Hey. I'm having a problem installing Windows 7 onto my Mac. I made a partition through Boot Camp, but when I try to install windows, I receive an error. Windows is telling me that the partition I created isn't the proper format. It is currently MS-DOS(FAT), but i need it to be NTFS. I went to Disk Utility, but it doesn't give me the option to convert to NTFS. Can anyone help me with this?
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Converting MS-DOS(FAT) to NTFS
- Thread starter Rene03
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During the installation of Windows 7, when you come to selecting the partition to install Windows on, there should be an option to "More Options" (or something along those lines) button down the bottom of that window. This will reveal the Format command. Select the BOOTCAMP partition, click Format and it will format the partition as NTFS
Follow the Apple guide. http://manuals.info.apple.com/en_US/Boot_Camp_Install-Setup_10.6.pdf
It shows you when and how to convert to NTFS. (EDIT: see the section "Selecting and Formatting the Windows Partition")
B
It shows you when and how to convert to NTFS. (EDIT: see the section "Selecting and Formatting the Windows Partition")
B
I've just looked it up, the button I'm referring to is "Drive options (advanced)".
That will show the Format option so format the partition to NTFS.
That will show the Format option so format the partition to NTFS.
As it says on page 8 of the PDF I linked, and that Boot Camp Assistant offered to print for you.
B
If you want to install Windows 7 to a dedicated disk in a Mac Pro using BootCamp (so you can set the DEFAULT boot OS), does your target disk have to be in Bay #1?
On page 6 of the above mentioned article under 'Creating a Partition for Windows' there is the following note:
Note: If your computer has more than one internal disk and you want to install Boot Camp on a disk that isn’t in the first hard drive bay, remove the drives in the lower numbered bays. You can reinstall the drives after you install Boot Camp.
I have been trying to install to a disk in Bay #4 without success (if using BootCamp). When I select 'format', it quickly returns to the selection screen and continues to refuse to install. The other 3 drive Bays (#1 - 3) contain OS X disks for boot and a 2 drive RAID-0 for work/data.
-howard
On page 6 of the above mentioned article under 'Creating a Partition for Windows' there is the following note:
Note: If your computer has more than one internal disk and you want to install Boot Camp on a disk that isn’t in the first hard drive bay, remove the drives in the lower numbered bays. You can reinstall the drives after you install Boot Camp.
I have been trying to install to a disk in Bay #4 without success (if using BootCamp). When I select 'format', it quickly returns to the selection screen and continues to refuse to install. The other 3 drive Bays (#1 - 3) contain OS X disks for boot and a 2 drive RAID-0 for work/data.
-howard
I haven't had a chance to try that yet as my Mac Pro is installed within a desk such that it isn't easy to get into it.
I can install to the blank drive if it is totally formatted in ExFat (i.e. not using BootCamp with EFI partition too) and then reformatted NTFS during the install process. However, I can't set the DEFAULT OS on boot, instead I have to hold the option-key during each boot to Windows and select the boot disk manually.
Do you know if you can move disks around with respect to Bay-#s and not screw things up?
-howard
For anyone who is interested, I moved my Windows target disk drive to Bay#1 (was in Bay#4) in my Mac Pro and again tried installing Windows7 via BootCamp. This time, I was able to format the partition during the start of the installation, and the installation proceeded normally without any problems and everything seems to be running fine.
This would seem to confirm the Apple warning that the Windows installer can only handle a small number of partitions starting with logical disk-0 in Bay#1 if you have 4 disk drives installed and active with several partitions.
-howard