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I didn't realise boot camp required some partitioning of the hard drive before running so rather than delete and start again have been checking out time limited versions of vmware and parallels with a view to a later purchase. One allows 15 days and the other around 30. I tried parallels first and then went to vmware, which has been much easier to set up internet access -send and receive emails, browse webpages download linux software. There are a few glitches. The sound doesn't work unless the mouse is above the recording and things disappear like menus. Both P and VM let you run Windows and Linux. However, there are limits to what can be run. The first items I tried to use in Parallels were gOS and Kubuntu. They weren't on the list. I am now using Mandriva 2008 running off an iso file on another partition with VMWare. Most of the Windows versions are there though going way back to 3.1 The coherence.unity features seem to be limited to Windows.

Belinda

Hi Belinda,

"so rather than delete and start again"

You do realise that boot camp assistant will partition on the fly (i.e. no need to delete/format anything) will just resize your mac partition (again, with no deleting files etc) and then create a partition for windows. You can do this as many times as you want (i.e. remove boot camp partition and then make a new one with a different size). There are also some great boot camp partition backup utils (like winclone).

FYI Leopard also supports on-the-fly disk partitioning in disk utility.


Jay.

I attempted a partition with DU but opted not to go any further when it said it would erase the data on the drive. So I don't think it partitions on the fly.

I also got this message from boot camp assistant:

[color=]The startup disk must be formatted as a single Mac OS Extended (Journaled) volume or already partitioned by Boot Camp Assistant for installing Windows.

I didn't partition my drive using bootcamp and it is not a single extended journalled volume.

Belinda

Are you running Tiger or Leopard. If Tiger then no, Disk Utility will not do on the fly partitioning. If Leopard then yes it will.

Boot Camp will do partitioning on the fly though. But you need to have at least 10Gb more than what you are setting the partition to. Not sure about the Erasing message because Boot Camp doesn't erase anything when making the partition, unless you already have a Boot Camp partition in which case it will destroy that the next time you run Boot Camp Assistant.

Ultimately I prefer Parallels because they update more regularly but then VMWare is kind of the industry standard so it's really a matter of where and how you want to use virtualisation. In a corporate sector where virtualisation is needed for testing and the like then VMWare is the way to go. For personal use I recommend Parallels. I've not had many problems connecting to the internet with it at all, well not after installing Parallels Tools anyway.

I am running 10.5.1 on a recent iMac and getting messages about Boot Camp erasing the data. I already have an empty partition that has been formatted as msdos that could be used but I don't want to risk losing data on the other two partitions, which are guid formatted.

Belinda

Can you provide a screenshot?

It should not be deleting anything as it's only using free space to make the partition.

I have attached a jpeg of what I get when I start to run bootcamp assistant.

NOTE The site has resisted attempts to upload an image. Will try again later

Belinda

Please see the jpeg image that I have uploaded (within the 700x700 pixels)
Apologies but I ran out of editing rights on the previous email.
Belinda

Hey Belinda,

Have you partitioned your startup disk? Basically boot camp assistant in leopard is a glorified paritioner, it doesn't even have the drivers (the betas did but in leopard they are on the leopard dvd).

I didn't even use boot camp assistant to install windows since I have a triple boot setup (OS X, windows and mint linux - which is pretty neat). I remember you saying you had a spare partition, you could just install windows on that. Just startup holding C with the windows disk in the drive and install from there. Just make sure you install on the right partition in the windows setup.

Or you could just use disk utility to remove/resize your other partitions and then create a new partition.

Can you post a shot of disk utility's partition tab (once you've clicked on your main startup drive)? Then we'll be able to see the partition layout and see what's up.


Jay.

There's a couple of things that this could be.

When you run partitioning does it show a slider box with the two partitions? If so then the problem is lack of space for Boot Camp to do anything in which case either free up some space or leave it as it is. Even if you are wanting say a 5Gb partition for Windows you will need at least 10Gb free to allow partitioning to do its thing.

If you don't see the two partition boxes then you already have a Boot Camp partition setup therefore you won't need to run this and can install Windows anyway.