How To Install Bootcamp On Mac
Francisca Noggles
I've been trying to install windows on my Mac for a long time now and I can't seem to get it to work. I have downloaded the most recent ISO file from Microsoft for Windows 10, 64 bit, English version. The boot camp download always completes but when my Mac restarts and goes into windows that's when it fails by popping up with an image I have attached below. I watch YouTube tutorials on how to install Bootcamp and the method they were using is the one that I used and it doesn't seem to work for me. I also watched Boot Camp error videos and none of them related to this.
I've been using my mbkpro for over a year now, so if the process of trying to setup Bootcamp at this point means my drive gets wiped, it would take me forever to reinstall all my apps and files from scratch.
If i were to install Windows, I need a min of Windows XP SP3 or higher for one of the things that i want to use it for (a game.) When I searched thro the discussions I found some threads that mentioned that you would need to install a copy of SP1 before even upgrading to SP2... is this true? I never use PC's and know very little about them or their OS...
Boot Camp is for Windows. It doesn't do anything to your OS X system. Open Boot Camp Assistant in the Utilities folder, click on the large Print Documentation button. Read it carefully before proceeding.
On Snow Leopard, you can install Windows XP SP2, Windows Vista or Windows 7 with Boot Camp. If you can, I recommend you to install Windows 7, but any Windows XP with Service Pack 2 or Service Pack 3 works. Note that, after installing Windows, you have to install the Boot Camp drivers that the Mac OS X DVD contains
BootCamp alters the boot sector of the disk to hold bootable Windows partition. As mende1 said ... make a clone. Things *can* go wrong, even if they normaly do not. As an aside ... you use BootCamp Assistant to remove this partition as well.
Thanks for replying, this sounds really useful.. I always thought when I partitioned a drive it erased anything I had on it already ( it's been a few years since I last did this so can't remember really ...) So, just to confirm that i understand correctly:
Thanks for replying, this sounds really useful.. I always thought when I partitioned a drive it erased anything I had on it already ( it's been a few years since I last did this so can't remember really ...)
You don't lose anything. However, you must be careful during Windows installation, because you have to format "BOOTCAMP" volume (if you are going to install Vista or 7), and you have to install Windows on that partition. If you don't do it, you will lose your files.
BootCamp uses a "free block" part of the HD as a new partition. It does not need to alter the contents of the OSX partition, just the size of it. The base "partition mapping" sector will be changed, though.
What fixed this for me was to format the partition using diskpart, opened a command prompt on the "select partition screen" and formatted the partition. I formatted it on NTFS and after that it allowed me to select the partition and installed successfully there.
This solution doesn't seem to work when booting from the bootcamp created USB. I managed to make it work by buying a USB SuperDrive and booting from the Windows disk (not EFI). Worked like magic after that. Also quick format works too - will save you 2 hours on a 1TB disk.
I also was looking for solution to this issue and find it by understand the roots of problem. Bootcamp utility creates hybrid-MBR table and this prevents Windows 8 to be installed. Now when Win 8 installer have EFI boot mode, we actually don't need Bootcamp utility at all.
I removed Bootcamp partition with Bootcamp utility - this reverts partition table to GUID. Then I go to Disk Utility and manually divide Mac OS partition in two parts to add space (not formatted) for windows installation.After that, when I rebooted with Alt-Option button, I was able to choose EFI Boot option on inserted DVD disk and successfully install Windows by create appropriate partition on space that I prepare with Disk Utility. At this point reboot with the Alt-Option button and select the Windows DVD. (Not EFI) This time when you see the partitions it will be select-able as the installation disk.During installation Windows rebooted 2 times and I use Alt-Option button just to be sure that proper disk was booted.
Turn off your Mac, then connect the USB drive to your USB port, then hold the options button on the keyboard. After doing so, you will see Macintosh HD, Windows, and EFI. Boot into EFI and continue the installation as usual. You should be able to format the drive and then install Windows.
I was stuck with this challenge last night as well. After 10 hours, I finally have resolved this. As it turns out, not all OSX are the same. For example, I have Macbook Pro Retina, iMac, and Mac Pro. ClaitonLovatoJr's solution works on Macbook Pro Retina but not iMac or Mac Pro.
iMac (2014) and Mac Pro (2014) have different types of hard-drive. So far I haven't gotten Mac Pro to work, because it has the most particular type of hard-drive, perhaps Windows simply does not support. But again, I haven't tried for very long.
Since late 2012, iMac have fusion drive, which means its hard-drive is combined with SSD and traditional hard-drive. As a result, Apple has an interesting way to manage it. I am not going to the details. In short, EFI would not work with the hardware, so we must go through Apple's Boot Camp.
The first thing to do is to find a USB flash drive. Many people including me failed because we try to use SD card. This won't work because SD card is too advance for what we are doing. It will load the install program, but after loading it becomes all Windows, and then it will fail the installation. So what we need is an old fashion flash drive. I tried using SD card adapter, it failed too. It might have something to do with the type of adapter I have. But to be safe, we should USE FLASH DRIVE.
Then we will create an installation stick with Boot Camp Assistant. Be sure to use the latest 5.1 version. And we must check downloading from Apple, because it will give you drivers you need to complete the installation. If downloading failed for some reason, we can download the files here:
Now we can finally use Boot Camp Assistant to install Windows. We must use it because Boot Camp is the only application that can create usable disk space for the installation. Disk Utility or other type of applications will not work. Apple has a very specific design for the hybrid EFI-MBR system for iMac's fusion drive.
Then the computer should restart, and very likely to stuck in black screen. Don't panic, this is because there is a bug in Apple's Boot Camp loading system. The wait time is too short, if you have many devices connected it will not load correctly. We can power off the computer by holding the power button and then power up while holding option key.
Now we should be able to boot into the installation interface, a very lowres one. If you see a highres interface it means it went to the EFI. Power down and try again. If you don't see the lowres interface, something went wrong. Boot into OSX and remove Windows through Boot Camp Assistant (actually just to kill the new partition), and then redo everything.
After installation we can set up Windows, but it will die and reboot. Don't panic, because iMac is not design for Windows. Windows thought it had some hardware failure. And then we will be able to login after rebooting, but it will stuck for a long period of time - like 20 to 30 minutes. This is because it needs to download and set up some drivers for the odd environment it encountered. Finally, we will see pop up to encourage us to install Boot Camp on Windows. We don't have to. We can always use option key went starting the computer. But it's up to you.
When shutting down Windows sometime it will fail and give you errors, this is because Windows ultimately does not work with Apple's driver very well (fusion drive or other hardware). No worry, just power down by holding the power button.
1) Created Boot Camp install USB Stick 2) Continued but had the GPT Error as screenshot depicts in original question 3) Back into Mac restarted Boot Camp, removed the partition. 4) Disk Utility to manually create a partition 5) Shutdown and Alt-Option start 5) Selected the EFI Boot and was able to choose partition 4 and all went well.
Tried to bootcamp windows 8 on my buddies mid 2010 imac desktop with a broken disk drive. I kept on getting the MBR GPT conflict error. i tried several times to install windows using bootcamp but eventually ditched it because it just wouldnt work.
After deleting the original bootcamp partition i used disk utility to add a new partition to the existing hd desigated as "free space," not mac os journaled or exfat. Then i restarted and booted into installing windows via the bootable flash drive i made with my macbook air.
diskpartselect disk 0select partition 5 (on my comp the bootcamp partitions number from was 5 not 4 because of the flash drive, just make sure you select the right partition...)format fs=NTFS label="Windows 8"exitexit
Refresh the window showing all the drives and it should now allow you to pick the partition you just formatted and install windows. Install any bootcamp software you may need once you boot into windows.
A side note... my buddy actually found a usb superdrive, which i used to try and install via a windows install dvd, but it would not detect the disc in the drive when the computer restarts and first boots into windows. I was going to try to figure out how to change the boot order to boot from the usb superdrive, but i was able to get it working with the bootable thumb drive.
I also got caught in a loop of errors between EFI being formatted incorrectly as NTFS instead of FAT32 as well as an error that said I had an MBR table. I have the latest 13 MacBook Pro with force touch trackpad.
I succeeded eventually by following this tutorial, which installs Windows from the MacBook Pro's native EFI and requires diskpart commands. I actually followed the steps starting from the steps where you install Windows, so I didn't even wipe my disk or OS X clean (I was lucky or something)!
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