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Parallels and BOOTCAMP Questions

T

TheAnoyingApple

macrumors member
Original poster
Apr 13, 2010
40
0
Hey i was just looking at some threads about installing Bootcamp and parallels in the same partition. Suddenly i saw that FAT can only go up to 32 GB's and that scared me. my questions are:

- Can you make a bootcamp partition bigger than 32gb?

ANSWER:

-If the partition was bigger than 32gb, this partition would be NFTS so really, would i be able to write in that partition?

ANSWER:

- Is 32gb enough for windows 7?

ANSWER:

- Do you recommend me to install Parallels and Bootcamp?

ANSWER:

- Which one is better, VMware 3 or Parallels 5?

ANSWER:



TO ANSWER JUST QUOTE ME AND WRITE IN THE RED SPACES PROVIDED

Thank You
 
- Can you make a bootcamp partition bigger than 32gb?

ANSWER: Yes

-If the partition was bigger than 32gb, this partition would be NFTS so really, would i be able to write in that partition?

ANSWER: Yes, with a free program called NTFS-3G

- Is 32gb enough for windows 7?

ANSWER: It really depends what you plan to do within Windows. It's enough for a successful installation but it won't leave you with a lot of free space.

- Do you recommend me to install Parallels and Bootcamp?

ANSWER: Again, it depends what you want to do and how often you will need access to a Windows environment.

- Which one is better, VMware 3 or Parallels 5?

ANSWER: It comes down more to personal preference than anything here. I personally use VMware Fusion, and find it to be an excellent product. Others use Parallels Desktop with excellent results. Also note that there is a third player on the field, VirtualBox. If you only do basic tasks in Windows such as word processing, or only occasionally need to use Windows, VirtualBox may be sufficiently good and it has the added benefit of being free. Both VMware and Parallels offer trial versions of their products, and AFAIK they both have community forums too (I know VMware does), so that's another way to compare both companies' offerings.
 
OP, it seems you and I plan to do the exact same thing. I am waiting for my mbp to arrive and immediately plop in my new hard drive, install windows 7 on bootcamp, and using the same partition install parallels. It only lets you partition up to 32gb though? I was planning on making my bootcamp/parallels partition around 150gb or so...but it sounds like that may not be possible.
 
jmdMac said:
OP, it seems you and I plan to do the exact same thing. I am waiting for my mbp to arrive and immediately plop in my new hard drive, install windows 7 on bootcamp, and using the same partition install parallels. It only lets you partition up to 32gb though? I was planning on making my bootcamp/parallels partition around 150gb or so...but it sounds like that may not be possible.
Click to expand...

I Believe you can make the partition as big as you want using the bootcamp installer. (some have been known to blow away their mac partition and end up with an all windows machine. The problem arises with the formatting of the drive as when you go past 32gb the drive is not formatted as fat32, hence you can only read the partition and cant write to that partition.
However you can use Parallels or vmware and have it look at your bootcamp partition (so you get the beneifit of installing on the hard drive without having to reboot the system). Also make sure to update to 10.6.3 if you plan to run windows 7 (windows 7 + leopard = unsupported) on a new mbp, a lot of improvements were made to bootcamp with the update to the OS. Sorry for the marathon post.....
 
About installing parallels and bootcamp

I did that at first, but it soon got annoying, because with that config, you have to shut down windows before exiting parallels.

Now I have parallels without bootcamp, and when I'm done with windows I just quit parallels. It saves the state of my windows machine, running progs and all, and quits. Very quick to start and end a windows session, as opposed to parallels with bootcamp.

tho, if your main focus is high end gaming, you gotta figure out your priorities.

Also, I use Parallels 4.0 and Win XP Performance edition (its a user made edition stripped of all bloatware and tuned for performance. Has only 270MB).

disclaimer: I have my windows license in order.
 
marcb81304 said:
I Believe you can make the partition as big as you want using the bootcamp installer. (some have been known to blow away their mac partition and end up with an all windows machine. The problem arises with the formatting of the drive as when you go past 32gb the drive is not formatted as fat32, hence you can only read the partition and cant write to that partition.
However you can use Parallels or vmware and have it look at your bootcamp partition (so you get the beneifit of installing on the hard drive without having to reboot the system). Also make sure to update to 10.6.3 if you plan to run windows 7 (windows 7 + leopard = unsupported) on a new mbp, a lot of improvements were made to bootcamp with the update to the OS. Sorry for the marathon post.....
Click to expand...

I'm confused a little, sorry I can most tasks needed on my computer but I do not know the lingo very well. So once the drive is past 32gb, it is no longer formatted as fat 32, and that means i can't write to the drive anymore? What exactly does that mean? I can only view what's on there on not put anymore?

I just want to have two partition, OS X-350gb and WIN7-150gb, and be able to choose whether or not to boot in WIN7 or just in OS X and use parallels when needed. That doesn't seem like too much to ask of my new $1800 computer....
 
TheAnoyingApple said:
Hey i was just looking at some threads about installing Bootcamp and parallels in the same partition. Suddenly i saw that FAT can only go up to 32 GB's and that scared me. my questions are:

- Can you make a bootcamp partition bigger than 32gb?

ANSWER:
Click to expand...

Yes, you can make a Boot Camp partition bigger than 32GB. You are however mixing up FAT with FAT32. In short, FAT can only go up to 2GB for most operating systems, FAT32 can go up to 32GB for most operating systems and NTFS can go up to 2TB currently. For Microsoft Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7, the NTFS file system is advised. NTFS supports files over 4GB in size, unlike FAT32, NTFS has built-in security, offers recoverability, is fault tolerant, and performs better on larger volumes.


TheAnoyingApple said:
-If the partition was bigger than 32gb, this partition would be NFTS so really, would i be able to write in that partition?

ANSWER:
Click to expand...

Using Microsoft Windows you will be. Using Mac OS X you will need a third party driver such as NTFS-3G which will allow reading from and writing to the NTFS partition.


TheAnoyingApple said:
- Is 32gb enough for windows 7?

ANSWER:
Click to expand...

Yes, 32GB is enough disk space for Microsoft Windows 7. If it is enough disk space for all your personal files and applications is a question which only you can answer. I currently have little over 50GB for example on one computer taken up by Microsoft Windows 7 and all the applications which I need, excluding virtual machines and personal files. If you have the disk space, choose 100GB for your partition for Microsoft Windows, so that you are sure that you have enough disk space.


TheAnoyingApple said:
- Do you recommend me to install Parallels and Bootcamp?

ANSWER:
Click to expand...

If your Microsoft Windows applications function fine using Parallels, then use Parallels only. I will use both Parallels and Boot Camp since I want to be able to play an occasional game as well via Boot Camp for example.


TheAnoyingApple said:
- Which one is better, VMware 3 or Parallels 5?

ANSWER:
Click to expand...

Parallels wins in tests when it comes to speed and graphic performance, so go for Parallels. Or give VirtualBox by Sun a try, which is free of charge.
 
jmdMac said:
I'm confused a little, sorry I can most tasks needed on my computer but I do not know the lingo very well. So once the drive is past 32gb, it is no longer formatted as fat 32, and that means i can't write to the drive anymore? What exactly does that mean? I can only view what's on there on not put anymore?

I just want to have two partition, OS X-350gb and WIN7-150gb, and be able to choose whether or not to boot in WIN7 or just in OS X and use parallels when needed. That doesn't seem like too much to ask of my new $1800 computer....
Click to expand...


No. you should be fine... when i say you can only read, that means on the mac side you would not be able to copy files to your bootcamp partition. You would be able to copy FROM the windows 7 drive to the macintosh hd, but you would not be able to send files from the macintosh hd TO the bootcamp partition.You would still be able to write to the drive when you are booted in windows OR if you are using parallels .
There are some free utilities that let your mac side write to NTFS (ntfs-3g). You would need NTFS-3G if you plan on having the windows 7 side set up as ntfs (over 32gb in size). Hope that makes a little more sense as this stuff can get confusing!!!
 
hi there,

I have been trying to figure out the same problem as well ( im new to mac).

so does that mean that if i want to write from mac to windows and windows to mac, ill need to use programs like ntfs-3g?

What if i run fusion?

Is anyone able to provide step by step instructions on installing ntfs-3g?
 
Can't be bothered reading the whole thread, just thought I'd mention that you can open up your boot camp partition in a Parallels Window as if it were a virtual machine, do your thing, use apps, save documents, then close it down and startup from Windows and it'll have all the same documents and caches that you got when using Parallels. Parallels is clever like that.
 
tristangage said:
Can't be bothered reading the whole thread, just thought I'd mention that you can open up your boot camp partition in a Parallels Window as if it were a virtual machine, do your thing, use apps, save documents, then close it down and startup from Windows and it'll have all the same documents and caches that you got when using Parallels. Parallels is clever like that.
Click to expand...

can fusion and/or Virtual Box do the same or is it only parallels?
 
patrickng89 said:
hi there,

I have been trying to figure out the same problem as well ( im new to mac).

so does that mean that if i want to write from mac to windows and windows to mac, ill need to use programs like ntfs-3g?

What if i run fusion?

Is anyone able to provide step by step instructions on installing ntfs-3g?
Click to expand...

Yes, if you want to write from mac to the windows(in NTFS) partition you will need a 3rd party app (ntfs-3g, etc). If you are writing from windows to mac, then you do not.

If you run fusion, you will need that 3rd party app to be able to save what you work on to the windows partition. If you do not have the app, you will only be able to view the files already on the windows partition.

http://macntfs-3g.blogspot.com/
I'm sure you can figure it out from there.

BTW: I fairly new to mac as well(first mac will arrive today or tomorrow, if anyone sees something wrong in what I've said, please correct me.
 
FnuGk said:
can fusion and/or Virtual Box do the same or is it only parallels?
Click to expand...
VMware Fusion can do the same thing, and future versions will improve performance over the current version (3.0.2 as of this post) significantly. I believe the current beta version (3.1 as of this post) offers the improvement to which I'm referring, and it should be a free upgrade to 3.0 users if VMware's upgrade history serves as a valid indication of their release plans.

The last time I checked VirtualBox did not have Boot Camp partition support, but that may have changed since.
 
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