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Need help with creating partition for 32bit games

I upgraded to Catalina without knowing my 32 bit Steam games would no longer be supported, my bad. On the Steam website, they recommend installing Bootcamp or creating a new mac partition with an older version of OSX. I'd rather not use Bootcamp since it takes up too much space and most of my games are mac games. So a new partition it is!

I followed all the steps to create a bootable installer on a USB stick (tried creating installers for both Mojave and High Sierra) using the Terminal but when I try to reboot using the installation startup disk, I just get a prohibition sign.

Here's what I've done so far:

created a new partition using 'disk utility' (which seemed surprisingly easy)
unchecked the "ignore ownership on this volume" box (usb -> get info)
Made sure the usb was formatted as "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)"
successfully created a bootable installer on a usb using the Terminal
rebooted while holding the option key, and selected the installer usb

But then I just get the prohibition sign...

I also tried SHIFT + OPTION + COMMAND + R which brought me to a Mavericks installer, but when I got to the part where I had to pick the disk to install it on, it didn't show any disks. The new partition didn't show up.

So... Am I trying something impossible? Am I not seeing something obvious?

I'd rather not completely wipe my computer, and I don't use Time Machine so that's not an option, unfortunately. Thanks for reading!

MacBook Pro 13", macOS 10.15

Posted on Dec 6, 2019 6:22 AM

Top-ranking reply

Princess Lettuce Author

Level 1

5 points

Posted on Dec 6, 2019 7:45 AM

Ok I solved it, though it surprises me that this detail was never listed in any tutorial I found. When formatting my usb in Disk Utility, I chose 'mac os extended (journaled)' and this time also selected "Scheme: Apple Partition Map." and that seems to have done it. I have a separate partition running High Sierra now and my Steam games work just fine.

Only bummer is that the partition itself seems to take up around 16gb of space just to exist. Going to see if I can fix that using omnidisksweeper and/or daisydisk. Hope my post helps others out, since I did see quite a few posts about people being upset because they couldn't play their 32 bit Steam games anymore.

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Need help with creating partition for 32bit games

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