Screwed myself?

[ryans79]

Hey,
Been reading up on my problem and it sounds like I kind of screwed myself a bit... but I'll let you more experienced people have final judgment.

I just upgraded my hdd a couple of mins ago from the 120 gig to a seagate 500gig , but before doing that i used "carbon copy cloner" to clone my old drive, as well as the 8gig partition i had there where i used to keep my copy of snow leopard (easier that carrying the disk around).

CCC cloned both partitions perfectly.

I named them Mac and Mac-backup

then I created another partition using disk utility and named it Win - this is where i want to install win7 via bootcamp. The "Win" partition is totally empty.

Note i did all the above by connecting the new disk to a USB external caddy.
I then installed the new drive and... it stared up well and everything seems to be working till i try to install bootcamp, then it gives me this error:
"The startup disk cannot be partitioned or restored to a single partition." (see attached pic)
[img=http://img187.imagevenue.com/loc921/th_31974_Screen_shot_2009-12-30_122_921lo.png]

Please advise.. what to do?

 

[balamw]

Please post a screenshot of what you current drive partition scheme looks like from Disk Utility. You should be able to forge ahead without worrying about Boot Camp Assistant, unless you did what I did recently and picked the wrong partition type... (EDIT: It needs to be GPT).

B

 

[ryans79]

Please post a screenshot of what you current drive partition scheme looks like from Disk Utility. You should be able to forge ahead without worrying about Boot Camp Assistant, unless you did what I did recently and picked the wrong partition type... (EDIT: It needs to be GPT).

B

I highlighted each partition and took multiple screenshots as I was not sure which screenshot you wanted...

[img=http://img101.imagevenue.com/loc217/th_32662_Screen_shot_2009-12-30_at_1.29.07_AM_122_217lo.png][img=http://img197.imagevenue.com/loc748/th_32663_Screen_shot_2009-12-30_at_1.29.58_AM_122_748lo.png][img=http://img249.imagevenue.com/loc217/th_32664_Screen_shot_2009-12-30_at_1.30.13_AM_122_217lo.png][img=http://img264.imagevenue.com/loc234/th_32665_Screen_shot_2009-12-30_at_1.30.36_AM_122_234lo.png]

 

[balamw]

I highlighted each partition and took multiple screenshots as I was not sure which screenshot you wanted...

Reformat your "Win" partition as MS-DOS (FAT) instead of HFS+ (Mac OS Journaled) then just reboot and hold down "Alt/Option" to boot from the Windows install disc. You've already done what Boot Camp Assistant can do for you.

B

 

[ryans79]

Reformat your "Win" partition as MS-DOS (FAT) instead of HFS+ (Mac OS Journaled) then just reboot and hold down "Alt/Option" to boot from the Windows install disc. You've already done what Boot Camp Assistant can do for you.

B

Cool!
And thanks for helping me out mate.

Quick Q, can i use NTFS instead?
From my little knowledge of reading it says it offers "more security" and is "overall better than the 'older' FAT system"

 

[1ofthedavids]

Cool!
And thanks for helping me out mate.

Quick Q, can i use NTFS instead?
From my little knowledge of reading it says it offers "more security" and is "overall better than the 'older' FAT system"

Since you're installing Win7, you'll need NTFS. It won't install on FAT.

 

[ryans79]

Since you're installing Win7, you'll need NTFS. It won't install on FAT.

Thanks guys, I'll format it to NTFS and then try installing it and come back if i hit any walls.

Have a good one!
R

 

[balamw]

Thanks guys, I'll format it to NTFS and then try installing it and come back if i hit any walls.

The FAT partition is only a placeholder. Tells the Windows installer "look here dummy!". Disk Utility won't create NTFS partitions, but the Windows installer will do it for you when you start the install.

B