Problems trying to install Win10 via Boot Camp Assistant

awj


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I've spent the last few hours trying to install Win10 via Boot Camp and now have a few problems:

  • Boot Camp Assistant not only doesn't offer to do an installation of Win10, it doesn't even offer to install Win8.1 like all the screenshots I've seen suggest should be offered. The Boot Camp Assistant installed on this MacBook (late-2013 running Yosemite and with no updates pending) only offers to help me install Win7.
  • I went through this process (Boot Camp thought it was installing Win7 but I gave it a Win10 ISO) and came unstuck when I got to the "which drive partition" option during the Windows installation process: although Disk Utility shows that there's a partition called "BOOTCAMP", the Win10 installation doesn't see this name and instead offers me 4 or 5 different partitions. I chose the one whose size corresponded to what I had configured in BCA. I was then told that an EFI installation cannot be installed on this partition, only a GT partition (or something similar). I couldn't reformat the partition because all the options underneath were greyed-out. Most of the partitions were labelled "Drive 0 partition [1,2, etc.]" and the one I chose was "Drive 1 partition 1".
Is the second problem a consequence of the first? I.e., is the partition not being correctly formatted because Boot Camp Assistant is expecting a Win7 installation?

Furthermore, that's not the end of the problems:

  • booting-up the MacBook now takes a lot longer - there's a period of about 10 seconds or more immediately after turning on where the screen is completely blank. Only after this period do I see the OS X progress bar.

How can failing to install Win10 on another partition affect the startup of OSX? I've even now deleted the "BOOTCAMP" partition.

And how do I get the latest update of Boot Camp Assistant so that it recognises if not Win10 then at least Win8.1?

UPDATE: I thought I'd deleted the "BOOTCAMP" partition but it's still there, and all further attempts to delete it prove fruitless. There's no error message, it's simply always there.

UPDATE 2: Having tried to delete the "BOOTCAMP" volume using the Terminal, it appears that it's the boot volume: "cannot erase the boot volume".
 
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I am using bootcamp to dual boot El Capitan and Windows 10 on a 2009 Macbook with 4GB of memory and a 500 GB SSD. She (all my computers are girls!) boots fast in to OS X. 11 and also Windows 10. The only time it is slow is when I shut down Windows 10. I assume it is installing updates in the background since Microsoft no longer lets you turn them off.

I did something similar to what you are doing only I am running El Capitan (the GM release). I tried to use bootcamp to install Windows 10 and ended up with a mess. I had to delete the bootcamp partition. The system seemed to still be looking for the boot option screen even after the delete and I would get an error saying it could not find windows to boot to. I changed the startup disk option to OSX bit it stiil booted slow. I am sure I messed up the bootcamp uninstall. I ended up wiping the drive, reinstalling El Capitan and then installing bootcamp.

I had to install Windows 7 first in bootcamp and once that was done, I started the install of Windows 10 from within Windows 7. It went very well. Interestingly enough El Capitan does not seem to offer installing support for anything other than Windows 7 either. I did not try to start the bootcamp install with Windows 10 only because I did not have a DVD copy of W10 but I did of W7.

As for why you are having slow boot times in OSX I wonder if it is still looking for the boot option screen - which it should not if the default is set to OSX. I do know when I did a clean install and followed the method I stated it now works great.

Lisa
 
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awj


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I looked into how to change the boot partition but couldn't figure it out with enough certainty to try it out, and if I got it wrong...

So I then decided to do as you did, wipe the whole thing - well, to perform a clean install, at least, as I currently seem unable to remove unwanted partitions.

And here comes my next problem: when I booted into recovery mode and asked to reinstall OSX, a few steps in it would tell me that there was a problem verifying some details. I tried this a few times and then it eventually got past this message and said that it had to download additional components for Yosemite. An hour later and it's still doing this. In fact, it appears to have failed in doing this because the time is going up and up. It's now scheduled to take 2hrs 11mins.

I have no idea why this is happening. It's a latest-but-one model which was running Yosemite. I was using BCA to perform the install just as I should....

And I'm having to do this after the Boot Camp update from 5.2 to 6 wouldn't install correctly but messed up boot and drivers.
 
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I had to do a Command + R in to recovery then select Disk Utility to get rid of the partition. I am sorry I should have mentioned that step. I could not get rid of the partition until I did that.

Lisa
 
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Your problem is Windows 10. Do as Lisa did install Windows 7 and use the free update.

Is it really worth the hassle. When I had to use Windows ran it on a Dell Latitude. Windows runs better on PC which it is designed for, All that updating is a pain in the rear however.
 
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awj


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The reason that I don't want to install Win7 and then update is that Win8 and Win10 both install on EFI partitions; Win7 needs a BIOS emulation layer which impacts performance.

@Iclev - I've been trying to use the recovery mode to delete the "BOOTCAMP" partition - the recovery mode and the terminal. Neither can do this because "BOOTCAMP" is set as the boot volume and I can't figure out how to change this.
 
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Go into BootCamp in Utilities and there will be the option to remove.
 
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No what Harry means is go to your Applications folder -> Utilities -> Bootcamp Assistant and use the option to remove the partition.

Lisa
 
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awj


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My problem is now (mostly) solved.

I booked an appointment at the genius bar. The guy there first of all verified that I had no hardware problems, then found the same problem with the BOOTCAMP partition: that he couldn't remove it.

His solution was to remove the primary partition (in my case, this was called Untitled) and was then able to remove the BOOTCAMP partition. This was fine as I had already done a clean install of OSX so I was ok with him removing it again.

Disk Utility automatically leaves one partition on the drive, even once he had removed both the partitions (or at least creates a new one when you delete the last). He named this "Macintosh HD" and was able to drag it to fill the drive's capacity.

He then put a new image of Yosemite back in place and voila! My MacBook is now exactly as it should be.

The only small problem for now is that I don't have a Windows partition (which I need for work) but I can hang on until El Capitan is fully released - this has BCA 6 which supports Win10.
 

chscag

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Keep in mind that Windows 8, 8.1, and 10 support an EFI installation. Since you have a late 2013 MacBook Pro, the new version of Boot Camp will likely install Windows 10 via EFI rather than using a BIOS emulation as it does for Windows 7. That should give you a faster running Windows 10 (also depends on what graphics chipset is installed in your machine).
 
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Would VirtualBox work with Windows 10? I still have Windows XP for 2 applications that only work with Windows. It has the big advantage that, unlike with Boot Camp, you don't have to shut down your Mac OS to use it.
 

chscag

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You'll need to experiment with VB to find out. I can't say for sure that VB is capable of running Windows 10 in a VM.


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I have run Windows 10 in Virtual Box. I had to select Windows 8 for the install but it worked fine.

Just thought I would add that I am currently running El Capitan and Windows 10 on a Macbook. Bootcamp 6 does not offer a clean install of Windows 10. When I did the install I had to install W7 first and then start the W10 install from within W7. I have the latest GM update to El Capitan and bootcamp says it is version 6. Hopefully that changes with the final release.

Lisa
 

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