Need some Boot Camp help

[someoldguy]

I’m experiencing problems installing Windows 10 into a Boot Camp partition . The machine in question is a 2019 iMac 27 . Originally a base model i5 with 1Tb fusion drive picked up as an Apple refurb back in 2019 . When I got the machine , I attempted , and failed a Windows/Boot Camp install . Figured the failure was due to the pathetic size of the fusion ssd and ran Windows from a small (128 Gb. ) usb Windows to Go drive . Currently the machine has a 2 Tb. WD SN570 as a main drive and a 4 Tb Samsung QVO as a storage drive . MacOS runs normally.

I’ve tried the procedures below with the machine running Big Sur and Monterrey . Windows 10 .iso downloaded directly from Microsoft and placed on the Desktop .

Enter Boot Camp , the program downloads the Support software ,recognises the existance of the .iso on the Desktop ,partitions the drive , and then restarts . There’s the beginning of a seemingly normal MacOS startup , the screen goes black , and a blinking folder with a question mark appears , along with a URL for support.apple.com/mac/startup (think I’ve got that right) . Turned the machine off , restarted and went into MacOS. Went into Boot Camp and erased the partition . Took a look at the partition before erasing and it was formatted NTFS , and was empty. Restarted , and reset the NVRAM as directed in the support website .

Tried Boot Camp again , same procedure ; same result . Didn’t erase the Boot Camp partition this time

Rebooted . This time I inserted a bootable Win10 install usb drive prepared on a PC using Microsoft’s Media Creation Tool 21H2 . Held down the option key and selected efiboot , which got me into the Windows Setup . Accepted the license , entered the serial# , got into the screen where the installation location is chosen and picked the existing partition left from the previous failed install . Partition not recognized . Tried to format the partition . No luck . Exited install .

Rebooted into MacOS . Went into Boot Camp and deleted the previous Boot Camp partition and rebooted . Went into Disk Utility , created a new partition formatted FAT32 in an attempt to bypass the Boot Camp install process . I also downloaded the appropriate Boot Camp Drivers from Apple and copied them a to a folder on the Win 10 USB installer .

Rebooted ,started the install process by selecting the efi boot choice as before . Same results ; the install gets up to selecting the partition to install to and then fails to recognize the partition .

So … I’m at a loss as to what’s going on . I’ve done a bunch of Boot Camp installs over the years , including one on a 2015 MBP15 with an aftermarket drive , and never any problems .

Any ideas as to how to get this working , or should I just hang an external with a WIN 10 install on it and be done with it?

 

[wonderings]

I’m experiencing problems installing Windows 10 into a Boot Camp partition . The machine in question is a 2019 iMac 27 . Originally a base model i5 with 1Tb fusion drive picked up as an Apple refurb back in 2019 . When I got the machine , I attempted , and failed a Windows/Boot Camp install . Figured the failure was due to the pathetic size of the fusion ssd and ran Windows from a small (128 Gb. ) usb Windows to Go drive . Currently the machine has a 2 Tb. WD SN570 as a main drive and a 4 Tb Samsung QVO as a storage drive . MacOS runs normally.

I’ve tried the procedures below with the machine running Big Sur and Monterrey . Windows 10 .iso downloaded directly from Microsoft and placed on the Desktop .

Enter Boot Camp , the program downloads the Support software ,recognises the existance of the .iso on the Desktop ,partitions the drive , and then restarts . There’s the beginning of a seemingly normal MacOS startup , the screen goes black , and a blinking folder with a question mark appears , along with a URL for support.apple.com/mac/startup (think I’ve got that right) . Turned the machine off , restarted and went into MacOS. Went into Boot Camp and erased the partition . Took a look at the partition before erasing and it was formatted NVME , and was empty. Restarted , and reset the NVRAM as directed in the support website .

Tried Boot Camp again , same procedure ; same result . Didn’t erase the Boot Camp partition this time

Rebooted . This time I inserted a bootable Win10 install usb drive prepared on a PC using Microsoft’s Media Creation Tool 21H2 . Held down the option key and selected efiboot , which got me into the Windows Setup . Accepted the license , entered the serial# , got into the screen where the installation location is chosen and picked the existing partition left from the previous failed install . Partition not recognized . Tried to format the partition . No luck . Exited install .

Rebooted into MacOS . Went into Boot Camp and deleted the previous Boot Camp partition and rebooted . Went into Disk Utility , created a new partition formatted FAT32 in an attempt to bypass the Boot Camp install process . I also downloaded the appropriate Boot Camp Drivers from Apple and copied them a to a folder on the Win 10 USB installer .

Rebooted ,started the install process by selecting the efi boot choice as before . Same results ; the install gets up to selecting the partition to install to and then fails to recognize the partition .

So … I’m at a loss as to what’s going on . I’ve done a bunch of Boot Camp installs over the years , including one on a 2015 MBP15 with an aftermarket drive , and never any problems .

Any ideas as to how to get this working , or should I just hang an external with a WIN 10 install on it and be done with it?

I have not used BootCamp for years, VM's have come a long way, though obviously are not getting the full power of your computer. I would think the majority of users would probably be fine with a VM in Parallels. Super simple and you can run your Windows apps side by side with your Mac apps. Might be worth considering if your needs are not super heavy.

 

[someoldguy]

I have not used BootCamp for years, VM's have come a long way, though obviously are not getting the full power of your computer. I would think the majority of users would probably be fine with a VM in Parallels. Super simple and you can run your Windows apps side by side with your Mac apps. Might be worth considering if your needs are not super heavy.

VM's are certainly an option if all else fails . I've used both VMWare and Virtual Box at various times mostly to run some very old software on XP or Win3.1 .My hope is to have whatever Windows option that works used as a longer term solution (think years) which IMHO almost predicates use of a separate drive or partition. I have had a VMWare install borked by a MacOS update which makes me somewhat leery of using a VM long term .

 

[Boyd01]

FWIW, I have been using a 32gb 6-core Parallels Windows 10 VM very heavily for the past two years on my 2018 Mini. For my needs, this is definitely the way to go since I can work so smoothly between both operating systems. I am primarily running GlobalMapper, a professional GIS app to process data for maps.

In the past few months I have processed over 5tb of source data and exported over 20 million .png map tiles. My Mac is chewing on this data almost continuously 24/7. Have have very few problems with this setup. I am constantly using my Mac apps for other things while the Windows VM does all of this. I store almost no data on the VM however, all my files are in the Mac filesystem where they can be backed up with Carbon Copy and Backblaze along with my Mac files.

However, since everything works so well, I have not updated anything and am still on Catalina and Parallels 15 the whole time.

 

[someoldguy]

Thanks for refreshing my memory re:saving files from a VM into the Mac filesystem . Forgot you could do this . Anyway , it's gonna be hot and sticky next week so I'll be stuck inside . One more thing I want to try re: BootCamp ; If that doesn't work , maybe I'll end up going with the VM route .