Takes hours to install windows 8 on 5k Imac

Question

Level 1

0 points

Takes hours to install windows 8 on 5k Imac

The first thing i did when i got my maxed out 5k retina Imac with 1 TB fusion drive is i installed windows 8.1 on it using bootcamp. That was 5 months ago. a few weeks back i was experiencing crashes and generally a very laggy windows so i decided to uninstall, unpartition and re-install windows all over again. Thats where i am having problems.

After the system restarts and the windows installation begins, i notice that it lags as if it it loading when i am clicking the next button which it didnt before and it is extremelly slow when installing, i figured i would let it get it done, it took maybe 5-6 hours to finish installing everything. After the installation was complete windows was also extremely slow and laggy, basically just froze every 2-3 seconds or whenever i tried clicking to start up windows explorer or any other task i wanted to do.

Although everything is working fine and running smoothly on my MAC side of the system.

I have tried reinstalling OS x and trying again, i have also tried repairing my hard drives using disk utility but still got the same issue.

iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, Late 2014), OS X Yosemite (10.10.2)

Posted on Apr 28, 2015 6:56 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Loner T

Level 9

59,471 points

Apr 28, 2015 7:08 AM in response to Argybarge

Windows is installed on the HDD, not the SSD (bootcamp default). You can force Windows installation manually on the SSD, but it is a 120GB SSD. On my Macminis, with a DIY Fusion drive, I have a 256g/512g SSD (depending the Mini usage) and a 1TB HDD, and I do not re-install Windows since I have put it on the SSD side.

If you use Yosemite, it uses a CS volume, which is a combination of an SSD and HDD. The Fusion implementation moves blocks around based on frequency of access and usage. Yosemite can handle the IO overhead on a fragmented drive, but Windows cannot. My suggestion is to

1. Back up OSX using Time Machine - Mac Basics: Time Machine backs up your Mac - Apple Support.

2. Boot into Internet Recovery - OS X: About OS X Recovery - Apple Support.

3. Erase your internal drive and restore from the TM backup in Step 1 - OS X Yosemite: Recover your entire system.

Please be aware that TM does not backup Bootcamp partitions. Once Windows is installed, do not remove it. If you must, run the same steps again. It is unfortunate that these types of performance issues are not documented any where for the user to take corrective action.

Reply