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Zarquon42 Author

Level 1

104 points

Can't create Windows partition on roll-your-own Fusion drive

I've created my own Fusion drive from an internal SATA HDD and an SSD in the optical drive PATA port on a 2008 iMac. I now want to use Boot Camp. Boot Camp won't create a partition on my Fusion drive because, apparently, it thinks I'm using an external drive. When I use Disk Utility to partition the drive, it creates a 300GB partition when I've asked for a 47GB partition, leaving me almost no free space on my main partition.

What's going on here? Why is Disk Utility misbehaving? Is there a way to make Disk Utility create a ~40GB partition on my Fusion drive? Perhaps by creating it as an HFS+ partition, then reformatting it, or using the command line version of Disk Utility? I'm reticent to experiment as this is my main machine, and I've heard horror stories about hosing drives in this manner.

iMac, OS X Yosemite (10.10)

Posted on Feb 16, 2015 9:31 AM

45 replies

Zarquon42 Author

Level 1

104 points

Feb 20, 2015 11:56 AM in response to Loner T

I'm sorry, I don't know what you want. fdisk by itself doesn't do anything useful.

Loner T

Level 9

59,513 points

Feb 20, 2015 12:03 PM in response to Zarquon42

sudo fdisk /dev/disk1.

Thanks.

Zarquon42 Author

Level 1

104 points

Feb 20, 2015 12:05 PM in response to Loner T

sudo fdisk /dev/disk1

Disk: /dev/disk1 geometry: 77825/255/63 [1250263728 sectors]

Signature: 0xAA55

Starting Ending

#: id cyl hd sec - cyl hd sec [ start - size]

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

1: EE 1023 254 63 - 1023 254 63 [ 1 - 409639] <Unknown ID>

2: AC 1023 254 63 - 1023 254 63 [ 409640 - 1169780832] <Unknown ID>

3: AB 1023 254 63 - 1023 254 63 [1170190472 - 1269760] Darwin Boot

4: 0B 1023 254 63 - 1023 254 63 [1171462144 - 78800896] Win95 FAT-32

Loner T

Level 9

59,513 points

Feb 20, 2015 12:14 PM in response to Zarquon42

Please install BC/Windows. The 0x'0B' entry 4 is a Fat32 entry. The Windows installer should convert it to NTFS.

https://help.apple.com/bootcamp/mac/5.0/help/#/bcmp173b3bf2

Zarquon42 Author

Level 1

104 points

Feb 20, 2015 7:01 PM in response to Loner T

Disk: /dev/disk1 geometry: 77825/255/63 [1250263728 sectors]

Signature: 0xAA55

Starting Ending

#: id cyl hd sec - cyl hd sec [ start - size]

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

1: EE 0 0 2 - 25 127 14 [ 1 - 409639] <Unknown ID>

2: AC 25 127 15 - 1023 251 59 [ 409640 - 1169780832] <Unknown ID>

3: AB 1023 251 60 - 1023 6 54 [1170190472 - 1269760] Darwin Boot

*4: 07 1023 37 14 - 1023 70 5 [1171462144 - 78800896] HPFS/QNX/AUX

Loner T

Level 9

59,513 points

Feb 20, 2015 7:02 PM in response to Zarquon42

Perfect. 😎

Zarquon42 Author

Level 1

104 points

Feb 20, 2015 7:15 PM in response to Loner T

And now the Winclone-restored partition that I moved from another Mac (no optical drive, remember?) is BSOD-ing and restarting continually. But that's a whole 'nother problem.

Thanks again.

Loner T

Level 9

59,513 points

Feb 20, 2015 7:24 PM in response to Zarquon42

Before the Winclone image was created on the original Mac, did you run SysPrep and 'generalize' Windows?

Zarquon42 Author

Level 1

104 points

Feb 20, 2015 7:38 PM in response to Loner T

Yes, per the Winclone instructions. I suppose it's possible I did it wrong though.

Loner T

Level 9

59,513 points

Feb 20, 2015 7:51 PM in response to Zarquon42

After the initial restore, did a chkdsk run automatically? Has the installation come up even once for you install the BC drivers for the destination Mac?

Zarquon42 Author

Level 1

104 points

Feb 20, 2015 7:51 PM in response to Loner T

No. It just restarts several times until it brings up the Safe Boot screen, and none of the options I've tried from there work. It flashes a black screen, a BSOD, the Windows startup screen (oddly in that order), and then reboots again.

Loner T

Level 9

59,513 points

Feb 20, 2015 7:54 PM in response to Zarquon42

1. Are you using Legacy EFI or Legacy BIOS boot?

2. Was the 40G partition meant for this restore?

3. What is the source mac and target mac year/model?

4. If Safe Boot comes up, you can also try bootrec.exe.

Zarquon42 Author

Level 1

104 points

Feb 20, 2015 8:13 PM in response to Loner T

Loner T wrote:

1. Are you using Legacy EFI or Legacy BIOS boot?

Er…I'm using Yosemite, so I presumed I was using EFI, but other than that I don't know.

2. Was the 40G partition meant for this restore?

Yes.

3. What is the source mac and target mac year/model?

2010 MacBook Pro/2008 iMac

4. If Safe Boot comes up, you can also try bootrec.exe.

I'm unclear on how to do this. It's not launching into Safe Boot mode, it's just giving the screen where it gives the various Safe Boot options, none of which seem to work.

Loner T

Level 9

59,513 points

Feb 21, 2015 10:23 AM in response to Zarquon42

Zarquon42 wrote:

Loner T wrote:

1. Are you using Legacy EFI or Legacy BIOS boot?

Er…I'm using Yosemite, so I presumed I was using EFI, but other than that I don't know.

I was referring to

"Manually set Windows 8/8.1 to boot in legacy (bios) mode or EFI mode by pressing Control-Option keys and select the Boot Camp partition in the Sources column. In the context menu, select either "Make EFI bootable" or "Make legacy bootable". Language localization for these options is coming in the next Winclone update. For languages other than English in Winclone 4.4, you'll need to temporarily change to English to see these options."

From http://sidecar.twocanoes.com/forums/index.php?p=/discussion/2573/restored-window s-8-and-8-1-images-not-bootable/p1

Zarquon42 Author

Level 1

104 points

Feb 22, 2015 3:56 PM in response to Loner T

Legacy. In EFI mode, it can't even find a disk to boot from.

Can't create Windows partition on roll-your-own Fusion drive