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Can't create Boot Camp USB flash drive anymore

M

miretogo

macrumors regular
Original poster
Aug 19, 2014
137
134
With Mojava I used the same 16 GB USB stick (Kingston DataTraveler, USB 2.0) and the same Windows 10 ISO (Win10_1803_English_x64.iso) several times before to create a bootable drive to install Windows.

Now, all of a sudden, Boot Camp Assistant states:
"Your bootable USB drive could not be created - There is not enough space available on the disk".

I tried partitioning it as APFS, Mac OS Extended (Journaled), MS-DOS (FAT) and ExFAT before starting Boot Camp Assistant. Apple's "help" articles didn't help me, either:
https://support.apple.com/hr-hr/HT206202
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201468

The USB flash drive seems to be fully functional and Disk Utility's First Aid found no errors.

Why does it suddenly not work anymore?
 
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In the meantime, I selected the volume in Disk Utility and erased it. Even though it was empty before erasing, this procedure seems to have fixed the issue. Now Boot Camp Asisstant accepts the USB flash drive.
 
The Boot Camp process failed because the Windows Support Software download never finished for some reasons (download rate as shown in Activity Monitor went to 0 despite a functional internet connection). Now I started the Boot Camp Asisstant again and, voilá, the same **** error message appears. I even found and read a more detailed article by Apple (https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/bootcamp-assistant/bcmp09f5f773/mac), but it doesn't help either.

Why does this **** error occur?

And does anybody know a detailed manual for installing Windows via Boot Camp? I aks because it's now the third time in the last eights months I (try to) install Windows on a Mac via Boot Camp and each time multiple strange problems occurred - despite the fact that Boot Camp Assistant should make it an easy process.

I am bloody furius right now.
 
After more searching, I discovered that Apple released a "macOS Mojave 10.14.5 Boot Camp Update" that "addresses an issue which prevents creation of a new Boot Camp partition on iMac and Mac mini with Fusion Drive."

I installed it but the **** problem still exists.
 
If the problem is the same as your first post (and is related to creating the USB bootable installer for Windows), then it may simply be a problem with that Kingston flash drive that you are trying to use (even if it "tests" OK, there may still be an issue when copying files to the drive)
Try a different flash drive. Might be worth your time to purchase a new flash drive just for this purpose.
You could even download a different Windows 10 ISO, either the 1809 version (Microsoft appears to have made this version work with the current V2 for that ISO) or the current 1903 ISO (works fine for me, although you might read other posts about problems that some might have. Not on my various PCs.
 
In the meantime, I tried both the 1809 and the 1903 ISO - and received the same error.
 
I also tried a 1 TB USB 3.0 external hard drive and still get "There is not enough space available on the disk."

Boot Camp Assistant is a piece of ****.
 
Next, I tried it on a different existing user account and even created a new user account on the Mac but I still receive the error.
[doublepost=1563692538][/doublepost]Now I tried using a 128 GB USB 3.0 flash drive and still receive the error:
"There is not enough space available on the disk."

The error message is obviously wrong.
 
Things I did in the meantime - without success:
* Reset SMC
* Reset NVRAM/PRAM
* Erased macOS partition and installed macOS again
* Reindexed Spotlight
* Submitted feedback to Apple (https://www.apple.com/feedback)
* Called Apple support (first level employee couldn't help me, referred me to second support level employee; second level employee couldn't help me, said he will further "escalate" the issue)
 
Maybe this page will help - https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-11201

Also, try reformatting your USB flash drive as ExFat, not fat32 or MacOS Extended, nor any other format.
Try ExFat with MBR, or ExFat with GPT (GUID)
Another possibility is to do the format of your USB drive from Windows.

The boot camp support software can sometimes download as a specific set that is for your particular Mac. Which Mac model do you have?
 
Thanks for your help but before I could test your suggestion, I finally solved this issue after many hours of research of trial and error. It seems that a failed attempt to install Windows via Boot Camp had somehow created extra partitions which then caused Boot Camp Assistant to think that there was insufficient space on the Fusion Drive (as opposed to on the flash drive).

After I reset the Fusion Drive by booting into INTERNET recovery, opening Terminal and entering "diskutil resetFusion" (which erases all data on the Fusion Drive) and afterwards booting with a bootable macOS USB flash drive, I installed macOS again and then was finally able to proceed with Boot Camp Assistant and Install Windows.
 
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