Vista installation on newly installed drive

[ncc1701d]

I am about to install a new (blank) hard drive to my existing 2009 Mac Pro. The Drive will then be used solely for windows (won't be a partition, but a stand alone drive, separate from my other drives which are Raid).

On the apple web site, it says that the OSX software installed will provide drivers etc. Does that mean that I should:

1) connect the drive
2) format the drive under OSX
3) run the bootcamp assist...

... and all will be good?

Thanks

 

[gr8tfly]

Almost:

1) Connect the Drive
2) run Boot Camp Assistant to prepare the drive - it will let you select which internal drive, and set it up with a single Windows partition
3) install Vista - format the drive during installation, taking great care to select the proper drive.
4) install the Boot Camp drivers using the Leopard install DVD (or your Mac Pro Restore DVD disk 1)

 

[ncc1701d]

Almost:

1) Connect the Drive
2) run Boot Camp Assistant to prepare the drive - it will let you select which internal drive, and set it up with a single Windows partition
3) install Vista - format the drive during installation, taking great care to select the proper drive.
4) install the Boot Camp drivers using the Leopard install DVD (or your Mac Pro Restore DVD disk 1)

Thanks gr8fly! Off to buy vista now!

Um, Fred... how did you manage to thank the fly before he posted??!!
(I did do a search with no results and looked through the first 2 pages, so apologies if this is an old q )

 

[ncc1701d]

Almost:
2) run Boot Camp Assistant to prepare the drive - it will let you select which internal drive, and set it up with a single Windows partition

I have connected my new drive that I'm going to use solely for Windows. It says it couldn't recognise the drive and if I wanted to format it. I used Disk Utility to format it as OSX (Journaled). The drive is now recognised and sitting on my desktop

Bootcamp assist is not giving me the option to use the newly formatted drive. All it keeps asking me is how much of my main drive do I want to partition to install Windows. Any ideas? Thanks.

 

[gr8tfly]

From Page 7 of the "Boot Camp Installation & Setup Guide":

Creating a Partition on a Computer with Multiple Internal Disks
If you are installing Windows on a computer with more than one internal disk, select
which disk to partition for Windows. You can:

• create a second partition for Windows on any internal disk
• erase a non-startup disk and create a single partition for Windows

If you have already partitioned a disk, you can restore it to a single Mac OS X partition.
In the “Create or Remove a Windows Partition” window, select a disk to see the options available for that disk.

Important: If you want to install Boot Camp on a partition of a disk that doesn’t appear
in the list and the disk isn’t in the first hard drive bay, you may need to remove drives in
the lower numbered bays.​

I don't have a Mac Pro to test this on, so I'd have to defer to someone who has. If it's not showing up as a drive to use, it might need to move to a different bay? Just a guess.

(you can print (or print to PDF) the Guide from the "Print Installation & Setup Guide" button)

 

[ncc1701d]

From Page 7 of the "Boot Camp Installation & Setup Guide":

Creating a Partition on a Computer with Multiple Internal Disks
If you are installing Windows on a computer with more than one internal disk, select
which disk to partition for Windows. You can:

• create a second partition for Windows on any internal disk
• erase a non-startup disk and create a single partition for Windows

If you have already partitioned a disk, you can restore it to a single Mac OS X partition.
In the “Create or Remove a Windows Partition” window, select a disk to see the options available for that disk.

Important: If you want to install Boot Camp on a partition of a disk that doesn’t appear
in the list and the disk isn’t in the first hard drive bay, you may need to remove drives in
the lower numbered bays.​

I don't have a Mac Pro to test this on, so I'd have to defer to someone who has. If it's not showing up as a drive to use, it might need to move to a different bay? Just a guess.

(you can print (or print to PDF) the Guide from the "Print Installation & Setup Guide" button)

Hi, thanks, this is getting too hard and a bit out of my depth I'm on apple support now and don't think this is going to go too well!

Thanks again for your reply.

 

[gr8tfly]

Hi, thanks, this is getting too hard and a bit out of my depth I'm on apple support now and don't think this is going to go too well!

Thanks again for your reply.

Sometimes, this method is just a bit too detached (disjointed?). They should be able to get you setup.

 

[ncc1701d]

I'm telling apple that I have 4 hard drives, first 3 on raid using a raid card. The 4th is separate, formatted and not in any raid configuration. They are telling me that since there is a raid card on the computer, that the 4th drive can not be used for bootcamp, regardless if it is raided or not (which it isn't). I don't think this is the case and what you wrote above is the problem.

 

[Trainwreck707]

Another way to do it is without BootCamp.

Insert the windows install disc. Shut down and remove the Mac drive (so you dont re-format the incorrect drive). Restart and follow the instructions to re-format the new drive and install windows. Then insert the Leopard disc to install the drivers and BootCamp add-ons. When you are finished, shut down and put the Mac drive back in. From then on, hold option at startup to select the correct drive to boot from.

I didn't see your above post when I wrote this. I don't know much about raid configurations.

 

[nepolean77]

Microsoft on a Apple

I did not know you can run windows on the apple computers are you saying I can run windows on my apple Mac?

 

[gr8tfly]

I'm telling apple that I have 4 hard drives, first 3 on raid using a raid card. The 4th is separate, formatted and not in any raid configuration. They are telling me that since there is a raid card on the computer, that the 4th drive can not be used for bootcamp, regardless if it is raided or not (which it isn't). I don't think this is the case and what you wrote above is the problem.

Interesting. Again, unfortunately, I can only go by what research I've done (not having my own Mac Pro to play with ). I'm guessing the 3 drives are a striped/mirror configuration.

My experimental side says to pull the striped drives out, and return to a single drive configuration. Then, get the Boot Camp drive partitioned. Once that's done, you can return the RAID to the original configuration and, hopefully, be able to do the Vista installation. However, Apple's reasoning could be due to a limitation in the Mac Pro's EFI firmware. It might not allow dual-booting in that configuration. (Anyone else? - chime in please )

(I see trainwreck707's idea - sounds similar to my thoughts. I know you must use Boot Camp Assistant to setup a partition on a single drive, but you might get away without it when using a full drive. I think you do need to at least initialize it with a GUID partition table, though.)

 

[gr8tfly]

I did not know you can run windows on the apple computers are you saying I can run windows on my apple Mac?

If it's an Intel processor, yes. It can boot natively to Windows using Boot Camp.

Also, virtualization works very well, since most of the code runs natively (Parallels, VMWare). The advantage to that is it can run as an application in OS-X (you remain booted in OS-X).

 

[ncc1701d]

From then on, hold option at startup to select the correct drive to boot from.

thanks Trainwreck. (And gr8tfly).

Will I have to hold the option key down for every restart or just when I want to start in Windows?

Having to hold it down even when wanting to start the normal OSX will be a pain in the backside. I won't be using Windows that much

 

[gr8tfly]

thanks Trainwreck. (And gr8tfly).

Will I have to hold the option key down for every restart or just when I want to start in Windows?

Having to hold it down even when wantign to start the normal OSX will be a pain in the backside. I won't be using Windows that much

You can switch between them using Startup Disk (System Preferences OS-X, an application in Windows).

But, I leave my system set to boot off of OS-X, and use the "opt" method when I want to boot into Windows. That way, I don't need to change anything (I leave Startup Disk alone), and if I forget, it will default to booting to OS-X.

 

[ncc1701d]

You can switch between them using Startup Disk (System Preferences OS-X, an application in Windows).

But, I leave my system set to boot off of OS-X, and use the "opt" method when I want to boot into Windows. That way, I don't need to change anything (I leave Startup Disk alone), and if I forget, it will default to booting to OS-X.

Yes, I think that's how it normally works. I have that set up on an iMac. But didn't know if it would be different with the set up Trainwreck was advocating. Thanks again!

 

[Trainwreck707]

I have my Windows drive in bay 2. At startup it boots directly to Leopard unless you hold option.

Installing Windows without using the Boot Camp Assistant will give the same results as using it. Once you install the drivers and add-ons from the Leopard install disc, you will not be able to tell the difference.