Trying to avoid Boot Camps install partition.

[nicozagi]

Hello,

I have an iMac 27" 2017 model with a 128GB flash blade and a 1TB flash SSD inside. I'm on Mojave and I use the big HD for macOS and the small one for Boot Camp.

When I install Windows via Boot Camp the BC Assistant creates a 8GB partition named Wininstall that contains the Windows iso plus the support software which I would like to avoid as the flash blade has only 128GB.

I tried to do what I did with my MacBook Pro in 2015. I created a bootable flash stick instead of the mentioned partition. However, Mojave's BC Assistant doesn't let you do this anymore. It forces you to unplug all external drives in order to use it. I tried to create bootable flash sticks all day yesterday but every time I selected to boot from the USB stick a black screen appeared for 1 minute and eventually macOS started to boot up. (Tried 3 different sticks and a number of different ways)

I hope I'm doing something fairly easy wrong since the only option I see is formatting both hard drives just to install Sierra since the BC Assistant of macOS 10.13 did let you create bootable sticks (external drives).

If I recall correctly it is not possible to merge the 8GB partition with the rest of the drive without loosing the data on it.

I would like to prevent reinstalling Sierra as I just finished up migrating all data to the new Mac but feel free to suggest any ideas that involve formatting the whole iMac - got backups.

-Nicolai

 

[nudoru]

I believe this goes away once the install completes as it does need somewhere to put these files during install. I BootCamped my MacBook yesterday and looked at what the assistant did in Disk Utility prior to installing it and saw what you did but after installation this partition was gone.

 

[nicozagi]

This is different. I believe your MacBook has one hard drive only. In this case, the Boot Camp Assistant partitions one drive only and the WININSTALL vanishes. I have two separate drives and WININSTALL prevails.

However, I ended up reinstalling everything. It was one hell of a ride. In case anyone is interested:

1. I installed High Sierra.
2. I created a bootable WIN stick with a third party program (BCA broke during install)
Note: For the iMac 2017 you must use the Windows 10 April 2018 release. (hard to find as Microsoft doesn't offer it anymore)
3. I formatted the drive for WIN in FAT and GUID.
4. Installed Windows 10
Note: Before install you must format your disk via diskpart to ntfs and convert it from mbr to gpt)
5. Updated High Sierra to Mojave.

After doing this all I think it can be done with Mojave from the start but I did a number of mistakes during the process and I got tired of installing operating systems for 2 days haha.

Best of luck

-Nicolai