Bootcamp partition not ntfs

Despite all the (unhelpful) cries of RTFM, the solution might be to unplug any USB devices besides one for installing Windows. I think that is what solved my problem like what you described.

Everyone is correct, but the volume of messages is a bit staggering. (less is more, sometimes)

When the windows setup cd boots for the first time (or second time if your ready to blow away the fat partition with an NTFS one)

Click on your FAT boot camp partition

Click advanced options,

Click on format the partition.

Then after the format, (For context only) windows will proceed to copy the installation files to the disk, decompress, reboot half a dozen times, set up or initial user name and password and device name.

Hope this helps.

Chuck.

I am still getting the error message after doing the format:

Windows cannot be installed to this disk. The selected disk has an MBR partition table. On EFI systems, Windows can only be installed to GPT disks.

Windows cannot be installed to this disk. This computer's hardware may not support booting to this disk. Ensure that the disk's controller is enabled in the computers BIOS menu.

Seriously about to lose my cool with this. No idea what all these abbreviations mean and everyone just keeps saying "format your disk! its so easy!"

Tried formating it probably 15 times so far exactly as instructed but this error message continues to pop up. I dont have any external drives as unobs recommended disconnecting for a solution.

Any thoughts?

You are having a different problem which is why reformatting isn't fixing it. The problem isn't the format of the partition, it's the partition scheme of the disk is GPT only instead of MBR and it's probably because you have too many partitions on the disk, so Bootcamp isn't supported in such a configuration.

Post the result from this command in Terminal:

sudo gpt -r -vv show disk0

Thank you! This is exactly the information I needed. It's not clear that you need to click "Format" to proceed. Many thanks!

got the same problem here, just solved (today) by :

1. make sure you have a Windows 8 DVD on hand.

2. follow the bootcamp assistant instruction to create an USB installation disk.

3. press "option" during the first reboot.

4. choose to boot from Windows DVD, and following the procedures.

5. run the bootcamp setup from the USB installation disk after the completion of the Win8 installation.

Enjoy!

--------------------

mac mini (late 2012), i7 2.3ghz, 10gb ram, 240gb adata ssd

hello there, same problem here i am facing with the bootcamp partition on mavricks, during installation of windows7 it gives me message saying that this partition is fat32 and that windows only will be installed on ntfs format, i tried to format it during installation but the option is not available, any suggestions ?????????

Teafs wrote:

hello there, same problem here i am facing with the bootcamp partition on mavricks, during installation of windows7 it gives me message saying that this partition is fat32 and that windows only will be installed on ntfs format, i tried to format it during installation but the option is not available, any suggestions ?????????

How did you try to format it? Did you select the advanced option in Boot Camp Assistant when you saw that message?

thanks BobTheFisherman , first i didn't recognise to click on format button in the advanced option cause it didn't give me the option to choose the type of format

but finally i did 🙂

thanks for your response

Hei, you did some question about a problem with windows installing, and Justin Schier gave you the answer. It would be very good for everyone if you would just click on him as (This solve my problem) because it makes the life of everyone that will have this problem in the future cos they will not need to read everything to find the answer of this question.

This is how it works, and it must be, help us to have a good database, please.

Christopher Murphy wrote:

Post the result from this command in Terminal:

sudo gpt -r -vv show disk0

Hi Christopher. Just jumping in here since your advice looked like it might go somewhere. I've just done the:

sudo gpt -r -vv show disk1

in Terminal and get this:

gpt show: disk1: mediasize=750156374016; sectorsize=512; blocks=1465149168

gpt show: disk1: Suspicious MBR at sector 0

gpt show: disk1: Pri GPT at sector 1

gpt show: disk1: Sec GPT at sector 1465149167

start size index contents

0 1 MBR

1 1 Pri GPT header

2 32 Pri GPT table

34 6

40 409600 1 GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B

409640 1364104400 2 GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC

1364514040 262920

1364776960 100370432 3 GPT part - EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7

1465147392 1743

1465149135 32 Sec GPT table

1465149167 1 Sec GPT header

Any thoughts on this?

Background: I'm trying to install Windows 8 on a partition on disk1. I'm at the point of having (so I thought) wiped the HDD completely to make things easier. I want a fresh install of Windows 8 on one partition (NTFS) and a bunch of data (photos, music) on another partition (Mac OS journaled). The Mac OS journaled partition doesn't need to be bootable since my installation of OS 10.9 is now on a SSD (disk0) that I recently installed (with symlinks to the music and photos folders on disk1, which I can easily update later on). These seems like it should be straightforward, but I've hit an impasse:

1. If I try to let BootCamp manage the partitions, it won't get past the error message "The disk cannot be partitioned because some files cannot be moved." I've tried erasing the whole disk several times in Disk Utility, formatting it as a single Mac OS partition (using Partition Layout: 1 Partition). I've tried letting BootCamp "restore disk to a single OS X partition." But each time I get the same error message that some files cannot be moved.

2. I've tried letting my Windows installer take care of the partitions, with the hope of reformatting one of them to Mac OS journaled at a later stage. I use the tools within the installer to delete all partitions from disk1 and then add a couple of new ones: one for Windows 8, one for my Mac data. This way I have no trouble installing Windows, and then using the BootCamp installer (from my USB thumb drive with the Windows installer on it) from within Windows to install all the right drivers and allow me to see the Mac folders on the SSD. Great. But then there is no way of reformatting the partition that I've set aside for my Mac data on disk1 either within Windows or OS 10.9. Disk Utility freezes at something like "preparing to format volume".

I'm hoping some of the data I've posted above from the Terminal output is the key. Something to do with 'suspicious MBR at sector 0'?

Seems as though it could be unrelated to boot camp and several solutions were possible under various edge cases.

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-windows_install/setup -was-unable-to-create-a-new-system-partition/c3aac4dd-63d5-4c62-8580-16ce60e3abc e

1) The First poster forgot they had added an additional physical internal drive. Removing all but one drive resolved their issue.

2) Poster 2 appears to actually be an over caffeinated ground hog pet who sneeks out at night hoping to facebook but only relives the same day, commenting in endless run on sentences, (I mock with my own) that seem to stream and then loop back around so that your never sure if they escaped their self-induced nightmare which ends oddly with being dominated by Microsoft Word Overlords. Feel good for your situation, others clearly have it worse.

3) Poster 3 was delightful, "I had a couple USB drives connected to my computer I disconnected those and restarted my computer and the installation and it worked!" See wasn’t that nice brief and useful?

4) Poster 4 was an unrepentant need to have extra hard drives at install time for some reason. Clearly a scsi drive addict or IDE drive heretic. When last he did post it seemed he was still in denial about his extra image collection drives being the origin of his social problem. Ok so how’s it feel to be perfect with those drives and stuck in install **** Bucky Boy!? Some people can help themselves despite themselves. Probably the kind guy who likes to have the police chase him when he gets pulled over for a left turn light out.

5) Poster 6 had a machine that worked like may do, by complete random chance. He got grace when he set a rational less than random setting on his IDE master slave binding switches.

6) Poster 7 had no luck and remains unrepentant in Windows Purgatory from 2011 to Present day. Probably upgraded back to windows 3.11. Hi Dad!

7) Poster 8 has the same crisis as poster 4, same layer of windows ****. They are probably friends in that Layer with NSA and Bill Gates.

8) Poster 8 had his son raid two drives into one and will be quickly following posters 4 and 8 into the Abyss until he removes the raid and completes a Raid exorcism on both raid drives his progeny did cause to do evil in the sight of the Lord.

9) Poster 9 found forgiveness by removing extra drives, seeking counseling and has stopped beating his ... wife, dog, horse, neighbor, ah yes himself up about it and moved on.

The last two posters wouldn’t know a clue if it looked like a flesh eating zombie and bit an arm or leg off them or went for the grey matter.

Hope one of these posted gems may help someone who attempting to get unstuck.

slight change a moment after posting. CF

Message edited by: ChuckFinley - minor narrative change for poster 4 clarity. By the way, all poster deceptions are satire or opinion pick one and have a nice day.

Message edited by: ChuckFinley - minor narrative change for poster 4 clarity. By the way, all poster depictions are satire or opinions pick one and have a nice day.

Indeed it could nbe that they were too many paritions

Here is what worked for my Macbook late 2013: I simply (besides of the Mac OsX and the recovery partitions), I created free space from the disk utility (not Bootcamp!!!) for the future partition dedicated to the Windows installation. (Windows 8.1 for me).

I left the free space as such and then with the bootcamp I created a boot disk with the Windows files on it. Then I restarted the Macbook with the alt key maintained pressed and started the installation from the usb drive represented by the EFI disk (orange disk).

When getting to the Windows partition creation I just created the NTFS partition on it ("new") and carried on with the Windows installation and that was it...

THIS!

Thanks for this solution. It worked for me. And this is after years of giving up on BootCamp and then finally not being lazy enough to search for an answer.

Had a similar problem with a 2014 iMac with a fusion drive. I have installed Windows partitions on about 20 machines and never had a problem until this one. I tried several times following the instructions and got the error after formatting the BootCamp partition that Windows cannot install on that partition. I finally found the post about removing external USB drives and after starting over from the beginning, everything worked as it should. Weird, low-level BS, but what Apple is doing here is pretty complicated so it's not that surprising. For the record, I had the USB stick with the Apple software on it because otherwise the mouse and keyboard don't work.