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Can't get Vista to install
- Thread starter c073186
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For anyone still having an issue installing Vista on a secondary drive, here's what worked for me: I installed XP and then used the upgrade feature to install Vista. That finally worked and now I have Vista installed on my Mac Pro and I am happy (only because it lets me play games, otherwise Vista is a hideous beast).
Performance-wise I have noticed no difference between Vista and XP and Vista looks better so that is why.
I'm having exactly the same problem - can't install Vista to it's own disk. I've tried every thing mentioned above including pulling all the other disks and booting off the Vista CD and deleting the partition made by bootcamp and re-partitioning, but it always comes back with "Windows cannot be installed on this disk - the selected disk is of the GPT partition style". I've even tried two different disks (I keep a stock of them!). I can only seem to find this thread on the subject on the web. I can't believe this isn't a more talked about problem - surely it can't just be me and a couple of others that have had it. Help please from anyone that has managed this.
I don't have access to windows XP. I've finally managed to install it by deleting all the partitions on the disk. It seems to let you install it on a raw disk with no partitions. However, if you do that, you can't create a virtual machine of it using VMWare - which is really important to me as it's a very convenient for moving data between my Mac and Vista. This is really crap - they've had enough time to sort this out!!
Been up the rest of the night trying every possible permutation of which disks are in and out combined with deleting, re-formating and re-partitioning and still I can only get it to install on a completely blank unpartitioned disk. Surprise, surprise, I'm coming to the conclusion that this must be a bug but no one seems to be talking about it. There's a thread on the subject on Apple's forums but for some reason it won't let me read it (even when I'm logged in), it says I'm not authorized or something.
Went through this yesterday. Got every error message mentioned in this thread multiple times going through this.
Finally worked: Vista Ultimate SP1 installed on a separate drive (formatted NTFS, not through Boot Camp utility), AFTER removing OSX drive and XP drive.
Finally worked: Vista Ultimate SP1 installed on a separate drive (formatted NTFS, not through Boot Camp utility), AFTER removing OSX drive and XP drive.
I bet you will find that VMFusion won't see the machine and allow you to have the machine running at the same time as OSx. That was my experience anyway when I got to the point that I believe you have got to - installing it on a blank unpartitioned disk (when you use bootcamp to specify a single disk it still creates a small and large partition to allow mac related bootcamp stuff to be put on the small partition (this is what I assume it's for anyway). I figured if I go down this path, not only will I not be able to use VMware but it might also give me problems later on with updates to the OSx and Bootcamp drivers.
Earlier in this thread there is a post (that I missed first time around) that gives a link to a Microsoft site that details the problem exactly. It's basically a bug with Vista that is messing things up with bootcamp because how bootcamp wants to work. After reading this I've gave up, upgraded the size of my main disk and installed a large partition on that which gives me everything I want except for the horrible feeling of having windows run off the same disk as my main OSx boot disk. I decided to get over it and try and get on with some work!
I not 100% certain on all this - it's just my take - so please correct if I've got wrong.
Earlier in this thread there is a post (that I missed first time around) that gives a link to a Microsoft site that details the problem exactly. It's basically a bug with Vista that is messing things up with bootcamp because how bootcamp wants to work. After reading this I've gave up, upgraded the size of my main disk and installed a large partition on that which gives me everything I want except for the horrible feeling of having windows run off the same disk as my main OSx boot disk. I decided to get over it and try and get on with some work!
I not 100% certain on all this - it's just my take - so please correct if I've got wrong.
I faced the same problem. Read through all MS Knowledgebase articles, tried all the suggestions given in those articles, but Windows Vista (Ultimate Edition) always failed to find a suitable volume.
Like 'a priori' above, I waited for Vista SP1 and gave that a try...it worked perfectly. Didn't have to pull out FW/USB devices, remove primary HDs, or any other nonsense. It just worked (installed to an internal dedicated drive).
Like 'a priori' above, I waited for Vista SP1 and gave that a try...it worked perfectly. Didn't have to pull out FW/USB devices, remove primary HDs, or any other nonsense. It just worked (installed to an internal dedicated drive).
I'm showing my ignorance now but what's this about SP1. I've just purchased Vista (OEM) and asked if it had all the service packs (not knowing if there were any) and the guy said there are only service packs for XP!! I don't understand much about how the marketing of windows works. I've downloaded and installed all the updates, shouldn't this have included SP1. But thinking about it, that wouldn't help me re-install it on a separate disk - I would need it on my install disk. So how do I go about getting Vista with SP1 install disk?
^^^ Vista SP1 has been available for a short time now. Refer to the Microsoft website:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/sp1.mspx
http://www.windowsmarketplace.com/content.aspx?ctId=417&WT.mc_id=1007_35
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/sp1.mspx
http://www.windowsmarketplace.com/content.aspx?ctId=417&WT.mc_id=1007_35
Making a MBR partition
I had also gotten the GPT partition error, it seems to be due to the 64bit EFI as far as I can tell. This is the way that I had gotten around it.
Download DOS 7.10 (http://ms-dos7.hit.bg/).
Burn a CD from the ISO and power down.
Pull your first drive and reboot to the CD.
Exit the installer and fdisk/format from DOS.
Reboot and install vista. Any further FS changes can be done through the OS once loaded.
Also, dont be afraid of fdisk... As long as you pull your OSX drive you cant really break anything.
I had also tried various flavors of Live CD distros and they also formatted in GPT, sadly MS-DOS on a Mac is the way.
I had also gotten the GPT partition error, it seems to be due to the 64bit EFI as far as I can tell. This is the way that I had gotten around it.
Download DOS 7.10 (http://ms-dos7.hit.bg/).
Burn a CD from the ISO and power down.
Pull your first drive and reboot to the CD.
Exit the installer and fdisk/format from DOS.
Reboot and install vista. Any further FS changes can be done through the OS once loaded.
Also, dont be afraid of fdisk... As long as you pull your OSX drive you cant really break anything.
I had also tried various flavors of Live CD distros and they also formatted in GPT, sadly MS-DOS on a Mac is the way.
You do know there's an fdisk already installed in OS X?
Code:
$ which fdisk
/usr/sbin/fdisk