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Steps to take to install Windows without bootcamp

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retta283

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Jun 8, 2018
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Ah, using the PowerPC forum to talk about early Intel Macs again.
I have a 2006 iMac that I want to install Windows XP on for gaming reasons. However I already have the HDD partitioned between Tiger and Leopard. So, bootcamp will not work. I know that it is possible to do this without bootcamp, but most guides I've found will require I erase what I already have and reinstall. I don't want to do that if possible. The main step will be creating a partition that Windows will work on.
 
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Second for Parallels. I don't know how it will work for your intended use, but in general, it's just fantastic.

I had no experience with Parallels before recently buying my 17" MBP, but the previous owners failed to erase the drive before sending it to me, and an older version of Parallels was installed with Snow Leopard. I couldn't resist playing with that a bit before reformatting the drive, and I was quite impressed.

On a 2006 2.33 GHz MBP with only 2 GB RAM and a 5400 RPM hard drive, Parallels was running Windows 7 Pro in a virtual machine. It took a while to start up, but once running there was virtually no lag as I used Microsoft Office, browsed the web and otherwise messed around therein. It was like running Windows on actual hardware, and frankly was a better experience than if I'd been running Win 7 on similarly specced hardware. Very efficient virtualization software.
 
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Parallels doesn't work for gaming. At least I don't think it does. If so it hits the performance enough that it would not be worth installing
 
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I can think of a few options for you to do, if I am understanding your situation correctly.

Although, I am unsure about one thing:
retta283 said:
However I already have the HDD partitioned between Tiger and Leopard. So, bootcamp will not work.
Click to expand...
Are you saying that Boot Camp will not do another partition for Windows if it is already partitioned?

If so, there is still plenty of options for you.

You could clone one of your partitions to an external drive temporarily, and put the two partitions back together. Do Boot Camp like normal, then after everything is set up, partition the MacOS partition again and clone back the the OS from the external drive.

Another option is that you can install Windows on an external drive, which I do not think Boot Camp will do, but there are easy work arounds you can do to get this done.

Another option, clone of your MacOS partitions to an external drive and just run it off of that. It might be just as fast as your internal drive.
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retta283 said:
Parallels doesn't work for gaming.
Click to expand...
After Blizzard started requiring a Metal capable GPU for WoW on MacOS, I tried Parallels on my daughters' high-end Late 2011 MBP, and it was horrible.

I ended up just doing Boot Camp and have them long into Windows to play WoW.

I only assume that it would be even worse on your 2006 iMac, depending on what game you were playing.
 
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vertical smile said:
I can think of a few options for you to do, if I am understanding your situation correctly.

Although, I am unsure about one thing:

Are you saying that Boot Camp will not do another partition for Windows if it is already partitioned?

If so, there is still plenty of options for you.

You could clone one of your partitions to an external drive temporarily, and put the two partitions back together. Do Boot Camp like normal, then after everything is set up, partition the MacOS partition again and clone back the the OS from the external drive.

Another option is that you can install Windows on an external drive, which I do not think Boot Camp will do, but there are easy work arounds you can do to get this done.

Another option, clone of your MacOS partitions to an external drive and just run it off of that. It might be just as fast as your internal drive.
Click to expand...
Boot Camp only works if there is one partition on the hard drive. You don't need bootcamp at all to install Windows on Mac, it's just a GUI that makes it easier. My problem is creating a partition that Windows will boot on. There is a way to do it without cloning/moving what's already there, it's just trying to find out the partition map.
 
retta283 said:
Boot Camp only works if there is one partition on the hard drive. You don't need bootcamp at all to install Windows on Mac, it's just a GUI that makes it easier. My problem is creating a partition that Windows will boot on. There is a way to do it without cloning/moving what's already there, it's just trying to find out the partition map.
Click to expand...


What about this option:
vertical smile said:
You could clone one of your partitions to an external drive temporarily, and put the two partitions back together. Do Boot Camp like normal, then after everything is set up, partition the MacOS partition again and clone back the the OS from the external drive.
Click to expand...

That way, you have Boot Camp create the partition, problem solved.

Edit: I just reread you post stating that you were trying to find a way to create the partition without cloning.....

Yeah, I am not sure.
 
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vertical smile said:
What about this option:


That way, you have Boot Camp create the partition, problem solved.
Click to expand...
This usually fails from what I've found, because if you add another partition it freaks Bootcamp out and puts the third partition into the Windows one. Results vary from what I found online, but it's really not stable to have more partitions added on after bootcamp, I wouldn't want to risk it. The only thing I think would work would be to use Target Disk on my 06 MB and use its drive to have Windows via bootcamp. I don't know if it would work well over FireWire 400 speeds though.
 
retta283 said:
This usually fails from what I've found, because if you add another partition it freaks Bootcamp out and puts the third partition into the Windows one.
Click to expand...
Oh okay.

Hmm.. I have some drives at home with Windows installed via Boot Camp. If I remember when I get home, I will try partitioning one of them just to see what will happen.
 
I made a big error. I was able to make a FAT partition, but the installer didn't see it. So I removed it. Now it just shows it as greyed out space in another partition, how can I reclaim this space? IMG_0981.JPG
 
Bandaman said:
www.idownloadblog.com

How to remove disk partitions on a Mac with Disk Utility

This guide goes through how to safely remove partitions from a hard drive on a Mac using its built-in program, Disk Utility.
www.idownloadblog.com www.idownloadblog.com
Click to expand...
I know how to remove partitions, it's just that when I removed it the space it took up was not returned to another partition. It wasn't able to be modified other than adding another partition in the empty space.

I fixed it by making a partition in the space, and shrinking it to 1GB, then removing it. Not sure if that's a bug, but it worked.
 
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retta283 said:
I know how to remove partitions, it's just that when I removed it the space it took up was not returned to another partition. It wasn't able to be modified other than adding another partition in the empty space.

I fixed it by making a partition in the space, and shrinking it to 1GB, then removing it. Not sure if that's a bug, but it worked.
Click to expand...
Weird. I’m glad you figured it out, though.
 
retta283 said:
I made a big error. I was able to make a FAT partition, but the installer didn't see it. So I removed it. Now it just shows it as greyed out space in another partition, how can I reclaim this space?View attachment 872433
Click to expand...
Can't you just increase the size of the 3rd partition claiming that space shown in grey color?
You may also try to start the iMac in TargetDiskMode and run DiskUtility from a FireWire-connected PPC/Leopard. I had one occasion, going that TDM/FW-way to get problems sorted out on an intel-Mac.

But before fiddling more with DiskUtility I'd go the way, @vertical smile mentioned: make some bootable clones of your existing Tiger and Leopard partitions onto one or better two separate external USB-drives, to have some fast available backup ( /w SuperDuper! or CarbonCopyCloner).

For all of your Windows games that might also run on Win2k, the option of Win2k as a virtual machine is much faster compared to WinXP. CC-RA2/Tiberium Sun, AgeOfEmpires and StarCraft for example run smooth on virtual Win2k (2,4GHz c2duo MBP / 4GB RAM / SSD), but I had problems with some other stuff, since Fusion does not support 3D-graphic-acceleration for Win2k but only for XP and later.
(Anyway, even if not all games will be working, it's nice, to have a slick Win2k/VM at hands.)
I'm a long-time user of Fusion. If you go the BootCamp-way, you may even alternatively run that BootCamp-Windows using Fusion and do not allways have to leave your OS X session.
 
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retta283 said:
Parallels doesn't work for gaming. At least I don't think it does. If so it hits the performance enough that it would not be worth installing
Click to expand...

It works for *some* gaming, but I find, especially with emulators, that there's substantial input lag. MAME is pretty bad under Parallels. I haven't tested anything else, and it's actually been a few years since I've used Parallels, so things may have changed.

I don't know if it's still for sale but Crossover may work.
 
swamprock said:
It works for *some* gaming, but I find, especially with emulators, that there's substantial input lag. MAME is pretty bad under Parallels. I haven't tested anything else, and it's actually been a few years since I've used Parallels, so things may have changed.

I don't know if it's still for sale but Crossover may work.
Click to expand...
I highly doubt it would even launch, my system is so low end already that the games I want to play would be impossible to run.

Crossover might, but I'm not sure what kind of performance hit it gives. I'd also have to find a version that supports Tiger, which would be difficult.
 
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