I cannot partition drive for boot camp.

I am installing windows 7 professional and cannot get the partition to install. The HDD will not partition. Please help.

What happens when you try to partition the hard disk with Boot Camp Assistant? Where are getting the error: in Boot Camp Assistant or after starting the Windows installer?
Note that, if you are in the Windows installer, you have to format the "BOOTCAMP" partition in order to be able to install Windows. That's because Boot Camp Assistant formats the partition with FAT32, but Windows 7 requires a NTFS partition. In order to install Windows there, in the partitioning screen, choose "BOOTCAMP" and go to Advanced options > Format. Then, you will be able to install Windows 7 Professional

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Unable to partition drive for Boot Camp / Windows XP installation

I need to install Windows XP on my MacBook so that I can run MS Access 2007 for an online college course I'm taking.
When I attempt to partition (it doesn't seem to matter what size I choose to make the Windows partition), I get a message that the "The disk cannot be partitioned because some files cannot be moved," and that I should "back up the hard drive and format it as a single Mac OS Extended (Journaled) volume" and "restore information to the disk and try using Boot Camp Assistant again."
When I open Disk Utility and examine the information for the hard drive, it lists the File System as "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)." The "Supports Journaling" and "Journaled" fields are also listed as "Yes."
I'm not sure how to proceed. I have used Time Machine to back up the hard disk, but I see no option in Disk Utility to format the drive, and it doesn't appear that it needs to be formatted.
Has anyone else encountered this issue or have any ideas what might be causing it?

The part you need to follow: backup and reinitialize
You need unfragmented contiguous free space and it isn't, and some file(s) may be locked and can't be moved.
Booting from another hard drive and buy/use iDefrag is a 'maybe.'
Clone the drive and restore the clone with RESTORE in Disk Utility (from your OS X DVD) or TimeMachine or SuperDuper (or Carbon Copy Cloner).
Maybe you are better off just using XP in a VM like free VirtualBox instead of running XP native on its own partition.

How do I partition my hard drive for boot camp?

Model Name:          MacBook Pro
Model Identifier:          MacBookPro1,2
Processor Name:          Intel Core Duo
Processor Speed:          2.16 GHz
Number Of Processors:          1
Total Number Of Cores:          2
L2 Cache:          2 MB
Memory:          2 GB
Bus Speed:          667 MHz
Boot ROM Version:          MBP12.0061.B03
SMC Version (system):          1.5f10
Serial Number (system):
Hardware UUID:          00000000-0000-1000-8000-0016CB982183
Sudden Motion Sensor:
State:          Enabled
Okay so this is my machine. I want to run Boot Camp and to install Windows XP onto the machine as I need to use certain windows programmes for my business as well as the Mac stuff.
I have no idea how to partition some of my free 26gb space to create a drive to install windows onto?
Can any help please?

dpx wrote:
If you do really want to partition your hard drive then you need to look in your utilities folder for disk utility.
Once this is open, click on your hard drive image in the left hand column and then you will see a partition tab. Here you can split your HD into two partitions. Call one of them XP or something like that so that you know where to install windows.
It's quite safe and you can always go back to one big partition if things do not work out.
Remember though to backup first...
To the OP
Do not heed this advice, you should use Boot Camp Assistant to create the partition for Boot Camp, do not use Disk Utility.

Partition hard drive for boot camp

Hi everyone,
I was wondering if someone could help me out. My wife has a Macbook and had the hard drive partitioned so that she could run Bootcamp. She has both Windows7 Pro on the Bootcamp side and OSX on the MAc side. When she originally did the partition, she thought that 100GB should do the trick. She is now running out of space on the Windows side and needs more. Is there any "easy" way to partition the part of the drive on the Mac side to allocate another 100GB to the WIndows side without deleting anything or screwing up any programs. Or is there a way to partition the mac side and make a new drive altogether, and make it a drive to store files (pics, documents, etc.). Any information you could provide would be very helpful. Thanks for all your help.

Others have reported success with it. I don't use Windows so I have not used it myself. It's either that or repartitioning your entire drive with Disk Utility then Boot Camp Assistant. You really have nothing to lose than you would lose were you to go the alternative way.
It's a good idea to have backups, however, regardless of what you do.

Partitioning a 3TB drive for Boot Camp.

I have a Mac Pro, with two drives installed. The first drive is my OS X boot drive. The second drive is (or will be) a combination of Windows XP, and empty space for OS X. This latter drive is a WD 3TB Green drive. Because of the limitations in XP (and BIOS booting), the XP boot partition must be in the first 800 GB.
If I try to create a single partition using Bootcamp Assistant, it insists on using the entire drive. If I create an OS X partition and then use Bootcamp Assistant, it puts the Windows partition at the END of the drive. I can almost do what I want using manual (command line) partitioning, but then VMware Fusion will not allow me to set up the bootcamp partition for use as a virtual system.
Is there any sequence - command line or Apple-supplied GUI utility, I don't care which (I'm a Unix sysadmin by trade; the command line doesn't scare me) - which will let me set up a 500 GB bootcamp partition at the start of the drive; get Windows installed in it; and get the partition loaded into VMware as a virtual machine, with the remaining space setup as a journaled HFS+ volume?
If not, I guess I'll have to bite the bullet and buy Windows 7. Sigh ...

The problem is not the version of Windows as much as it is having to put MBR and GPT on the same disk. This gets really complicated quickly, and hybrid MBRs are non-standard and not safe. Even Apple's own documentation says that they aren't safe.
http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#technotes/tn2166/_index.html
However, because of how Apple's firmware is implemented, to use Windows, a hybrid MBR is effectively required if you're going to share a single disk of this size between Windows and Mac OS. You're better off using 2TB or smaller disks.
1. MBR has a disk (not partition) size limit of 2.2TB.
2. Because this is a 2.2TB+ drive, you need GPT to see the remaining space at all.
3. Apple hardware is EFI, but uses a CSM-BIOS mode for booting Windows of all versions.
4. When Windows is booted in CSM-BIOS mode, it requires MBR.
5. A disk only need to be GPT if it is greater than 2.2TB, or if you intend to *install* Mac OS X on it.
Now, if this were a 2TB drive or smaller, you could just use MBR only. And you could partition the first 800GB or whatever for Windows, and the rest as jhfs+ for Mac OS. Mac OS X is perfectly content using an MBR only disk, so long as you aren't asking to install Mac OS X onto it.
So you've kinda got yourself into a pickle with this giant single disk. Anyone else trying to do this even with Windows 7 will also be afflicted.
You can specify 500GB in the MBR for Windows, and Windows will use it just fine because it ignores the GPT anyway. But Mac OS X does not ignore MBR in favor of GPT or vice versa. If both MBR and GPT are on the disk, there's a set of rules for determining which partition map it should believe. According to the UEFI spec, an MBR with more than one entry, or a single entry that is not type EE, is *NOT* a GPT disk. It is an MBR disk.
In any event, the 2nd partition entry for the rest of this space in the MBR cannot match up with the same space in the GPT because the MBR is 32-bit limited. It can't correctly describe the full space for the disk, so by design it won't be in sync. Now, I don't have a 3TB drive to test Mac OS X's behavior with at the moment, but past experience tells me it will defer to the MBR entry unless it is type EE. Any sectors specified as type EE, then Mac OS X will defer to the GPT.
So anyone using 2TB+ disks is in for a world of hurt unless and until Apple moves from Intel EFI 1.10 to UEFI 2.x so that Windows 7 or 8 64-bit can boot in UEFI mode. And then, MBR will not be required at all. And this problem won't exist.

Can I use second internal hard drive for boot camp? OptiBay question.

I have a MBP. I have replaced the original HDD with a 160 Gb unit. I have replaced the optical drive with a 500 Gb unit via OptiBay. Right now, the 500 Gb drive is my startup volume, and has OS 10.5.6 living on it.
What I want to do is use 32 Gb of the original drive for a Windows (either XP or 7) volume and the rest of it as HFS+ for storage of stuff (videos, photos, and stuff like that)
I have rEFIt installed on the startup volume. I have played with triple boot setups, etc., in the past.
So how do I install Windows? I will have to use an external DVD drive, of course, and I have a 32 Gb partition that is FAT32 now. Can I insert the Win DVD and let it try to find the right partition? How about drivers? This does get a little bit more interesting.
I am not going to use Windows for production, etc., but would like to be able to play with it.
Sorry if I am bring up a previously answered question, but the OptiBay deal didn't show up in my searches.
Thanks
Roger

Yes, lots of Mac Pro users do that.
It's still a good idea to make secondary backups, especially to a portable external HD, that you can take off-site, so you're protected against fire, flood, theft, direct lightning strike on your power lines, etc.
[CarbonCopyCloner|http://www.bombich.com> is donationware; [SuperDuper|http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html] has a free version, but you need the paid one (about $30) to do updates instead of full replacements, or scheduling.
And/or, see Kappy's post on [Basic Backup|http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=12366915#12366915].

Missing files on HFS drive in Boot Camp 3.0

I have an external drive formatted with HFS. When I look at the contents of that drive while in Windows XP in Boot Camp 3.0 I noticed that some of the files are missing. If I log back into Snow Leopard the files are still there. I have tried deleting the "missing" file and copying it back, but the same problem persists or strangely another file in the same folder will go missing when I look for it in Boot Camp. Is there a bug in the HFS driver for Boot Camp or is there some sort of weird behavior of HFS I don't know about? This isn't a one off thing either, this is happening in multiple folders on the drive.
Thanks.

I have begun to experience a similar issue on an external hard drive. The drive has 3 partitions (2 Journaled, 1 NTFS). I access the HFS/journaled partitions from a Boot Camp installation (slipstreamed Windows XP SP2).
Certain files do not appear in the Windows Explorer, though they do appear in Mac OS Finder. Same as <ditogi>, I copied and replaced, renamed and so on - the content is apparently unharmed. I also adjusted the permissions. Nothing seems to work. Additionally, folders also seem to be missing now.
The only recent changes to the system were:
Mac OS: Firefox 3.6.2
Windows: GlovePIE; PPJoy; Tamamy Ikesu's DUALSHOCK3 HID Minidriver.
Any pointers as to whether this is a Mac OS or Windows issue - mass storage driver, security, or services related would be helpful.

Need to format the partition for Boot Camping to NTFS. How do I do this?

So yes, I have searched online to find a way to format the partitioned to NTFS so I can Boot Camp my Mac Mini and have found nothing that I can use. Instead, all I have found are horror stories of others messing up their Macs when doing this. I want to be sure I do this as correctly as possible because I do adore my computer.
For Boot Camping, I have followed the steps and started the installation of Windows 7 but when it comes to choosing the partition it says I can't because it's not in NTFS format. Any help on this would be greatly appreciated.

Heh! Yes, it's one of those things that are simple, once you know where to look. Glad you got it figured out.
You won't quite be done once Win 7 is done installing. You'll notice that the graphics in Windows likely won't be very good, and in general running kind of slow. That's because the Windows DVD had no drivers for Mac hardware.
So you need your Snow Leopard disk. Either the first gray disk your Mac came with, it if shipped with Snow Leopard, or the retail disk you purchased.
From the Windows 7 desktop, put the Snow Leopard disk in the drive. Windows will pop up the usual message about what you want to do with an external drive. Choose "Run Setup". It will run for a while as the drivers for your Mac hardware are installed for Win 7.
Once that's done, you'll have menu icon for Apple Software Update. Run that to see if it needs to download and install any other Boot Camp updates, which would any updated Win 7 drivers for you Mac.

Partitioning Hard Drive through Boot Camp

When I go to partition the drive in Boot Camp and select divide equally it splits into 56GB for each partition, would switching it to 60GB be more accurate because it's not counting the space taken up by the OS, or is there only 112GB of space available overall?

I dont use Windows all that often and didnt want to partition my drive so I used Parallels. I loaded parallels (55mb) onto MacAir and installed Microsoft 7 onto external hard drive. After installation I copied the 'single' file to a 16gb USB flash drive. Now I just plug in the flash when I want to use Windows and the apps are in the MA's task bar. Works well. Windows 7's new way of only loading required process's makes it pretty nippy. Windows 7 takes up 6gb on flash drive. Also I used a 'trial' windows 7 disc and installing through parallels it didnt ask for a 'key'.

HT3777 how to undo partition for boot camp

I want to undo the partition for boot camp, we never use it and use VMware
instead. Can this be done?

So you never installed Windows natively and Fusion is not using anything other than its own image?
Some people dual boot and use VM.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4818
The install guide is also how to remove the partition, you do so from same utility.
http://support.apple.com/manuals/#macos
Seeing you are on 10.5.8 ? then that really goes back to 2008, too.
But G5s never supported Windows, so guess you have a different system now.

Osx disappeared after partition shrink in boot camp

i made a partition shrink in boot camp after that osx disappeared .i can see only win 7 " become corrupted copy " so i can not log into windows too..????!!
"" i am a beginner ""

I could solve it by calling Apple Care.
The solution:
Turn off the machine.
Unplug any device except for a wired keyboard and a mouse. Note: My Logitech G150s Gaming Keyboard didn't work so I had to use an older Logitech diNovo Wireless Keyboard, which worked for me.
Start the machine again and let it boot into Internet Recovery by holding [CMD] + [ALT] + [R] until you see a spinning globe. Depending on your Internet speed it will take some time (I have a 10Mbit/s connection and it took about 10 minutes).
The system now starts the recovery mode. Check the Disk Utility to check your partitions. Afterwards choose "Install" and select a compatible partition to install OS X on. If you have a USB thumb drive, choose the Apple menu, select "Choose Start Volume" (or simular) and select your thumb drive to boot from it.

Clone Windows HD to use for Boot Camp

Hello Apple Forum!
I have a bit of an issue. I have had a laptop where the motherboard has died on me. The harddrive is perfectly fine though. What i want to do is clone the hard drive and have that set as the partition for Boot Camp. Is this possible?
- First, could I put the hard drive into another laptop to clone it to an external HD? Even though there will be driver issues when I boot up WIndows 7 Pro.
- Second, once I have the copied image onto my external hard drive, could I clone that to the boot camp partition?
Or, would I need to install a fresh installation of Windows 7 Pro on the Boot Camp, then download Acronis True Image and allow Acronis to handle the disk image on my external hard drive?
Thanks.

Moving Windows means
You have retail copy in order to reactivate
Dell OEM won't work
The motherboard drivers are totally different and can't be uninstalled.
Clean install is required
I'll leave it to you as to what methods to clone that can restore onto a Mac with hyrid GPT

Is it possilbe to install Windows 7 in an external drive using Boot Camp

Hi,
Is it possilbe to install Windows 7 in an external drive using Boot Camp? If yes, can you someone show me or direct me where I can find more info?
Thanks a lot

You're welcome anytime.
Microsoft doesn't make it easy sometimes
As for the harddisk it surely is possible.
iFixit http://www.ifixit.com/Browse/MacBook jas repair manuals and/or MacSales http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/hard-drives/2.5-Notebook/SATA/DIY/ with videos on how-to.
Stefan

Is it possible to install windows 7 on my macbook from a removable hard drive using boot camp? How would I do this?

Is it possible to install windows 7 on my macbook from a removable hard drive using boot camp?
How would I do this?

If you have Lion installed, and run Boot Camp, it will create the boot flash for you, just followe the tutorial on screen. As far as I remember, this was not possible prior to Lion.

How do I remove partitions "PV2" and "Boot Camp"?

I tried installing Windows 7 in Boot Camp and lost power during install. I want to completely start over but have partitions "PV2" and "Boot Camp" that I can't seem to remove. I have tried to remove partitions in Disk Utility but everything is grayed out. Boot Camp Assistant says "The disk appears to have been partitioned by another utility and can't be removed."

When I boot to recovery (Command+R) it gives me four options: Restore with Time Machine Backup, Reinstall OS X, Get Help Online, and Disk Utility. I am assuming I should erase the drives usings Disk Utility. I am able to select the PV2 and Boot Camp but when I select the "partition" tab the +/- buttons on the bottom is grayed out. I am not sure how exactly to "erase the entire drive." If you couldn't tell, I am a novice imac owner. I did make a backup using Time Machine earlier today.

I cannot partition drive for boot camp.

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