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chfilm

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Nov 15, 2012
3,426
2,110
Berlin
Hi,
I'm trying to play AoE4 on bootcamp on my Mac Pro. I do have the following persisting issue though: I start the mac, press alt. Choose the bootcamp partition, see the windows logo, then my ProDisplay XDR just stays black indefinitely. It used to work sometimes, but now I just always get the same result. Any idea why that might be?

After that I decided since it's not working I might just delete the bootcamp partition entirely - but the bootcamp assistant won't let me because it says I need to remove all external harddrives. I did - but it still complains. Do you guys think that is because of my Sonnet 4x4 Raid Card, and there's no way to remove bootcamp while this card is still physically installed?

Thanks!
 

DrEGPU

macrumors regular
Apr 17, 2020
192
82
This is one of my major complaints with MacOS. Any drive that isn’t apple’s or a slower sata drive is considered external, even if it is internal as you point out. So yes, you’ll have to remove the sonnet card.

Edit: That said, it is possible to install windows to an external drive using a different computer and then you can stick that in your sonnet or other pcie-nvme card. The first boot up in the Mac Pro will take a little while and you’ll want to download the Bootcamp drivers separately. This can be found with a little googling.
 
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chfilm

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Nov 15, 2012
3,426
2,110
Berlin
This is one of my major complaints with MacOS. Any drive that isn’t apple’s or a slower sata drive is considered external, even if it is internal as you point out. So yes, you’ll have to remove the sonnet card.

Edit: That said, it is possible to install windows to an external drive using a different computer and then you can stick that in your sonnet or other pcie-nvme card. The first boot up in the Mac Pro will take a little while and you’ll want to download the Bootcamp drivers separately. This can be found with a little googling.
Hm I dont wanna install bootcamp on an external drive, just want it either to work normally, or to be able to remove it entirely :(
 

strangerthanlight

macrumors member
Mar 17, 2021
68
37
You could do that in disk utility I think, just be careful not to touch the Mac related partitions.

When installing Windows on boot camp I would just disconnect the SATA power connector and remove Sonnet PCIe cards, some times having a USB hub with external storage may impact as well.
 

RetroDan

macrumors regular
Dec 17, 2015
112
150
Michigan
I had a lot of issues dealing with Bootcamp on the 7,1 when I tried to get it on my NVME drive. I did ultimately get it installed on an SSD which I then transferred to a PCIe riser, but it irritated me a lot that I had shelled out cash for an NVME for Windows that I couldn't use.

I tried Winclone 9, doing their supposed Volume-to-Volume clone, but that not only didn't work (would boot to a black desktop or hang on the spinning dots), following their instructions actually buggered the original Bootcamp I was trying to clone that had served me well in my original 2012 cMP. I got a refund for Winclone 9 and dealt with SSD speeds for a month or two.

However, last night I saw that Winclone 10, recently released, offers a new feature called Quick Install, which allows you to install Windows extremely quickly from within macOS via an ISO - it seriously took me around 2 minutes to install onto a 2TB Samsung 970 Evo Plus on a 4x4 Amfeltec Squid. (If you go this route, be sure to change the Install version from Windows 10 Pro N Workstation, which is the default. I didn't notice this on my first install, which caused some driver incompatibility as N versions don't have certain features and .dll files that, for example, AMD drivers need for the AMD Radeon Software to work). Using the Boot Camp Assistant to download the driver package, mount the new Windows volume under Winclone, drop the WindowsDrivers folder into it, and then you can simply boot into Windows via the Option key or Startup Disk, finish your install, then navigate to your WindowsDrivers folder and run (as Administrator - this is important) the Bootcamp driver installer. Restart, and you're good to go.

I know this is going to come off as shilling for a corporation, but I'm really not affiliated with them, and I blasted them over Winclone 9 destroying my original Bootcamp install, but if you use the WINCLONE10 coupon code, you can get the software 50% off right now, which is about $25, which I honestly feel is worth it.

Speed.png
 
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