Is it possible to have both Parallels and Boot Camp on the same partition?

[Hazyb71]

Is it possible to use both Parallels Desktop 5 and Bootcamp on a 32GB partition? In other words, do I need a separate partition for each program or can I have Parallels use the same partition that I allocated for Bootcamp.

If so, how do I go about doing this? Do I install bootcamp then Parallels? I'm switching soon and I would *really really* appreciate the help!!

 

[witness]

Parallels will boot from your bootcamp disk.

Install windows on bootcamp first.

It should detect your bootcamp installation.

You may need to re-activate windows, but there are docs on that on the parallels support pages.

 

[mankar4]

Parallels will boot from your bootcamp disk.

Install windows on bootcamp first.

It should detect your bootcamp installation.

You may need to re-activate windows, but there are docs on that on the parallels support pages.

Yup

 

[Hazyb71]

thanks for the help, I'm glad its possible to do that as it would have been a headache to have 3 partitions, two being just for windows

 

[fhall1]

It's not working on my iMac...bluescreened on startup due to a "video" error and screwed up my BC partition so that when I booted to BC it had to do a chkdsk and repair a bunch of crap. Then when I was able to boot into BC it made me reactivate my installation even though Parallels didn't even boot.

 

[WizardHunt]

Is it possible to use both Parallels Desktop 5 and Bootcamp on a 32GB partition? In other words, do I need a separate partition for each program or can I have Parallels use the same partition that I allocated for Bootcamp.

If so, how do I go about doing this? Do I install bootcamp then Parallels? I'm switching soon and I would *really really* appreciate the help!!

Why would you want to do this?

 

[TuffLuffJimmy]

Bootcamp's only purpose is to partition your hard disk. After that's done you'll likely never use bootcamp again unless you're removing the partition.

Parallels and VMWare Fusion are just OS X applications, like Safari, that create a virtual environment so you can run other OS's inside OS X.

 

[witness]

Bootcamp's only purpose is to partition your hard disk. After that's done you'll likely never use bootcamp again unless you're removing the partition.

Not true. Sure you can use boot camp to partition your disk, but it also includes a boot loader that's compatible with windows (windows doesn't support EFI) so that you can boot directly into windows without having to use Parallels or Fusion. And of course, it also includes windows drivers for your Mac hardware.

This gives significantly better performance than using windows virtually, though combined with Parallels you get the flexibility to use your windows apps virtually along side your OS X apps or to boot the same physical windows partition natively if you need the performance.

 

[TuffLuffJimmy]

Not true. Sure you can use boot camp to partition your disk, but it also includes a boot loader that's compatible with windows (windows doesn't support EFI) so that you can boot directly into windows without having to use Parallels or Fusion.

This has nothing to do with Bootcamp.app.

And of course, it also includes windows drivers for your Mac hardware.

Which also come on your OS X install disk.

 

[witness]

Boot camp is not just an app, but a collection of things. All of which you'll need to run windows natively. The drivers, the partitioning app and the boot loader.

 

[TuffLuffJimmy]

Boot camp is not just an app, but a collection of things. All of which you'll need to run windows natively. The drivers, the partitioning app and the boot loader.

I would not consider any part of the bootloader to be apart of bootcamp since you can partition your harddisk with Disk Utility and install and run Windows without ever touching Bootcamp.app.

These semantics are getting tiresome. And you can't have a proper semantics discussion with someone who vaguely says "Boot camp is not just an app, but a collection of things."

 

[witness]

Windows does not support EFI used by Apple, so even if your find your windows drivers elsewhere, you cannot boot it without the BIOS emulator which comes as part of boot camp.

Before Apple released boot camp there were a number of open source initiatives to get windows working on Intel Macs, but now of course these are redundant with boot camp.

 

[TuffLuffJimmy]

Windows does not support EFI used by Apple, so even if your find your windows drivers elsewhere, you cannot boot it without the BIOS emulator which comes as part of boot camp.

Except now it is the ONLY OS X bootloader for Intel machines. So it's as much a part of OS X as it is a part of running Windows. Meaning it has little to nothing to do with Windows.

 

[witness]

Except now it is the ONLY OS X bootloader for Intel machines. So it's as much a part of OS X as it is a part of running Windows. Meaning it has little to nothing to do with Windows.

Boot loaders (such as EFI which was developed by Intel) are not part of the OS.

Anyway, I'm sorry that this whole issue upsets you so much, and we're getting a little off topic, so best let it lie.

 

[TuffLuffJimmy]

Boot loaders (such as EFI which was developed by Intel) are not part of the OS.

"it's as much a part of [running] OS X as it is a part of running Windows"

mea culpa

 

[DCEMaine]

Set up Bootcamp AFTER Parallels is installed?

First off, a request that TuffLuff and witness take it outside and sort it out, I need some information. Thanks..

I already have Parallels 5 on my iMac with XP running in the VM. I run CAD, so I need performance, and swapping back and forth to MacWorld isn't that crucial for me. I've seen posts that confirm my suspicion (kind of a no-brainer, but it's good to be sure) that running XP natively gives the best performance. Once I'm in XP, I just need to be there to get work done as effiently as possible.

So, before I start mucking things up, I need to know if it is possible to create a Bootcamp partition and a native XP install after Parallels is already set up.

In addition, I understand it is possible for Parallels to tap into the Bootcamp partition for its VM.. Does this mean I can have a single install of XP in a Bootcamp partition and Parallels will use that for its VM? (and can I do this after Parallels already has its virtual world and I add a Bootcamp world...?)

Thanks..

 

[tomllama]

You can have Parallels use its own VM (with the expanding disk, etc) and/or have it use the boot camp partition. You can have parallels open to a choice of which you want to use or simply have a desktop shortcut that opens the one you want directly. I run XP both ways on my MP and MBP.

The nicest thing about Parallels is that you don't have to worry about the drive format differences between to two Os's and can see everything and write everywhere. When you boot via boot camp, you need a third party app to allow you to read & write to the OSX partition or drives.

(On both my Macs, I had Parallels installed before I did a boot camp install - I've been using Parallels since v3.)

 

[omnimoeish]

Just install Windows XP using Boot Camp, do the partitioning, etc. Then install Parallels and have it access your Boot Camp partition. This is really nice so that if you want to run Windows only games like Microsoft Flight Simulator X or CAD or whatever you have full performance, if for some reason you want to use a Windows program real quick without any hassle, like Virtualdub or some really low power game like pinball or solitaire, you can do it. It's the best of both worlds except that you still have to partition your hard drive, which may or may not be a hassle. I have a late 2007 MBP which only has 120 GB hard drive, so installing Windows XP and leaving room for programs like Flight Sim X which requires like 12 GB plus other software is definitely a drag.