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Level 1

14 points

Possible to partition Bootcamp to SSD on custom fusion drive?

Can anyone advise me on installing Bootcamp on the SSD partition of a custom fusion drive for Mac Mini. I'm not sure how best to get achieve the partitioning of the disks and from what I've read it may be impossible to install bootcamp on the SSD of the fusion drive as it will be directed to the HDD according to how Bootcamp assistant partitioned the fusion drive. What I would like to do is split the fusion drive in half and have Bootcamp installed on the SSD the same way OS X would be, but from what I've read the Bootcamp partition can only installed on the HDD and impossible to partition to the SSD, or at least without having to install both OS on the SSD then split the HDD in two.

I've created a fusion drive with a 250gb SSD and the original 500gb samsung HDD, OS X is installed, backed up and I have Winclone copy of Windows 8.1 ready, I also use Paragon file system drivers for reading/writing between both systems if that is any help to how it could be partitioned.

Can anyone verify that this is it is indeed impossible to install both OS to the SSD in this manner or is it possible to partition the fusion drive as I would like to have it?

Any other suggestions as to how best install both OS is welcome.

Mac Mini 2012 i5-3210M 2.5GHz

4GB RAM

Fusion Drive - 250GB Crucial BX100 SSD/Apple HDD from Samsung

Yosemite 10.10.2

Mac mini (Late 2012), OS X Yosemite (10.10.2), Win8.1 Bootcamp Fusion Drive

Posted on Mar 2, 2015 8:35 PM

34 replies

Loner T

Level 9

59,471 points

Mar 4, 2015 11:28 AM in response to brianx87

When you rebuild your CS Fusion drive, are you erasing both the internal physical disks entirely and starting from scratch? It would also imply recreating the BC part as well using the reizeStack command.

brianx87 Author

Level 1

14 points

Mar 4, 2015 12:39 PM in response to Loner T

I believe I'm deleting the LV then the LVG as per these commands, maybe I'm starting the rebuild incorrectly?

diskutil cs deleteVolume UUID

diskutil cs delete UUID

In this instance I've used.

diskutil cs deleteVolume B58A4673-4194-4A1E-AFB6-B0042BE21374

diskutil cs delete 17DB151E-02E1-4DAA-864E-2E74FF3699E0

Then rebuilt from there

Loner T

Level 9

59,471 points

Mar 4, 2015 1:33 PM in response to brianx87

Can you use disk0s2 instead of disk0 when you create the CS LVG?

brianx87 Author

Level 1

14 points

Mar 4, 2015 1:51 PM in response to Loner T

The outcome is the same using disk0s2

Loner T

Level 9

59,471 points

Mar 4, 2015 2:04 PM in response to brianx87

Are you able to erase both physical drives completely and create the LVG, LV, install OSX from scratch and recreate the BC volume using resizeStack? You can create a TM backup first, if you want.

brianx87 Author

Level 1

14 points

Mar 4, 2015 2:10 PM in response to Loner T

I'll give that a try but how is it best for me to delete both physical drives and the commands best used? I was using the cs delete and deleteVolume commands then reattempting the CS creation while on a few occasions I also erased both disks via DU

Loner T

Level 9

59,471 points

Mar 4, 2015 2:16 PM in response to brianx87

Can you try Internet Recovery and then Terminal to erase both disks (not DU). Build a new CS LVG/LV, use ResizeStack for the BC volume and then check DU.

brianx87 Author

Level 1

14 points

Mar 4, 2015 4:14 PM in response to Loner T

I don't know how to use the internet recovery tool, I tired the first method above, resizing he BC partition after a clean install which didn't work and now again I no longer have a recovery partition. I also tried wiping the disks and creating the LGV/LV/BC partitions from the terminal of my external OS X Recovery partition but that failed to work altogether as the LGV UUID didn't appear under the diskutil list and distil cs list was missing physical volume entries.

Loner T

Level 9

59,471 points

Mar 4, 2015 4:21 PM in response to brianx87

Power down the Mac, and then hold Command+Opt+R (OS X: About OS X Recovery - Apple Support). You should see a spinning globe before you see the Recovery Console.

brianx87 Author

Level 1

14 points

Mar 4, 2015 4:42 PM in response to Loner T

Same results though I'm not sure if I entered Internet recovery, with cmd+opt+r it entered recovery the same way as cmd+r does with no spinning globe.

Loner T

Level 9

59,471 points

Mar 4, 2015 5:25 PM in response to brianx87

It is local Recovery without the spinning globe. Please retry.

brianx87 Author

Level 1

14 points

Mar 4, 2015 7:21 PM in response to Loner T

OK so internet recovery loaded, had to remove the usb 3 drive as it interferes with wireless, though the first attempt was met with 2002F error and upon checking that I see it's either an apple server issue or on my end. If it is an issue with apple servers I don't think this method will work as OS X updates, Apple App updates and iOS updates have been downloading for me at 56kb speeds averaging at 11kb down speed on OS X and Windows for weeks and I've sen posts from various dates that it's still an issue for many people, I update manually these days. I've done everything possible on my end to sort that, reset DNS, reset both routers and I'm also on ethernet with a 40mb fibre connection so it must be apples servers.

Second attempt has came up with 2002F error again and I also so no means of selecting ethernet over wifi.

Loner T

Level 9

59,471 points

Mar 4, 2015 7:32 PM in response to brianx87

If you connect via ethernet and then power up and use Command+Opt+R, the recovery will use ethernet. Do you use OpenDNS rather than your ISP DNS? Who is your ISP? I have seen several ISPs refuse DNS access which does not belong to them.

brianx87 Author

Level 1

14 points

Mar 4, 2015 7:50 PM in response to Loner T

I'm with TalkTalk in the UK, I run a DNS reset command from time to time as advice given to me in some forms if there is an issue connecting or I get a DNS server issue returned to me but I don't run any DNS of my own. I checked TalkTalk forums and see some others having the same issue with some users on Apple forums reporting the same. One user suggestion it is certainly an Apple issue.

http://community.talktalk.co.uk/t5/Superpowered-Fibre-Broadband/Apple-downloads- slow/td-p/1604401

When I'm booting to Internet Recovery should I leave the choose network box alone then? It doesn't suggest that I'm running on the wired connection

Loner T

Level 9

59,471 points

Mar 4, 2015 8:03 PM in response to brianx87

It is pretty late across the pond right now. Do not choose a wireless network during recovery, but connect via ethernet before you start recovery. From OS X: About OS X Recovery - Apple Support.

Reinstalling OS X using Recovery requires broadband access to the Internet using a Wi-Fi or Ethernet connection. OS X is downloaded over the Internet from Apple when OS X Recovery is used for reinstallation. You must use DHCP on your Wi-Fi or Ethernet network to reinstall OS X using OS X Recovery.

Can you run the following command in Terminal?

grep -e apple.com /private/etc/hosts

grep -e apple.com /etc/hosts

The Apple SW CDN is based in the US. If you are interested, you can download Wireshark and watch network packets from another PC/MAC as you try the Internet Recovery.

I cannot get to the link you posted. It is probably geo-fenced.

You can read more about the method used using man bless. This is done in the Mac firmware.

bless --netboot --server url [--nextonly] [--options string] [--quiet | --verbose]

Possible to partition Bootcamp to SSD on custom fusion drive?