Clean install without touching Bootcamp?

[digitalmatt]

Can I wipe OSX and do a clean install without screwing up my bootcamp partition? I have done several OSX upgrades (was a n00b) and want to do a clean install of Mountain Lion, but would like to not have to reinstall windows 7 and everything else I have running in bootcamp. Many thanks!

 

[Kasalic]

Should be ok, although I've never tried it myself.

As long as you only partition and format the Mac OS volume you should be fine. Can't guarantee though, and I would ALWAYS make a clone of the entire drive to recover to in case of problems.

 

[digitalmatt]

what do you recommend for cloning the drive?

 

[old-wiz]

I use SuperDuper, which will clone the osx partition. It gives you a bootable backup.

Others prefer CCC, which can copy the osx partition plus the recovery partition.

 

[RedRaven571]

Should be ok, although I've never tried it myself.

As long as you only partition and format the Mac OS volume you should be fine. Can't guarantee though, and I would ALWAYS make a clone of the entire drive to recover to in case of problems.

Have done this 4 times recently (fresh install 10.8.1, revert to SL (fresh install), fresh install 10.8.3, fresh install revert to SL); only erased/reformated OSX partition, Win XP bootcamp was untouched and functional each time.

 

[Kasalic]

Have done this 4 times recently (fresh install 10.8.1, revert to SL (fresh install), fresh install 10.8.3, fresh install revert to SL); only erased/reformated OSX partition, Win XP bootcamp was untouched and functional each time.

Thanks for the confirmation, and I use Carbon Copy Cloner, but then I have a Pro Licence which allows me to use it to work on 3rd party machines, and it has never failed to do what I need.