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tal1971 Author

Level 2

302 points

A few Boot Camp questions

I have had my iMac for almost a month now. I've found that I only need Windows for a few programs and my girlfriend needs Windows too for some of her CD rom's.

I was going to get Parallels Desktop 8 for the convenience of not needing to re-boot the iMac when I wanted to run a Windows program. But with me not needing to use the Windows programs, CD rom's often I thought I could save myself the price of Parallels Desktop.

I thought I could at least give Boot Camp a go and see how I find it.

I was wondering what amount of space is it recommended to partition for Boot Camp based on the below?

I would be installing Windows 7, HP printing software (for my girlfriends card making CD roms which only run on Windows) and perhaps another 4 small programs.

If I created the Boot Camp partition and then decided later that I either wanted to increase or decrease this partition, is it posssible without wiping the Boot Camp partition?

Is there any performance increase or decrease by using Boot Camp instead of Parallels Desktop 8 and vice versa?

If I took a Time Machine backup would the Boot Camp partition be backed up too?

When I took a clone of my system with Carbon Copy Cloner, would this backup the Boot Camp partition too?

Before I started I would take a Clone of my system with Carbon Copy Cloner and also a Time Machine backup, in case something got messed up 🙂

iMac (27-inch, Late 2012), OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2), iPad (3rd Gen) 32GB iPhone 5 32GB

Posted on Feb 19, 2013 8:41 AM

21 replies

tal1971 Author

Level 2

302 points

Feb 20, 2013 1:12 AM in response to Csound1

Csound1 wrote:

It's a seperate utility, VBox Manager (from their website) but use a dynamic disk, it is far more efficient and just as fast.

I cannot seem to find this on the Virtual Box website, this is a seperate application/utility from the Virtual Box application that I previously downloaded and intalled on my Mac?

tal1971 Author

Level 2

302 points

Feb 20, 2013 1:16 AM in response to Csound1

Csound1 wrote:

OH, you should have chosen dynamic, do it again, there is no need for fixed space storage. Just take all the defaults (except Ram which for XP should be 512MB to 1GB).

Does this mean that I've got to reinstall Windows all over again to correct this or can it be altered without the need to reinstall?

I have a fair amount of ram in my iMac (24 GB) so I chose 4GB when I installed Virtual Box and Windows 7 64 bit, is this not advisable or should I alter this to 1GB.

Thanks very much for all the help its much appreciated 🙂

Csound1

Level 9

59,973 points

Feb 20, 2013 6:12 AM in response to tal1971

It's all command line, search the site support section, once again I am recommending NOT using the static disk, so this is your choice.

Csound1

Level 9

59,973 points

Feb 20, 2013 6:14 AM in response to tal1971

tal1971 wrote:

Csound1 wrote:

OH, you should have chosen dynamic, do it again, there is no need for fixed space storage. Just take all the defaults (except Ram which for XP should be 512MB to 1GB).

Does this mean that I've got to reinstall Windows all over again to correct this or can it be altered without the need to reinstall?

I have a fair amount of ram in my iMac (24 GB) so I chose 4GB when I installed Virtual Box and Windows 7 64 bit, is this not advisable or should I alter this to 1GB.

Thanks very much for all the help its much appreciated 🙂

Yes, reinstall and take the defaults except for Ram, with Windows XP 1G is sufficient but more won't hurt. For Windows 7 use 4G or more.

tal1971 Author

Level 2

302 points

Feb 20, 2013 8:26 AM in response to Csound1

Csound1 wrote:

tal1971 wrote:

Csound1 wrote:

OH, you should have chosen dynamic, do it again, there is no need for fixed space storage. Just take all the defaults (except Ram which for XP should be 512MB to 1GB).

Does this mean that I've got to reinstall Windows all over again to correct this or can it be altered without the need to reinstall?

I have a fair amount of ram in my iMac (24 GB) so I chose 4GB when I installed Virtual Box and Windows 7 64 bit, is this not advisable or should I alter this to 1GB.

Thanks very much for all the help its much appreciated 🙂

Yes, reinstall and take the defaults except for Ram, with Windows XP 1G is sufficient but more won't hurt. For Windows 7 use 4G or more.

Thanks Csound for the help its much appreciated.

I've reinstalled Virtual Box and Windows again and choose the dynamic option this time 🙂. I chose 40 GB this time instead of 25 GB. If I did use all the 40 GB up would Virtual Box now increase the 40 GB partition to grow to the space it needs to, to accomadate the extra data?

For the ram I chose 8GB, but from looking at the settings it can be altered later if required.

I really like Virtual Box, it feels smooth, and fast enough for my uses. I'm very surprised that its a free application. The only issue I have had with it is I cannot use my USB 3 thumb drive as from what I've read Virtual Box isnt compatable with USB 3 devices. Until you mentioned it I wasnt aware of Virtual Box, thanks very much for mentioning it to me.

Csound1

Level 9

59,973 points

Feb 20, 2013 8:30 AM in response to tal1971

tal1971 wrote:

Csound1 wrote:

tal1971 wrote:

Csound1 wrote:

OH, you should have chosen dynamic, do it again, there is no need for fixed space storage. Just take all the defaults (except Ram which for XP should be 512MB to 1GB).

Does this mean that I've got to reinstall Windows all over again to correct this or can it be altered without the need to reinstall?

I have a fair amount of ram in my iMac (24 GB) so I chose 4GB when I installed Virtual Box and Windows 7 64 bit, is this not advisable or should I alter this to 1GB.

Thanks very much for all the help its much appreciated 🙂

Yes, reinstall and take the defaults except for Ram, with Windows XP 1G is sufficient but more won't hurt. For Windows 7 use 4G or more.

Thanks Csound for the help its much appreciated.

I've reinstalled Virtual Box and Windows again and choose the dynamic option this time 🙂. I chose 40 GB this time instead of 25 GB. If I did use all the 40 GB up would Virtual Box now increase the 40 GB partition to grow to the space it needs to, to accomadate the extra data?

For the ram I chose 8GB, but from looking at the settings it can be altered later if required.

I really like Virtual Box, it feels smooth, and fast enough for my uses. I'm very surprised that its a free application. The only issue I have had with it is I cannot use my USB 3 thumb drive as from what I've read Virtual Box isnt compatable with USB 3 devices. Until you mentioned it I wasnt aware of Virtual Box, thanks very much for mentioning it to me.

VBox will increase the space available as required (there is no Windows partition with a V, it's a big file stored in OSX)

8G of Ram is more then needed for XP, but that won't hurt anything. Knowing VBox I would bet that USB3 will be added at some time.

And ..... You're welcome.

A few Boot Camp questions