Mojave breaks Bootcamp on Fusion Drive

Looking ahead does anyone have an idea how to pull this off with the 1 TB fusion drive from 2013 iMac? Also, is this setup likely going to break with every Mojave incremental update?

 

Hi Neek

I have exactly this problem (with a Late 2013 iMac with 3TB Fusion Drive) but I have only run across your experience after talking with Apple for almost a month on the issue. Until I got to a more senior engineer in Apple Support, I couldn't successfully explain to anyone what was going on and no-one noticed (they share your screen remotely) that the BootCamp partition had changed from NTFS to APFS (even then some say that this is usual behaviour, but I don't think so).

I don't have the option of even wiping the Fusion drive and starting again, even from an external boot. Apple Support are escalating this to more senior engineers to okay the solution of using terminal commands to wipe the drive and start again. But it will be interesting to see what they say about your process of going back to HFS+.

Thanks for sharing your experience.

Adam

 

I'm also having trouble with this for my iMac 2013 1TB+128SSD fusion (original OEM install). Never installed bootcamp before but just installed Mojave (coming from 10.9). Now a bootcamp attempt will not complete windows 10 partition successfully. I have tried some tricks with disassociate/remove time machine backup drive, delete local time machine snaps (via terminal) and then disk repair. Start bootcamp install sequence again ... nope same problem. I'm using 16 GB USB 2.0 thumb drive as well for install (per apple directions).

 

Hi

I am supposed to get an answer today from Apple on what has to be done to fix this.

I will post what I am told is the fix when I have had that call.

Adam

 

I am here on standby with my iMac Late 2013 3 TB Fusion Drive, running High Sierra/Bootcamp. Crossing my fingers that something feasible comes back...many thanks for sharing this.

 

Unfortunately we didn’t connect but I am hopeful that we will tomorrow. I will certainly post what I find out.

 

I am having the same issues with a 2017 iMac with a 1 TB Fusion drive running Mojave, extremely annoying as I really need Windows 10 for some work I do.

I've been having issues with Bootcamp ever since upgraded to High Sierra.

 

Okay, I have a fix for removing the Bootcamp partition on the Fusion drive. However, it required booting into the internet recovery mode and wiping the fusion drive altogether. So, this will mean you have to have a good backup. You will also lose your bootcamp partition. So, you will need to reinstall Windows and its data - so another backup (mine is in the dmg file created by Mojave on upgrade).

I am not a high level user, so my recommendation would be that you talk with apple support about this unless you know what you are doing. Apple support is available for this no matter how old your machine. You just request an "exception" for recently updating your OS.

At the least, this process will get you talking to the right adviser about the right issue (I talked to many, who had little past the first clue what I was talking about).

The steps.

1. Boot into internet recovery mode - command+option+r
2. Open terminal, type (following three words with spaces between - note the capitalisation): diskutil apfs deleteContainer
3. Hit return - wait until terminal tells you it has done it.
4. Then type (following two words with space between - note the capitalisation): diskutil resetFusion
5. Hit return - wait until this process finishes.
6. Quit terminal.
7. You will be left a blank fusion drive - from there in internet recovery you can reinstall MacOS and also restore backup from your time machine (I booted into the new MacOS first and did it that way.
8. I have now set up Bootcamp and all works fine.

Thanks

Adam

 

thanks for this update! So I never had bootcamp/windows installed and was having trouble installing it for the first time in Mojave with my 2013 iMac 1TB / 128GB fusion drive. As I mentioned above it was disk partition issues. Sounds like I need to wipe everything.

 

My problem included that I couldn’t make a partition and what I did was reset the fusion drive (wipe it). If it helps, the Apple support person I spoke with was Kane who comes from Cork, Ireland. I don’t know if you can get through to Kane, but the person you speak with to confirm the approach might be helped themself for knowing an Apple person with relevant experience.

Having done a couple of restores over the year with Time Machine, I am pretty happy with the time it takes and the outcome.

 

Dear Adam,

Many thanks for this insight! Do I understand you correctly that, after these steps described by you, it is possible to install Mojave and Bootcamp on the Fusion Drive? Or are you left with High Sierra if you want to do Bootcamp?

Best, Stefan

 

Hi Stefan

I have a late 2013 iMac with a 3 TB fusion drive.

With the above process I have been able to reinstall MacOS Mojave and restore my backup no problems.

I was then able to create a bootcamp partition and reinstall windows.

I am back to where I was before release of Mojave, except that I am using Mojave.

As I understand it, this is an issue with this model iMac (or a number of them) and the fusion drive.

Thanks

Adam

 

Many thanks Adam.
I have the identical model - iMac Late 2013, with 3 TB Fusion Drive with Intel i7 and 32 RAM.
So there is finally a way forward with Bootcamp in Fusion. Seems like the upgrade routine messes it up.
So I will now consider this step - wiping the entire disk from the Terminall is nothing for the faint hearted .

However, since I have not taken the upgrade step to Mojave so far (I am still with High Sierra and HFS+ and Bootcamp), I must consider what to do now. Probably backup and delete the Bootcamp partition and then head for Mojave straight further with a clean install.

Stefan

 

It is a pain and a worry for sure. But my computer is working just fine now. The restore of the backup was the first I have done with time machine for a while now and i think it worked much better than a few years ago.

 

I can confirm a very smooth update to Mojave with Bootcamp on my iMac Late 2013 by following these steps:
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT209057
So the trick is exactly to backup Windows data, delete the Bootcamp partition, upgrade to Mojave and then do the new Bootcamp install. As you Adam, I took the opportunity to do a fresh Mac install, overdue anyways, and the new install rocks. I also never had such a smooth Bootcamp install as here in Mojave.

So I am finished with the upgrade and happy.

 

I did all the wiping and recreating of Fusion drive (128GB factory SSD + 2TB Crucial MX500), as you guys did, but when I run Bootcamp assistant it immediately says there isn't enough room on the startup disk and won't continue.

Could anyone tell me what I'm doing wrong? I can't seem to create any Windows partition at all. Would very much appreciate your help!

 

The size you are choosing for the bootcamp partition might be important. Can't remember how much GB is ideal, but it does matter. Please describe what process you followed and any other specifics ... are you using USB for windows installation? Is it USB 2.0 ? - it should be.

 

I installed OSX using a USB thumb drive, though I think it's USB 3.0. But why would that matter when I already have OSX installed at this point? The issue is when I am using the Bootcamp Assistant within OSX. It says that my startup disk doesn't have enough room and it won't let me create a partition that is large enough to house Windows. Am I making the situation clear? Thank you for helping me out.

 

Hi, in order to help, you need to be more specific with exactly what you did. I'm suggesting you to try a USB 2.0 16GB drive for the windows installation on bootcamp (this is part of the bootcamp assistant partition stage too and suggested by Apple officially). Also, there is something I seem to remember about this size of the bootcamp partition you are trying to make.