Make Bootcamp partition on former laptop drive bootable again

I have my former laptop drive with its OS X partition and its Bootcamp partition. Only the OS X partition comes up on the list when the option key is held down at startup. The Bootcamp partition seems absolutely fine and I can access the files but I can't boot into it because it doesn't come up on the startup options list. I am now running Lion on my new laptop and I'm assuming that to be the problem? Hoping someone can help. I would have liked to have migrated the Bootcamp partition to the new laptop but that seems much more difficult than anticipated because it would appear you can no longer create a blank Windows partition as the install disk has to be inserted when you create the partition. I'd settle for just being able to boot into it on the, now external, drive. I can move the stuff I really want off my old OS X setup to my new laptop and then I could even dedicate the whole external drive to Windows if I wanted - as long as it's bootable!
Any help will be much appreciated. I have searched around and no-one else seems to be describing quite the scenario I have. I tried using refit it sort out the problem but it just didn't seem to do anything - I installed it on the OS X partition on the external drive and perhaps ought to have installed it on the laptop's internal drive instead - not sure - either way it didn't ask for a startup disk to be chosen and has had no effect when I try to startup again.

you have to have the Windows partition on an internally connected drive.
Using Windows on different hardware / motherboard may not work or be stable even.
Re-activation on new hardware
Lots of people want to run Windows off external drive, and answer is no.
Boot Camp Assistant in Lion would be happy to set aside 60GB.
If you don't have the Windows DVD then how do you intend to? do you own one? there are other options includinig buying Windows 7 system builder for Home Premium 64-bit or windows 8.
Parallels may allow you to access and run as a VM using the old Windows.
External Windows may not show in Startup Disk for a number of reasons. - mounting and seeing the drive and NTFS, the use of some NTFS 3rd party drivers for OS X.
Try WinClone latest or something else to image and restore.

Similar Messages

Success: moving bootcamp partition to an external drive

Background
Due to the relatively small, non-exchangable SSD on my Mac, I'd limited the bootcamp partition to 50GB when installing Windows. I needed to install new software in Windows, but was running out of space fast and didn't have the necessary space on the Windows side. I don't use Windows that often and for that reason, I wanted to move the Bootcamp partition to an external hard drive, freeing up space for the Mac side on the internal SSD. I'd read many conflicting reports on the web, some claiming they'd done it successfully, while others said it would be impossible, because Windows 7 wouldn't run from an external drive. I had a HDD in a USB 3 enclosure, and first tried to install Windows to this (using various guides on the web). I was very close to success with this USB 3 drive, but Windows would fail during start-up. Most reports claiming to have successfully been able to run Windows 7 from an external drive, had used Thunderbolt drives, so I decided to get myself a Lacie Rugged USB 3/Thunderbolt series Solid State Drive.
Hardware used
MacBook Pro 15" Retina Display (mid 2012), 2,3 GHz Intel Core i7, 8GB RAM, 250GB SSD
Lacie Rugged USB 3/Thunderbolt series, 120GB Solid State Drive
Software used
Mac OS X Mavericks, 10.9.2
Windows 7 Ultimate
Plus several free downloads from the internet, see description below.
Procedure
Step 1: Get the Thunderbolt drive to work under your Bootcamp Windows 7 installation.
This should be simple enough, but proved to be a little tricky. Here’s what I did (assumes you are running Mac OS X before you begin):
1. Make sure your Thunderbolt drive is disconnected before proceeding.
2. Restart your Mac and hold down the option key (alt key on some keyboards) during startup.
3. Choose the Windows drive to start up Windows 7 on your Bootcamp partition.
4. After log in to Windows 7, download the necessary driver software for your Thunderbolt drive (find it at the manufacturer’s homepage of your Thunderbolt drive - in my case lacie.com).
5. If the downloaded driver installer is in a compressed format (like zip for example) be sure to decompress it before running the driver installer.
6. Shut down your computer.
7. Connect your Thunderbolt drive to your computer.
8. Start up in Windows 7 (see items 2 & 3 above) and if it all went well, you should now be able to see your Thunderbolt drive under Start>Computer.
Step 2: Format your Thunderbolt drive in NTFS-format.
Still running Windows 7 with your Thunderbolt drive connected and visible to the system, it is now time to format your external Thunderbolt drive in NTFS-format. There are several ways of doing this. I used the procedure described here at tedhhack.co.uk.
Step 3: Follow the directions at intowindows.com to clean install Windows 7 onto your external Thunderbolt drive.
As described at intowindows.com, this involves downloading Windows Automated Installation Kit (WAIK) and running command line tools. At step 9 in the described process at intowindows.com, at the point where the installer asks if the drive you are installing to is a USB hard disk, the correct input is Y for yes, even if your external drive is a Thunderbolt drive (and obviously not a USB hard disk).
At step 10 in the described process at intowindows.com (Reboot your PC), remember to hold down the option (or alt) key at every restart in the installation process, so as not to start up in Mac OS X. Also, since your machine now has two Windows 7 installations, Windows Boot Manager will appear and ask you to “Choose an operating system to start” and there is a list of two Windows.
I don’t know how to tell which one is on the external drive and which one is on the internal drive at this point, but I started with the top one on the list and this turned out to be the one I wanted (the newly installed one on the external drive). If you pick the wrong one (on the internal drive) at first, simply restart the computer and choose the other one. You know you got the right one when the installation process continues and asks for further input.
After the Windows installation is complete (there will be at least one other restart required - remember to hold down the option (alt) key to start up in Windows, and choose the same Windows on the list in the Windows Boot Manager), you’ll be running a freshly installed, but crippled Windows 7, as you still haven’t installed the specific drivers for your hardware. But don’t worry, that will be fixed in the next step.
Step 4: Clone your Bootcamp partition from your internal drive to the external Thunderbolt drive.
In this step you will copy all the software, drivers, settings and other files from your Bootcamp partition on your internal drive to your external Thunderbolt drive. The easiest way to do that is to clone your Windows partition - and to that end you’ll need to download some free software: AOMEI Backupper Standard 2.0 fits the bill perfectly, as it will let you clone at the same time as resizing the partition to fit your external Thunderbolt drive (I went from a 50GB internal Bootcamp partition to a 120GB external Thunderbolt SSD).
1. Download AOMEI Backupper Standard 2.0 (I used the 17MB download for Windows 7), install it, and run it.
2. In the left column choose “Clone” and in the right column choose “Partition Clone”. By choosing Partition Clone instead of Disk clone, you won’t ruin the newly created (but invisible) boot partition on the external Thunderbolt drive.
3. Press Next and choose your internal Bootcamp partition as the Source Disk.
4. Press Next again and choose your external Thunderbolt drive (your newly installed Windows 7) as the Destination Disk.
5. Press Next again and you’ll get a warning that you will erase the contents of the destination partition and it asks if this is what you really want to do. Press Yes to this question.
6. Next screen is an Operation Summery. Toward the bottom of the Operation Summery screen there are a few interesting options: Edit Size of Partition, Clone Sector by Sector and Align Partition to Optimize for SSD.
7. If your destination partition is larger than your source destination like mine was, press Edit Size of Partition. This will take you to another screen, where you can drag to resize the partition. I dragged this all the way to the right to give Windows 7 the full size of my external Thunderbolt drive.
8. Leave the checkbox Clone Sector by Sector unchecked.
9. If your external Thunderbolt drive is an SSD, put a check in the checkbox entitled Align Partition to Optimize for SSD.
10. Now press the Start Clone button.
11. When the cloning process is done, exit AOMEI Backupper and restart your computer (holding down the option or alt key) to start up in your new clone of your old Windows 7 with all the same software, drivers, settings and files.
Step 5: Enjoy running all your Windows 7 applications from your external Thunderbolt drive!
Step 6: Here is where I need help/advice – can I remove the Bootcamp partition on my internal drive now?
I am reluctant to entirely remove the Bootcamp partition from my internal drive, as I am unsure whether this will disable me from starting up in Windows. I would love to hear from anyone here with insight on the matter.

Step 6: Here is where I need help/advice – can I remove the Bootcamp partition on my internal drive now?
To answer my own question in Step 6 above, no, or at least I haven't found a way yet...
Here's what I've done so far:
Used the Bootcamp Assistant to remove the bootcamp partition on my internal drive.
Booted the system with the option (alt) key pressed down and now there was NO Windows drive to choose.
Therefore I used the Bootcamp Assistant to install Windows back onto my internal drive (including installing Bootcamp drivers in the Windows environment). This time I chose the minimum partition of 20GB for the Windows installation on the internal drive.
Booted into the new Windows on the internal drive and installed the drivers for my Thunderbolt drive.
Restarted with the option (alt) key pressed down, chose the Windows drive, but Windows Boot Manager still didn't pop up to allow me to choose the Windows installation on the external Thunderbolt drive.
Booted from the Windows DVD and chose Repair.
Restarted with the option (alt) key pressed down, chose the Windows drive, and now Windows Boot Manager finally popped up, which allowed me to choose the Windows installation on the external Thunderbolt drive again, phew!
So, I can run Windows 7 from the external Thunderbolt drive, but I have to use 20GB of my internal drive for a Windows installation I'll never use. Not the best solution, but at least I've saved 30GB of space compared to my previous Bootcamp partition - and I now have enough space to install the Windows 7 software I need on the external Thunderbolt drive...

How to make the Partition on my laptop hard disc

Dear Sir
I purchased new HP lap top, I would like to partition on my hard disc.
Please give me the suggestion for how to take the back up for my new laptop its necessary or not and how to create the partition on my hard disc System information
i5 second generation
Windows dome premium 64 bit
Hard disc size 640gb
4gb ram
Thanks and Regards
Sathish

Perfect Solution to Problem:
Precautions:
1.Create your recovery DVD's from recovery partition before proceding, or order them from hp so as in case of any error or in worst case system can be set to factory restore.
2.BACK UP YOUR DATA.
3.FOLLOW ON YOUR OWN RISK , NO RESPONSIBILTY FOR DATA LOSS , SYSTEM CRASH, OR LOSS OF RECOVERY PARTITION.
4.Hopefully you have read this , if any consequences arises take it on your part , nothing to do with it, you can leave the rest of reding part if not ready,
THANKS FOR READING........
OOP'S you are here,,,,,,,,,then lets continue at your risk..........
Statement:
You are using this guide at your own risk. I don't take any responsibility for any problems.
Important informations !
Before you will do anything please create a set of recovery discs and back up all important data.
Both these steps will save you a lot of troubles if something will go wrong.
Resource:
From experience
Remember that if you will decide to use the recovery discs or the F11 option to restore the PC to its originalcondition, all partitions which were created by you will be lost and all the data which were stored on them willalso be lost.
Introduction:
Below screenshot shows pre-configured partitions on HP notebook with pre-loaded Windows 7.
As you see mounted HDD has four primary partitions:
C - partiton with the operating system.
HP_TOOLS - partition which allow to use diagnostic tools after pressing F2 on startup.
RECOVERY - partiton which allows to recover system by pressing F11 on startup.
SYSTEM - active partition which boots the operating system.
Here begins our problem. A standard partition table is only able to store information about four partitions.
This means that a hard disk could have a maximum of four partitions. The four standard partitions are oftencalled the primary partitions.
To deal with this limitation we may:
----> Delete hp tools partiton , and create new logical partion, BUT RECOVERY MEDIA SET HAVE BEENCREATED BEFORE......
PROCESS:
Note:
Please perform each operation individually.
Using several operations at one time may end with fatal error.
1.Hope you have your recovery media , recovery media dvd set and DRIVER DVD,if not then please get it first for safety..
2. Download and install MiniTool Partition Wizard Home Edition.
3.Please back all of your data on HARDDISK before proceding.......
4.Go to START> COMPUTER > RIGHT CLICK ON IT > MANAGE
5.A window opens, select disk management from it , given on left hand side....
6.It will display your harddisk partitions as displayed in image.....carefully locate HP_TOOLS Partition in given table.....
7.Right click on HP_TOOLS Partition and Delete it.........it will prompt for response say yes.........
8.Now must have left with 3 partitons.........HP_TOOLS have been deleted...
9.Now action time...........
10.Start Minitool Partition wizard.......it will diaplay your partitons.........select C: partition......right click on it .....select option move/resize...
11.New dialog box appears displays currents stats use the drag corners on top to reduce size for C: drive ......set the new size according to use..........But new size must not be less than 150 gb to avoid any data loss.....
12.leave rest of options intact.........click ok...........this will return you to minitool partiton wizrd home screen........click on apply at leftmost top corner..........it asks for permission say yes........then it displays that drive is in use you need to restart............
13.Click on Restart Computer........
14.Your Computer will restart in Mini tool partition boot mode dont press any key...........after loading it will start processing and shrinking............then copying data...........it will restart automatically after progress is done 100%..........be patient.........it takes upto 5-10 mins......
15.If every thing goes fine your computer will start normally.........then go to START> COMPUTER > RIGHT CLICK ON IT > MANAGE
16. New window opens, select disk management from it , given on left hand side....now you can see your C: partition has been reduced in size according to your size specified...........and unallocated space have been created along by C: partion.
17. Finally right click on unallocated space and select NEW SIMPLE VOLUME......a dialog box appers specify size to create a new logical partition...........you may create any number of logical drives till there is free space left...........
18.Now open My Computer ...........you can see your new custom partitions have been created........
19. Done.........enjoy.......
SUPPLEMENTARY:-
1. You can create any image creation tool......to create image of your C: Partiton and save image in yourcustom created partitons.......
2. In future if you want to recover system,,,,,you may use your created image using imaging software forrestoring your C: partiton......may be helpfull instead of running recovery.........
Drawbacks:
Running Recovery form DVD or recovery partiton may delete your custom created partitons...........all datamay be lost.....so regularly backup your data.....
RESOURCES:
http://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Other-Notebook-PC-Questions/How-to-repartition-HDD-of-HP-notebook-with-...
FROM EXPERIENCE
ADVICE:
USE IMAGE CREATION SOFT FOR CREATING SYSEM IMAGES AND RESTORE SYSTEM FROMTHEM.........WILL HELP SAVING YOUR CUSTOM PARTITONS...........
WARNING:
ALL INFO IS FROM BEST OF MY KNOWLEDGE,,,,,,,,,,BUT TAKE NO RESPONSIBILTY FOR DATALOSS,,
SYSTEM CRASH,, OR VIOLATION OF WARRANTY...........
After you delete HP_TOOLS partition, BEWARE about one thing: do you have something called HP support assistant in your laptop? if yes, beware when it wants to upgrade HP software, because it will make HP_TOOLS partition reappear without your permission!!
(u may ask for any further any queries,,,,,wll b hppy to help)
Your Support:
ACCEPT IT AS SOLUTION,,,REFER TO OTHER,,, AND CLICK ON KUDOS!!!!!!!!!!!
THANKS,,,,,,,,,(SRY FOR BAD ENGLISH)
,,,,,,,Clicking the White Kudos star on the left is a way to say Thanks!,,,,,,,,
////////Clicking Accept as Solution on a Reply that solves your issue helps others who are searching///////

Is there any way to expand both the OSX and Bootcamp partitions after imaging the drive to a larger HDD?

Hey all. I have been searching forums and racking my brain to find a way to fix an issue I am having with my Late 2011 13" MBP. SInce I wasn't able to find an answer, I figured it was time for reach out to the community.
I purchased a Late 2011 13" Core i5 MBP that had a bad HDD from a friend. I replaced the HDD with an old 100GB SATA drive I had lying around. My mistake was thinking that it was a 1TB drive. Regardless, I was able to reinstall Lion to the new HDD and get the machine up and running. Once that was working, I went ahead and upgraded to Mountain Lion with no issues, then I unstalled Boot Camp and Windows 8. Everything installed without a hitch and was working great. Right about that time I realized that I had almost no free hard drive space and discovered my error (the 100GB HDD).
I pulled the HDD and put in in my ASUS G74SX laptop along with a Seagate 750GB Hybrid Drive and used Clonezilla to do a hardware-to-hardware clone of the drive. When it was completed, I put the 750GB Hybrid drive in the MBP and it booted right up with no problems. I was also able to switch back and forth from my Boot Camp drive and everything appears to be working as it should.
The only problem I have is that both the OSX partition and the Boot Camp partition are still the same size as they were before I cloned the drive. Try as I might, I can't find any way to expand either one to use the additional 650GB of space that is sitting on the drive unused. Disk Utility won't allow me to expand the partitions unless the free space is contiguous with the drives.
Does anyone know of a utility that I can use to fix my problem? I really don't want to reload everything from scratch.
Thanks,
Scott

You need to combine the libraries on one computer. Otherwise you'll be constantly erasing your iTunes content as you switch computers. iPhone will only sync or manually manage iTunes content with ONE computer at a time.

Make BootCamp partition bigger?

So I went with the 32GB partition size for BootCamp, but now i realise that was too small for some of the apps i want on there, is there a way to expand this without blowing away the whole partion and starting again? especially as I already activated windows.

This is actually easier than you would believe.
You have to get a copy of Winclone which is available at http://www.twocanoes.com/winclone/
With this you will backup your Windows partition then you would use Boot Camp to delete your Windows partition. At this time you would use Winclone to make a new partition the size that you want and then restore your copy of windows that you backed up.

What is the best freeware to make a system image (full system drive bootable backup)

I have Windows 7 which already comes with backup software which has this function but there are other freeware software out there
What is your favorite freeware program to make this? Have you used it already to restore your system drive to a different drive?
Thank you very much!

Hi,
What's your requirement that the built-in utility is unable to achieve it?
System drive is where Windows resides. It won't care if you install an application on another drive.
If you want to include additional drives in the system image, you can manually create a system image.
Please refer to the following steps:
1. Go to Backup and Restore interface, in the left pane, click Create A System Image.
2. On the Where Do You Want To Save The Backup page, use the options provided to specify a backup location. Click Next.
3. On the Which Drives Do You Want To Include In The Backup page, the computer's system drive is selected by default. You cannot change this selection, but you can add other drives to the backup image by selecting the related check boxes. Click Next to continue.
4. Click Start Backup.
In addition, system image is a complete restoration. You could delete and reformat all disks on this computer to match the layout of the system image.
However, I wouldn't recommend you do that.
Karen Hu
TechNet Community Support

Boot Camp partition moved to external:"No bootable device found"

I have just installed a new SSD, moved my old OSX partition to the new drive and am currently using the old hdd in an enclosure as an external hard drive.
I can access all my files on my old OSX partition and my bootcamp partition when connected to my laptop. However, when i try to boot from my old bootcamp partition i get the "No bootable device found -- insert boot disk and press any key" message. That is when i boot from Startup Disk and target the bootcamp partion.
When restarting my computer with the external harddrive connected and pressing the option key i only get "SSD" and "Recovery" as options, it does not recognize the external harddrive as a startup option at all.
Is there anything i can do to use my old boot camp partition again? It worked perfectly fine before being external to the computer.
My computer is a 2011 mbp with Mavericks, my boot camp patition is installed with windows 7.

Microsoft requires that the partition for Windows be on an internal disk. It will not see an external drive as bootable.
Allan

Booting Bootcamp partion from restored Bootcamp partition

My Boot Camp XP installation is no longer bootable after I restored from a backup I created in Disk Utility 2 days ago. The Bootcamp partition is not listed as bootable when I boot my MacBook and hold the OPTION key. When I configure my computer to boot from that partition in System Preferences, I receive a black screen with message "No bootable device"
I installed XP in Bootcamp and it was working fine. I needed to re-format my hard drive, and I used Disk Utility to make a backup of the partition. After re-formatting my hard drive, I restored the partition from the .dmg backup images, and all files are available.
All files are present as they were when my hard drive booted 2 days ago. I belive this is simply a matter of making the partition bootable. Can anyone help?

After analyzing and trying things out, I was able to solve this. It seems that Boot Camp does not flag the partition as ACTIVE immedately after Boot Camp creates the new partition from windows.
Assuming you already have a .dmg image of your previous Windows Boot Camp partition, do the following:
:: 1
Use Boot Camp to allocate the new space. Don't use Disk Utility because the MBR will not be configured properly
:: 2
Use Disk Utility to restore your .dmg image to the new Boot Camp partition you just created. Be sure to run IMAGES --> SCAN IMAGE FOR RESTORE in Disk Utility before restoring. You may need to unmount the Boot Camp partition in Disk Utility before it begins to restore.
:: 3
Use fdisk in Terminal to mark the Boot Camp partition active. First, enter the fdisk MBR edit mode by running the following:
   $sudo fdisk -e /dev/disk0
Ignore the error "could not open MBR file /usr/standalone/i386/boot0: No such file or directory". Then, determine which partition number to mark active by running the following (*in bold*):
   fdisk: 1> show
Your windows partition should be #3 labeled "Win95 FAT-32". Now, mark the partition active:
   fdisk: 1> *flag 3*
   Partition 3 marked active.
   fdisk:*1> write
   Device could not be accessed exclusively.
   A reboot will be needed for changes to take effect. OK? [n] y
   Writing MBR at offset 0.
   fdisk: 1> exit
Now, reboot and hold the OPTION key and Windows should be listed as a bootable option.

B-tree error, cannot mount Lion partition, but can mount bootcamp partition. Unable to reformat because it won't mount. How do I reformat?

Hi everyone:
So earlier today I was taking a screen shot with (command+shift+4) and right when I took it, the spinning wheelcame up on the screen. It was there for a long time, so I decided to turn off my macbook by holding down thepower button. When I turned it on, it stayed at the grey apple logo with the loading circle underneath.
I turned it off again, and this time I started it into the Recovery HD. I ran a disk verify and it said my disk was corrupt and needed to be repaired. I tried to repair it and it said it could not be repaired. Next, I tried to erase the hard drive and it still didn't work because it cannot mount the hard drive.
The thing that baffles me is that I have 2 partitions on my hard drive, one for mac, the other for windows bootcamp and the windows hard drive is able to be mounted. I tried to completely delete the entire hard drive, but it won't let me. What are the next steps I should take into solving this problem? Any/All help is appreciated. Thanks

Sounds like the drive may be faulty or have suffered a problem. Bummer mate, but it happens.
Disk Utility won't let you do a complete erase? Probably not what you want to do anyway as you'd lose your bootcamp partition.
I would recommend you replace the drive and re-install OS X. Once they get faulty like this you're into a greatly increased risk window. You'll need to have a bootable DVD / USB stick of Lion or a RecoveryHD USB created by the Lion Recovery Assistant.
If the MBP is under warranty or you have Applecare you could get the drive replaced under warranty.
To retrieve your files and Apps etc you can restore from a backup, or if you don't have one then you could get a sata enclosure for the old drive and attach it as an external drive then attempt to copy the content from it once you've re-installed. Time Machine backups will make this much easier for you though.
For bootcamp, you're going to need a 3rd party program such as Winclone (www.twocanoes.com) to allow you to take an image of the bootcamp partition and restore it to the new bootcamp partition on the new drive.
I can heartily recommend the Seagate Momentus XT 750GB hybrid drive (ST750LX003) if you're going for a replacement. You won't believe the difference in performance it provides.
Good luck!

Bootcamp partition appears empty to mac after restore...

I recently chose to upgrade the HD in my 2007 macbook, in order to squeeze another year or 2 out of it. Setting up the mac part was no problem - just used superduper to copy the old disk to the new one while it was temporarily mounted in an external drive, then replaced the disk - worked perfectly.
The bootcamp partition is another story. I did a bunch of research on how to best transfer my old windows 7 setup, and found the windows system backup and restore method was advised, and easy, so went with that method. Ran boot camp assistant, had it create the new ntfs partition the same as the old one, and ran the system restore from the windows setup disk, and it worked fine. Windows 7 works just as it once did, and I ran the bootcamp driver setup again just in case. Everything appears hunky dory on the windows side of things, and I can easily boot back into the mac os from it.
So everything appears ok, but here's the problem - once I return to mac os, the bootcamp partition appears empty, and I don't have the option to boot to it via the Startup Disk in System Preferences, which is how I always used to boot to windows. I can still get into windows via the bootcamp assistant, but that's a really tedious affair that involves inserting the windows disk.
Edit - I should add that I can also get into windows by using the option key during startup, that seems to work ok. But I still can't access the files in the bootcamp partition, which is a big problem - can this be fixed?
Any ideas?
Message was edited by: sduck409

Thanks for the many ideas Hatter. I think you jogged my brain in the right direction. I tried the convert to ntfs thing, but the windows install already thinks it's ntfs. And since the disk is actually formatted as fat32, the fat is screwed up. I actually knew that thing about boot camp assistant only creating fat32 (once, a while ago), but forgot that detail in my hurry.
So I ran bootcamp assistant, and deleted the bootcamp partition, with the idea of starting again. Ran bootcamp assistant again to restart the process, but this time it said Bootcamp assistant can not run - this disk is not supported. Hmmm. I had already inserted the windows disk and my windows backup volume.
SO I figured I'd try restarting my computer; maybe that'd reinitialize the disk or something and bootcamp assistant would work. Hey, stranger things have worked in the past. But, for some reason the windows disk started up! And started copying files. I aborted it, but it was too late - it had somehow mangled my mac disk - it was now a empty fat32 disk - I had to reboot from the mac os x setup disk and run disk utility to find this out. So now I'm restoring from my time machine backup (I absolutely love time machine btw).
The backup is going to take another 3 hours, so to get some stuff done I resurrected an old sony vaio win xp laptop that dates from 2000 I think. Holey moley, this thing is crappy.
Anyway, thanks for the help. Once I get the machine back up and running, I'll try it again, and this time make sure the disk is actually ntfs before restoring to it.

How do I ensure bootcamp partition works after upgrading snow leopard to mountain lion

I am very apprehensive about upgrading to Mountain Lion due to performance concerns and the debacle with the new Auto Save feature which seems like a very poor and confusing solution to a problem that didn't really exist. I am only considering the upgrade, so that I can get the latest version of Xcode - 4.3; for some reason, 4.2 for SL is no longer available and my current 4.0 version is no longer supported, so I feel forced to upgrade to ML. Also, I have a bootcamp partition that I need to be able to use without issues after having upgraded to ML. So the essence of my question is this: what steps do I need to take prior to upgrading to ML to ensure that my Bootcamp partition is left intact and bootable. I have already created a compressed backup disk image and stored on a separate external hard disk for precautionary reasons. Is there anything else I should know beore going ahead with the upgrade?
Thanks.

Auto Save is actually a very useful feature. If you are typing a paper in Pages and you haven't saved in a long time, and then your battery dies suddenly, your paper is saved. Before Auto Save, you would have lost all your progress.
Your BootCamp partition will not even be touched during the install of Mountain Lion. As long as you make sure to select your Mac OS partition during setup, nothing will happen to your Windows side and everything will still work fine.

Copying Boot Camp Vista partition to new hard drive

This is OS X Lion using Boot Camp version 4.0.4 with Vista on a separate hard drive. I want to move it from an 80Gb drive to a 1Tb. Looking for the quick and cheap way of copying the bootcamp partition to the new drive because it's the same Mac Pro so only the drive size will be different. Google searches has me using two software to copy the Apple bootcamp and Winclone to copy Vista.
Isn't there a simpler way without purchasing software I will only use once? I'd rather just reinstall Vista and the other software manually than pay anything over $20 to do it.
Any advice is appreciated.

My apologies. I didn't make myself clear. I followed the proper procedure and got the error message. I tried the other formatting to see if it would help. All the same results.
I found a possible solution on another Apple thread. I am going to move the drive to have Vista installed moved to the first stall on my Mac Pro 1.1. It is claimed that this will bypass the issue of GP if do that. Then after installation I can switch them back.
I will post the results. I had no issue the first two times I did this since using Bootcamp when I first got this Mac Pro over 7 years ago.

Bootcamp Partition Transfer

I know it's a little short notice, but I ordered a 1 TB hard drive to upgrade the 500 GB hybrid drive in my MacBook Pro. I have a Bootcamp Partition on the hard drive and was wondering what the best method would be to transfer it to the new hard drive. I have an external hard drive enclosure that I plan to put my Mac's current HDD in to transfer files, and I'll keep it in that to use for storage later. I also have a Time Capsule.
What's the best way to transfer my Bootcamp Partition to my new HDD?

Ok, well I'll see if I can find out on Microsoft's site if Windows can restore from an external drive, and if not I guess I'll try Winclone.
I must say, the speed with which I can receive an answer here far surpasses any other form of customer support anywhere.
Thanks for the help!

I got a new harddrive for my MacBook Pro and successfully restored the mac partition, but I don't know how to restore the bootcamp partition.

So I got a new hard drive for my early 2009 version Mac Book Pro and some new memory to speed the little guy up. I was trying to copy the Mac and BOOTCAMP partitions onto the new drive, and I am close, but not home free.
Here's what I have done so far:
I got an external cage thing for the new/old HD.
I put the new HD in the cage and cloned the mac and BOOTCAMP partitions to the new disk while booted from a DVD.
I put the new drive in the machine and the old one in the cage.
I booted the machine and it loaded the mac side fine.
When I tried to use the 'option' key to, select the system I wanted to boot into on the reboot, it didn't show me the windows (bootcamp) option.
That's where I am at. When I go into disk utility it shows my BOOTCAMP partition in the list of logical disks under my disk, but it is grayed out. I can mount it, but when I restart, I can't select it. I feel like I am so, so close. What do I need to do?
(BTW, the old drive, the dude I am trying to clone, still exists in its entirety in the cage; I could put it back in and go from there if I had to.)
Let me know what you all think!
-Ricardo

Do you mean you want to reinstall Leopard? If you want to boot from your Leopard DVD do this:
Booting From An OS X Installer Disc
1. Insert OS X Installer Disc into the optical drive.
2. Restart the computer.
3. Immediately after the chime press and hold down the "C" key.
4. Release the key when the spinning gear below the dark gray Apple logo appears.
5. Wait for installer to finish loading.

Help! Win 8.1 Bootcamp partition vanished

Hi all
My Windows 8.1 Bootcamp partition has vanished.
Last night I was playing a Windows game, all was well and I shutdown the machine at the end of the night. This morning I got up, powered up the Mac Pro and noticed it was stuck in an OSX reboot cycle. I held the alt key down and the 3 boot partitions popped up OSX, Recovery, Windows 8. I selected Recovery and ran the Disk Utility, "Check" disk tool. It reported that the EFI was bad so I clicked on Repair. It then said it couldn't repair it. I rebooted again and this time there are now only two options, OSX and Recovery. I clicked OSX which loaded fine. I have no idea how this happened when the machine was off over night and fine the night before in both Windows and OSX.
So now I have no way to boot into Windows on my new Mac Pro 2014 machine.
Bootcamp is on the internal SSD along with OSX
I have never resized the partitions
I have not installed anything new in the last few weeks
I do not visit dodgy websites and run Malware bytes anti malware regularly (never found an issue to date)
Last night I added a secondary HDMI monitor
The day before yesterday I unplugged everything and rearranged my office
I uninstalled Parallels Desktop Trial (expired) 1 week ago from both Windows and OSX
I have backed up the Bootcamp partition to an external drive using Disk Utility
I CAN browse the bootcamp partition using finder and the folders and files are all visible.
New Mac Pro. 512GB SSD, OSX 10.9.3, 16GB Ram, Thunderbolt Display, HDMI Dell Display
Any help would be much appreciated as some of my key work software is on the BOOTCAMP windows install.

There is overcharging protection in the battery and the adapter, both. This can also be seen on OS X side under System Report -> Power. If you adapter is plugged in and the battery is charged, it will say 'Not charging' despite the fact that the power adapter is connected.

Make Bootcamp partition on former laptop drive bootable again

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