How long should it take Boot Camp to partition a drive?

[atthesing]

Hello,

I'm using Boot Camp for the first time, and I'm trying to partition my 2nd hard drive. It isn't the drive that has Mac OS X on it, but that shouldn't matter right?

I let it run for almost 50 minutes, and it just kept saying "Partitioning Disk…"
So I quit it, and the drive didn't appear to be changed at all.

I've started it again in hopes that it will work.
Am I just being impatient or is something amiss?

Any help is greatly appreciated.
I'm on a 2 month old Mac Book Pro, if that matters.

Thanks.

 

[richard.mac]

how are you partitioning a second hard drive on your MacBook Pro? you mean your external hard drive? you cant install Windows on an external. Boot Camp Assistant will only partition your boot hard drive (where Mac OS X is installed). if you had a Mac Pro you could probably install windows on your second internal hard drive without partitioning.

restart your Mac and follow the 'fsck' guide to repair your hard drive to reclaim your space back then try to partition with Boot Camp Assistant again.

 

[atthesing]

I'm dumb. I'm on a Mac Pro (used to have a PowerBook)

It isn't an external drive, it is just my second hard drive.

 

[richard.mac]

ok then dont use Boot Camp Assistant. in Disk Utility you can partition your second hard drive without formatting. then just boot into the Windows install and format and install on the partition. make sure you note which partition to install just in case as you dont want to format your OS X partition.

 

[atthesing]

Thanks for the help.

What I did was use the Disk Utility and erase my 2nd hard drive and make sure it was Mac OS X Extended (Journaled) I didn't have anything saved on it so it was fine.

I went back into the boot camp assistant and it worked without a hitch. Windows XP is on my computer now.