Can you make a partition 1st (w/Disk Utility) and THEN use Boot Camp/install Windows?

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In Leopard, you can create partitions without formatting/deleting everything on the drive, right?

So is it possible to first make a partition with Disk Utility,
then later, use Boot Camp to install Windows on that partition?

Or must the Windows partition be made with Boot Camp?
 
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Bootcamp & disk utlity do the same thing as far partitioning is concerned. Only difference being that you can not partition a mounted drive using disk utility. So you need boot camp for partitioning the drive running MAc OS. If you want to partition using disk utility, you need to boot from Mac OS DVD and then partition the drive.

In any case, you dont need boot camp to install the second/third OS. Bootcamp is just a partitioning tool and provides a graphical interface for dual booting... an open source utility named rEFIt provides a much better menu than bootcamp (atleast it shows the OSs correctly. bootcamp assumes that second OS is windows even when it's actually running linux etc)

So once the partition is created all you need to do is boot with the second os cd and then point to the second partition for installation.
 
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]Only difference being that you can not partition a mounted drive using disk utility. So you need boot camp for partitioning the drive running MAc OS. If you want to partition using disk utility, you need to boot from Mac OS DVD and then partition the drive.

Actually, in Leopard, Disk Utility can partition the HD on which the system is installed while the OS is running.

I formatted my friend's MacBook's hard drive just the other day. Heck, I was able to keep working while it's formatting, though it was really slow. (Safari froze when launched)

I'm mainly asking 'cause my friend wants to use Boot Camp to install Windows, but we have to wait a little while before we can do it.

So I thought about making the partition for Windows first such that the partition is already made and is "set aside."

Didn't want to start putting data on the hard drive, then later run into problems (too much data, need defrag, etc.) when trying to make the Windows partition with Boot Camp.
 
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In Leopard, you can create partitions without formatting/deleting everything on the drive, right?

So is it possible to first make a partition with Disk Utility,
then later, use Boot Camp to install Windows on that partition?

Or must the Windows partition be made with Boot Camp?

as far as I know......no
you can't just use disk utility to create the partition
someone else can probably explain this better than I can...but
disk utility does more than just create the windows partition
it modifies the partition map which allows the booting of windows (I don't know the specifics)
I have tried using your method (bypassing bootcamp) and it simply did not work... after windows was done installing and went to boot - the screen read "disk error... press any key to continue"

well... thats as much as I know
someone please correct me if I am worng
 
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So I thought about making the partition for Windows first such that the partition is already made and is "set aside."

Didn't want to start putting data on the hard drive, then later run into problems (too much data, need defrag, etc.) when trying to make the Windows partition with Boot Camp.

Well.. with bootcamp you dont need to move data anywhere. You can partition it straight away. You can also use command line hdiutil option to resize your mac partition and create a windows partition.
 

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