Boot Camp / Parallels / Drive Partition for Storage

[wiredgeneration]

Hi Y'all

New member with my first question. Just finally taken the step from PC to Mac, have a Macbook Air 11" 2013 and new Imac 27" 16gb 2013 model, along with Iphone 5 and an old Classic Ipod. Im a very advanced PC/Windows person, so I know the lingo reasonably well, but its my first time playing around with Apple stuff so pretty much a virgin.

Still learning all about the Operating Systems, but want to get my Imac up and running.

As I want to also be using Windows (I find some elements of Windows far suprioer to OSX) Im decided on whether to go for Parallels or Boot Camp, and have a few questions that hopefully you guys might be able to help me out with!

I believe Boot Camp would be more suited to me, so in saying that

1, If I create a further partition on the internal drive, that is say called Media - this will house all my music files. Will I be able to access that partition from both Windows and OSX?

2,Would this work for parallels as well like this?

Ideally I want to be able to access files on both OSX and Windows from a central location.

Please tell me this is possible!

Thanks for your help in advance

 

[jenzjen]

no and no, boot camp will not install if it detects more than 1 partition, and if you adjust partitions after installing boot camp/windows, chances are great that you will not be able to boot into either windows, osx or both

 

[wiredgeneration]

Thanks Jenzjen, appreciated.

so other than using an external wireless/wired HDD, there isn't any way of doing this?

 

[blueroom]

If you're not running games then virtual windows should be fine on those Macs. I use VMware my wife uses Parallels. They're very similar.

Hint: I'd add a Synology NAS. Any of the DS214 series can store your media, run as a Time Machine, Cloud storage, and much more including iOS apps to get at your media.

 

[jenzjen]

i did over simply a little, you can 'see' and 'copy' files in the other OS, but i assumed you wanted a 3rd partition, which could be shared by both OSs - the latter cannot be done

 

[wiredgeneration]

Never played games, but have thought about it to be honest now I have a quick enough machine, hence why I was thinking more towards Boot Camp.

Ive been told Parallels wouldnt have any problem on these newer machines

Thanks for the Synology NAS suggestion, I was thinking a more basic wireless HDD setup, but actually this seems like a more future proof suggestion, although a little bulky to my liking. One of the reasons of switching to mac was to lose the 'bulk'.

Yes I was looking for a partition that both OS's could read/write too. What a shame that cant happen, seems so simple.

With Paralells, how does it pick up files?

What I am trying to grasp is , I have say 700gb of files from my PC that need transferring. They are all in typical PC formats etc. When I bring them over to the Mac, will Paralells be able to see them? Im guessing not from what you guys have said above?

 

[magnumpi]

Don't know about parallels, on VMware if you want to share a partition/folder between the host and the guest OS you have to do it through a network sharing protocol like SMB or NFS afaik. You can also copy/move files between OSs just by dragging them between desktops.

 

[wiredgeneration]

This is beginning to get more complicated!

So if all my files are stored on the OSX system, I can drag say a folder from OSX onto the Windows desktop on Parallels?

 

[jenzjen]

This is beginning to get more complicated!

So if all my files are stored on the OSX system, I can drag say a folder from OSX onto the Windows desktop on Parallels?

i can't speak to parallels, but i know you can do that in both directions with boot camp and OSX, ie you have read (but not write) privileges

 

[glenthompson]

This is beginning to get more complicated!

So if all my files are stored on the OSX system, I can drag say a folder from OSX onto the Windows desktop on Parallels?

Yes. I keep all my Windows data files in my OS X folders so they are backed up with time machine. I also often download files via Safari then open them in Windows.

 

[yjchua95]

This is beginning to get more complicated!

So if all my files are stored on the OSX system, I can drag say a folder from OSX onto the Windows desktop on Parallels?

If you're doing it between Boot Camp and OS X, you can drag files from Boot Camp to OS X but not the other way round.

If you're doing it between Parallels or VMware, you can just drag and drop files/folders between both OSes in both directions.

 

[melbri]

no and no, boot camp will not install if it detects more than 1 partition, and if you adjust partitions after installing boot camp/windows, chances are great that you will not be able to boot into either windows, osx or both

Are you saying you cannot install win7 (or other OS) onto the same bootable disc that OS X is on? Has this always been the case? I have been trying to install boot camp for about 6 weeks now onto my SSD that has Mavericks on it, onto a second partition, with no luck. Wonder if this is the case.

 

[jenzjen]

Are you saying you cannot install win7 (or other OS) onto the same bootable disc that OS X is on? Has this always been the case? I have been trying to install boot camp for about 6 weeks now onto my SSD that has Mavericks on it, onto a second partition, with no luck. Wonder if this is the case.

no, that's not what I'm saying

boot camp will only install if your HD has a single, existing partition. when you start the boot camp process, stock HDs only have 1 partition "macintosh HD"

if you manually created a 2nd partition before running bca, then that's your issue. follow the directions, as bca will do everything for you

 

[melbri]

no, that's not what I'm saying

boot camp will only install if your HD has a single, existing partition. when you start the boot camp process, stock HDs only have 1 partition "macintosh HD"

if you manually created a 2nd partition before running bca, then that's your issue. follow the directions, as bca will do everything for you

Gotchya. I have tried bca with one partition and two partitions and a win NT partion installing from DVD on start up and option key and selecting win7, had most succes this way.

See thread below,

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1722019/

Mostly run into "no bootable device" problem. I have even got to a point where windows files have i nstalled and then a black screen apears saying "insert CD or DVD".

I know I do not have an issue with the win7 DVD as i have used on paralels.

 

[Gjwilly]

Hi Y'all

New member with my first question. Just finally taken the step from PC to Mac, have a Macbook Air 11" 2013 and new Imac 27" 16gb 2013 model, along with Iphone 5 and an old Classic Ipod. Im a very advanced PC/Windows person, so I know the lingo reasonably well, but its my first time playing around with Apple stuff so pretty much a virgin.

Still learning all about the Operating Systems, but want to get my Imac up and running.

As I want to also be using Windows (I find some elements of Windows far suprioer to OSX) Im decided on whether to go for Parallels or Boot Camp, and have a few questions that hopefully you guys might be able to help me out with!

I believe Boot Camp would be more suited to me, so in saying that

1, If I create a further partition on the internal drive, that is say called Media - this will house all my music files. Will I be able to access that partition from both Windows and OSX?

2,Would this work for parallels as well like this?

Ideally I want to be able to access files on both OSX and Windows from a central location.

Please tell me this is possible!

Thanks for your help in advance

I've seen a few threads now that say to create your additional partitions after letting bootcamp create the initial two.
In other words, run bootcamp to create the main osx and Windows partition but then do not reboot and proceed to the Windows installation.
Instead go back to Disk Utility and shrink your osx partition to create any additional partitions.
It must be the osx partition that gets shrunk because any changes to the Windows partition will ruin the bootcamp process.
Then after your partitions are how you want them, reboot and proceed with the installation of Windows into the bootcamp-created partition.

I haven't tried this but others have said it works.

 

[jenzjen]

Gotchya. I have tried bca with one partition and two partitions and a win NT partion installing from DVD on start up and option key and selecting win7, had most succes this way.

See thread below,

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1722019/

Mostly run into "no bootable device" problem. I have even got to a point where windows files have i nstalled and then a black screen apears saying "insert CD or DVD".

I know I do not have an issue with the win7 DVD as i have used on paralels.

what's your issue? i was in that other thread, and it went into a different direction with the 2nd poster.

 

[Mike Boreham]

I've seen a few threads now that say to create your additional partitions after letting bootcamp create the initial two.
In other words, run bootcamp to create the main osx and Windows partition but then do not reboot and proceed to the Windows installation.
Instead go back to Disk Utility and shrink your osx partition to create any additional partitions.
It must be the osx partition that gets shrunk because any changes to the Windows partition will ruin the bootcamp process.
Then after your partitions are how you want them, reboot and proceed with the installation of Windows into the bootcamp-created partition.

I haven't tried this but others have said it works.

If you have done a standard Mac install you will have three partitions: the one you see "Macintosh HD" and the invisible EFI and Recovery partitions. When you use BCA to create your Bootcamp partition that will make four....which is OK, but if you then make a separate extra one that will be five...which is not OK. Windows will not boot.

If you don't have a Recovery Partition (because you cloned across or you deleted it) then the extra partition will only be four and it will work.

I think there are other more complex methods involving rEFIt etc which can restore bootablility to non standard partition schemes, but I have not tried them.

Parallels and VM are a lot less hassle in all sharing and partitioning issues and are much faster than people seem to think. I think only serious gamers have good reason to go with Bootcamp.