How to partition in order to run Boot Camp

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How to partition in order to run Boot Camp

I have an iMac 9.1 Intel Core 2 Duo running Mac OS X 10.6.8.

I have also downloaded the correct version of Boot Camp and saved to an external USB formatted for MS-DOS (FAT32).

I am running Boot Camp Assistant. Problem is when I get to the option where I am to download the software to install the Boot Camp drivers (I select "Download the Windows support software for this Mac" because I do not have the Mac OS X installation disc that came with my iMac), it tells me the following:

"The startup disk cannot be partitioned or restored to a single partition. The startup disk must be formatted as a single Mac OS Extended (Journaled) volume already partitioned by Boot Camp Assistant for installing Windows."

Posted on Jul 11, 2014 4:33 PM

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Answer 1

Jul 11, 2014 8:46 PM in response to pacobell73

It is not giving you that message because you do not have the original start up disc for your Mac. It is giving you that message because you have more than one partition on the boot drive in your Mac. The way that BootCamp works is that it creates the required partitions on your Mac boot drive. Due to limitations of Windows, you can only have up to 4 primary partitions on your drive, and the Boot Camp installation process wants to use at least 3 of those. If you already have more than one partition on the drive, they can't guarantee that you will be able to access all your partitions properly, so it tells you that you need to re-create a single partition on your boot drive.

If you have a good system clone, you should still be able to use the Disk Utility to restore the drive back to a single partition. Doing this could cause corruption if not done properly, that is why I suggest having a good clone before you try.

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