietmar$ sudo fdisk /dev/disk0
    Password:
    Disk: /dev/disk0 geometry: 62260/255/63 [1000215216 sectors]
    Signature: 0xAA55
             Starting       Ending
    #: id  cyl  hd sec -  cyl  hd sec [     start -       size]
    1: EE    0   0   2 -   25 127  14 [         1 -     409639] <Unknown ID>
    2: AF   25 127  15 - 1023 254  63 [    409640 -  967742600] HFS+       
    3: AB 1023 254  63 - 1023 254  63 [ 968152240 -    1269544] Darwin Boot
    *4: 07 1023 254  63 - 1023 254  63 [ 969421784 -   30531248] HPFS/QNX/AUX  (it's FAT32 not NTFS!, however this changed after sudo fdisk -e /dev/disk0 flag 4)
    dietmar-mac:~ dietmar$
    dietmar-mac:~ dietmar$ sudo gpt -r -vv show disk0
    gpt show: disk0: mediasize=512110190592; sectorsize=512; blocks=1000215216
    gpt show: disk0: Suspicious MBR at sector 0
    gpt show: disk0: Pri GPT at sector 1
    gpt show: disk0: Sec GPT at sector 1000215215
           start        size  index  contents
               0           1         MBR
               1           1         Pri GPT header
               2          32         Pri GPT table
              34           6        
              40      409600      1  GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
          409640   967742600      2  GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
       968152240     1269544      3  GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
       969421784    30531248      4  GPT part - EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7
       999953032      262151        
      1000215183          32         Sec GPT table
      1000215215           1         Sec GPT header
    I can't use winclone, cause they cancelled the fat32 support and older versions don't run unter osx 10.9.
    Thanks for your help.

    What is a startup repair?
    Could please look over that.
    diskutil list
    /dev/disk0
       #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
       0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *512.1 GB   disk0
       1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
       2:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD            492.0 GB   disk0s2
       3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3
       4:       Microsoft Basic Data WINDOWS HD              15.6 GB    disk0s4
    dietmar-mac:~ dietmar$ diskutil cs list
    No CoreStorage logical volume groups found
    dietmar-mac:~ dietmar$ sudo gpt -vv -r show /dev/disk0
    Password:
    gpt show: /dev/disk0: mediasize=512110190592; sectorsize=512; blocks=1000215216
    gpt show: /dev/disk0: Suspicious MBR at sector 0
    gpt show: /dev/disk0: Pri GPT at sector 1
    gpt show: /dev/disk0: Sec GPT at sector 1000215215
           start        size  index  contents
               0           1         MBR
               1           1         Pri GPT header
               2          32         Pri GPT table
              34           6        
              40      409600      1  GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
          409640   960937496      2  GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
       961347136     1269544      3  GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
       962616680     6805104        
       969421784    30531248      4  GPT part - EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7
       999953032      262151        
      1000215183          32         Sec GPT table
      1000215215           1         Sec GPT header
    dietmar-mac:~ dietmar$ sudo fdisk /dev/disk0
    Disk: /dev/disk0 geometry: 62260/255/63 [1000215216 sectors]
    Signature: 0xAA55
             Starting       Ending
    #: id  cyl  hd sec -  cyl  hd sec [     start -       size]
    1: EE 1023 254  63 - 1023 254  63 [         1 -     409639] <Unknown ID>
    2: AF 1023 254  63 - 1023 254  63 [    409640 -  960937496] HFS+       
    3: AB 1023 254  63 - 1023 254  63 [ 961347136 -    1269544] Darwin Boot
    *4: 0C 1023 254  63 - 1023 254  63 [ 969421784 -   30531248] Win95 FAT32L
    dietmar-mac:~ dietmar$ sudo dd if=/dev/rBootcampDisk count=1 2>/dev/null | hexdump -C
    dietmar-mac:~ dietmar$ sudo dd if=/dev/disk0s4 count=1 2>/dev/null | hexdump -C
    dietmar-mac:~ dietmar$ sudo dd if=/dev/rdisk0 count=1 2>/dev/null | hexdump -C
    00000000  33 c0 8e d0 bc 00 7c 8e  c0 8e d8 be 00 7c bf 00  |3.....|......|..|
    00000010  06 b9 00 02 fc f3 a4 50  68 1c 06 cb fb b9 04 00  |.......Ph.......|
    00000020  bd be 07 80 7e 00 00 7c  0b 0f 85 0e 01 83 c5 10  |....~..|........|
    00000030  e2 f1 cd 18 88 56 00 55  c6 46 11 05 c6 46 10 00  |.....V.U.F...F..|
    00000040  b4 41 bb aa 55 cd 13 5d  72 0f 81 fb 55 aa 75 09  |.A..U..]r...U.u.|
    00000050  f7 c1 01 00 74 03 fe 46  10 66 60 80 7e 10 00 74  |....t..F.f`.~..t|
    00000060  26 66 68 00 00 00 00 66  ff 76 08 68 00 00 68 00  |&fh....f.v.h..h.|
    00000070  7c 68 01 00 68 10 00 b4  42 8a 56 00 8b f4 cd 13  ||h..h...B.V.....|
    00000080  9f 83 c4 10 9e eb 14 b8  01 02 bb 00 7c 8a 56 00  |............|.V.|
    00000090  8a 76 01 8a 4e 02 8a 6e  03 cd 13 66 61 73 1c fe  |.v..N..n...fas..|
    000000a0  4e 11 75 0c 80 7e 00 80  0f 84 8a 00 b2 80 eb 84  |N.u..~..........|
    000000b0  55 32 e4 8a 56 00 cd 13  5d eb 9e 81 3e fe 7d 55  |U2..V...]...>.}U|
    000000c0  aa 75 6e ff 76 00 e8 8d  00 75 17 fa b0 d1 e6 64  |.un.v....u.....d|
    000000d0  e8 83 00 b0 df e6 60 e8  7c 00 b0 ff e6 64 e8 75  |......`.|....d.u|
    000000e0  00 fb b8 00 bb cd 1a 66  23 c0 75 3b 66 81 fb 54  |.......f#.u;f..T|
    000000f0  43 50 41 75 32 81 f9 02  01 72 2c 66 68 07 bb 00  |CPAu2....r,fh...|
    00000100  00 66 68 00 02 00 00 66  68 08 00 00 00 66 53 66  |.fh....fh....fSf|
    00000110  53 66 55 66 68 00 00 00  00 66 68 00 7c 00 00 66  |SfUfh....fh.|..f|
    00000120  61 68 00 00 07 cd 1a 5a  32 f6 ea 00 7c 00 00 cd  |ah.....Z2...|...|
    00000130  18 a0 b7 07 eb 08 a0 b6  07 eb 03 a0 b5 07 32 e4  |..............2.|
    00000140  05 00 07 8b f0 ac 3c 00  74 09 bb 07 00 b4 0e cd  |......<.t.......|
    00000150  10 eb f2 f4 eb fd 2b c9  e4 64 eb 00 24 02 e0 f8  |......+..d..$...|
    00000160  24 02 c3 49 6e 76 61 6c  69 64 20 70 61 72 74 69  |$..Invalid parti|
    00000170  74 69 6f 6e 20 74 61 62  6c 65 00 45 72 72 6f 72  |tion table.Error|
    00000180  20 6c 6f 61 64 69 6e 67  20 6f 70 65 72 61 74 69  | loading operati|
    00000190  6e 67 20 73 79 73 74 65  6d 00 4d 69 73 73 69 6e  |ng system.Missin|
    000001a0  67 20 6f 70 65 72 61 74  69 6e 67 20 73 79 73 74  |g operating syst|
    000001b0  65 6d 00 00 00 63 7b 9a  2b 06 2c 06 00 00 00 fe  |em...c{.+.,.....|
    000001c0  ff ff ee fe ff ff 01 00  00 00 27 40 06 00 00 fe  |..........'@....|
    000001d0  ff ff af fe ff ff 28 40  06 00 18 be 46 39 00 fe  |......(@....F9..|
    000001e0  ff ff ab fe ff ff 40 fe  4c 39 28 5f 13 00 80 fe  |[email protected](_....|
    000001f0  ff ff 0c fe ff ff d8 33  c8 39 b0 de d1 01 55 aa  |.......3.9....U.|
    00000200

  • I have recently purchased a hybred 750GbHDD as an upgrade for my MAC Book Pro (Intell Version) I have a boot camp partition to the original 500GB HDD. How can I expand both partitions to fit the new drive?

    I have recently purchased a hybred 750GbHDD as an upgrade for my MAC Book Pro (Intell Version) I have a boot camp partition to the original 500GB HDD. How can I expand both partitions to fit the new drive?
    I have tried bootcamp and have had no luck due to the fact that boot camp doesn't see the additional HDD space of 250Gb. What am I not doing?

    Ouch, well there is a problem.
    This is the stack of partitions on your old drive
    EFI (hidden)
    Lion (50GB say)
    Bootcamp (50GB say)
    Lion Recovery Partiton (hidden)
    This is the same stack on your new drive imaged from the old one.
    EFI (hidden)
    Lion (50GB say)
    Bootcamp (50GB say)
    Lion Recovery Partiton (hidden)
    Emtpy Space (100GB say)
    This is what you want
    EFI (hidden)
    Lion (100GB say)
    Bootcamp (100GB say)
    Lion Recovery Partiton (hidden)
    EFI has to be at the top of the drive and Lion Recovery has to be at the bottom of the drive.
    And you only have four partitions.
    You can't move the Lion Recovery Partition or Bootcamp partiton, however you can expand the Lion Partition into empty space below it. (but can't delete or move the Lion Recovery partition)
    Your Duplicator duplicated perfectly, too perfectly Likely would work with same sized drives/partitions.
    This is what your going to need to do.
    You need to move the Bootcamp partition to a blank external drive using WinClone and disconnect. This is so you have two backups of it. (one on your old 500GB drive)
    You will need a drive enclousre or IDE/SATA to USB adapter cable for the older 500GB drive and option key boot from it. (some enclosures can't be booted from so check first Other World Computing is good place to ask)
    Download the free Carbon Copy Cloner, grab any new files off the new 750GB internal drive to the old 500GB your booted from.
    Open Apple's Disk Utility and Erase with Zero option the entire internal 750GB drive and let it rip, this will map off as many bad sectors and improve reliability.
    Now use Carbon Copy Cloner to clone the 500GB Lion + Lion Recovery Partitions to the internal 750GB, it will "fix" things and place Lion Recovery at the bottom of the drive where it belongs, give all the extra space to OS X Lion.
    Next your going to have to follow WinClones instructions to restore your Bootcamp, likely you will have to recreate the Bootcamp partition first (in Bootcamp) to the size you want and then clone. Likely Winclone may "fix" Windows to recognize it's in a new larger partition now. I don't know you'll have to check as I haven't used it.
    When Bootcamp creates the partition it will place it near the bottom next to the Lion Recovery Partition.
    As you know you will have to re-validate Windows with Lord Redmond or it expires as you changed the hardware.

  • Windows disc does not update after resizing boot camp partition

    When I bought my iMac, it came with a 500 GB HDD. I used bootcamp to make a 200GB windows partition and a 300GB Mac partition. The other day I bought a 250GB SSD, and moved everything from my 300GB Mac partition onto the SSD.
    My plan was to use the whole 500GB HDD for windows. So, I deleted the 300GB Mac partition and made it free space on the drive. I then expanded the boot camp partition to take up the whole drive using Mini Tool on windows 7.
    Now, windows 7 shows that my drive is 465GB, but when I boot into mac, the bootcamp hard drive still reads 200GB and 300GB are "free space" even though I expanded the drive using Mini Tool.
    I tried to fix this by filling up the hard drive with an extra 120 GB so it exceeded the 200GB limit that windows shows. But when I booted back into OSX to see if it had worked, none of the files were showing up in the drive, making me believe that boot camp and OS X are not reading changes I am making to the bootcamp drive when I use Windows.
    How can I change this so Disk Utility shows the full size of the disc, like Mini Tool does?
    I will try to upload screenshots soon.

    Re-sizing Windows partitions is not supported on Bootcamp. It requires a clean install. The other option is using Winclone.
    Boot Camp 5.1: Frequently asked questions
    How can a Windows partition be resized after Windows is installed?
    You need to delete the Windows partition using the Boot Camp Assistant, and start over to change the size of the Windows partition. Back up your important Windows files first.

  • Boot Camp partition data disappeared - No DVD drive

    Up until today my Boot Camp partition was working swimmingly.
    Today, I was greeted with the "bootmgr not found" error. After restarting into OSX, none of my files on the drive show up (I have Paragon NTFS) pictured below:
    It looks like the data is still there, but something in the partition tables/mbr is messed up. If possible, I'd like to salvage the existing data.
    To complicate things, I don't have a DVD drive on my MBP. Also, apparently I cannot boot from windows USB keys.
    This makes the usual windows boot repair difficult.
    My attempted solution, which worked to get windows installed in the first place was to make a new partition, and copy Windows install files to it, but I can't seem to get that to boot, either. I tried using Boot Camp Assistant to prepare the files, as well as unetbootin. I also tried formatting as both HFS and Fat, and copying the files from the windows install disk. I also installed rEFIt, but I just get errors when attempting to boot the install partition.
    My last ditch attempt was to rig something through VMware fusion to repair the drive by mounting it as a raw disk, 
    and loading my Windows 7 ISO to perform the repair, but raw disks don't seem to work well with partitions, and I didn't want to nuke all of my data.
    Does anyone have suggestions as to how I might fix this drive, to at least grab some files off of it?
    Any ideas are greatly appreciated.

    To clarify, in Bootcamp the " This disk cannot be partitioned because some files cannot be moved" error is relating to my OSX boot drive - 128Gb SSD. It currently has ~30gb free. Is there a way I can clone this data, and restore it without a DVD drive, or some other bootable media?
    Not being able to create a second partition is on my second drive, 320Gb. Which has 64Gb free. Searching around the net, I saw that resizing a partition to it's smallest possible size is the easiest way to defrag free space in OSX. I did that, and the option to create a second windows partition is still greyed out.
    Even if I nuke the existing bootcamp partition, I need another working, bootable partition that I can boot the Win 7 disc from. Not sure what's changed since my initial install, but it seems even more difficult this time.
    I'll try using carbon copy cloner on my system partition, and test if it's bootable from USB. I'm running out of Ideas.

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