windows 7 demands NTFS drive

The pdf is your guide and "BOOTCAMP" is to be fomatted to NTFS (Advanced Options)

Windows on Mac really should be about 92% the same.

Windows 8 can and does support GPT and EFI now but not on my Mac - it may with newer Macs which I lack, and enabling Hyper-V also helps with stability and other issues - we have some "MacBook Air 2012 w/ Windows 8" user threads. Check for them.

There are: GPT 200MB that looks like FAT volume, HFS (200GB?) and an Apple EFI 128MB (also looks like FAT). And Windows NTFS.

Windows 7 and 8 both want to by default setup their own 100 or 320MB FAT system reserved partition that has become more important and used for boot and recovery-repairs.

Nuke the WRONG one and who knows.

Any OS and you should make your good system restore images - WinClone and Windows system restore image for Windows, Carbon Copy Cloner and TimeMachine for Mac HFS.

Agreed but in this case I tried to directly format the BOOTCAMP partition made by the boot camp assistant prior to installation and it would just not work. I then tried deleting the BOOTCAMP partition first and then formatting - this worked. Ofcourse in this case windows automatically creates a reserve partition for system(100-200mb) separately.

I have a 2010 macbook air and have NOW successfully installed Windows 7 Professional on it.

Also, this was an experiment of sorts as I am trying to evaluate the effective functioning of windows on my MBA. If I plan to reformat n reinstall everything, how much minimum space would you recommend I keep for OSX?

OS X can go on an external drive and leave you with 100% internal of Windows only, if want.

Minimum can be in the 30GB range, depending on apps, data, etc and you want more than 15% free in any case, especially when using SSDs that don't like getting 90% full (and TRIM, GC need room to work with).

People do do 100% Linux and Windows on MBAir and MBPro models. Battery is shorter and run warmer.

Not sure what or why but maybe the Lion Recovery and other hidden partition structure 'got in the way.' Lion 10.7.0 did not properly work with Boot Camp and Boot Camp 4.0 drivers were another matter as well.

my experience is that going from OS X 10.5 to .6 and/or to .7 results in partition tables that are not "happy" and OS X does benefit from format with the new OS first and then install, and to not do an "upgrade in place" as many like to.

Doing a "clean install" and using Setup Assistant gets the user to where they were but with the new OS safer and better - just need to have their backups in good shape and current.

Kid Dynamic wrote:

Also, when Windows 7 Install is telling you that it can't install on a FAT partition, there's an option to format it with NTFS without having to go back to Boot Camp and re-do it from scratch.

Thats untrue, read pg 21 & 22 of the Boot Camp manual, what to do is there.

Well, you DON'T just convert/format MSDOS to NTFS from Advanced

That is not an option, as I re-read it

You click NEXT and the installer should format it

Trying again. Will keep you posted

Ooops

Replied too fast

There was a prompt to format from Advanced. And I did

Then I clicked Next

Ang get message "setup was unable to create a new system partitition."

Any ideas?

Thanks for the tips

Will keep you posted

I'm tempted to delete the Mac partitions in the Windows install

Would that preclude a Recovery?

Just wondered if you ever solved YOUR problem?

Best

BillC

Back to the drawing board!

My Bootcamp partition just vanished :-(

Got it, thanks !

Thanks KidDynamic! Worked first up for me by selecting advanced and Format options. Windows is now going through the install process...