There is actually a way to install macOS on a drive that already has Windows installed on it without having to delete Windows, but this will only work if the Windows disk is GPT formatted. Step 1: Verify GPT Partition Type Install MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Edition Open MiniTool Partition Wizard Verify your Disk is GPT.
Windows can’t normally read Mac-formatted drives, and will offer to erase them instead. But third-party tools fill the gap and provide access to drives formatted with Apple’s HFS+ file system on Windows. This also allows you to. If you know you’re going to use a drive on both Mac and Windows, you should use the exFAT file system, which is compatible with both.
But if you didn’t foresee that, you may have formatted your drive with Apple’s HFS Plus, which Windows can’t read by default. In fact, some manufacturers sell “Mac” drives pre-formatted with this Mac-only file system. Don’t Format the Drive! (Yet) When you connect a Mac-formatted drive to Windows, you’ll be informed that “you need to format the disk in drive X: before you can use it.” Don’t click the “Format disk” button or Windows will erase the contents of the drive–click “Cancel”! This message appears because Windows doesn’t understand Apple’s HFS+ file system.
That’s fine, because other applications do. Just don’t format the drive until you get the important files off the drive. Of course, if the drive doesn’t have any important files on it, you can go ahead and format it.
But be absolutely sure there’s nothing you need before you do. Option One: HFSExplorer Is Free and Basic RELATED: If you only need to get a couple files off the drive, we recommend. It’s the only completely free way to access a Mac-formatted drive.
It does require, however, so you’ll have to. Then, install HFSExplorer like you would any other Windows program. HFSExplorer isn’t fancy, though, and doesn’t have a lot of features. You can’t use it to write to Mac-formatted drives, and it doesn’t install a file system driver that integrates into File Explorer. But you can open HFSExplorer, read a Mac-formatted drive, and copy the files to your Windows PC without paying a dime. It can also mount Mac.dmg disk images to get at the files inside them. This application’s read-only nature isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
It ensures that no bug in the third-party driver can damage your Mac-formatted drive and the files on it. You can set read-only mode in other applications, too–but, if you’re not going to use their write support, there’s less reason to pay for them. To use HFSExplorer, connect your Mac-formatted drive to your Windows PC and launch HFSExplorer. Click the “File” menu and select “Load File System From Device.” It will automatically locate the connected drive, and you can load it.
You’ll see the contents of the HFS+ drive in the graphical window. Just select the files or folders you want, click “Extract,” and choose a folder. They’ll be copied to the location you choose on your PC. Option Two: Paragon HFS+ is $20, But Offers Write Access and Better Integration Paragon’s is a bit fancier, but it’ll cost you. This tool installs a file system driver that allows you to access a Mac-formatted drive like any other drive in File Explorer, or any other Windows application with an open or save dialog.
It boasts improved speed, and we wouldn’t be surprised if it were faster than HFSExplorer. And, unlike HFSExplorer, it offers full read/write access to Mac-formatted drives, so you can write to them from within Windows. Just install it, and Mac drives will show up like any other drive. If you need to work with Mac-formatted drives on a regular basis and you want the operating system integration, speed, and write access, Paragon HFS+ is a great choice and will be worth it for you.
But, if you just need to get some files off a Mac-formatted drive occasionally, this is overkill and you can save $20 by sticking with HFSExplorer. Paragon does offer a 10-day free trial of HFS+ for Windows, so you can give it a try and see if it works for you. And, if you just need to get files off of a Mac-formatted drive once, you can just use the trial and be done with the application by the time it expires. Option Three: Mediafour MacDrive Costs $50 to $70, But Includes More Features Mediafour’s is similar to Paragon’s HFS+ for Windows, but with more features and polish. It’s noticeably more expensive than Paragon HFS+ too, at $50 for the Standard version and $70 for the Pro version. For most people, this software won’t really be worth it. But it offers a few unique features, like support for Mac-formatted RAID disks.
It also offers a graphical interface with support for verifying, repairing, and formatting Mac-formatted drives. Paragon’s HFS+ gets out of your way and doesn’t provide a graphical interface–it just enables access to HFS+ drives in File Explorer and other applications. If you need all these tools, go for it–this is the most full-featured solution for working with Mac-formatted drives on Windows. But you probably don’t need all these tools.
Mediafour does offer a 5-day free trial of MacDrive–both the Standard and Pro versions–so you can give it a try and see if those features are worth it for you. Option Four: Format the Drive as exFAT–But Warning, This Will Erase Your Data! RELATED: Once you’ve gotten all the data off the Mac-formatted drive, you’ll probably want to. Both Windows and Mac OS X have full read-write support for exFAT drives without any additional third-party software. FAT32 has some serious limitations–individual files can only be up to 4GB in size each, for example–but exFAT doesn’t. Rather than use a Mac-formatted drive, you should get the important files off of it and use exFAT-formatted drives for moving data between Macs and PCs. To format the drive in Windows, right-click it in the File Explorer window and select “Format.” Choose the “exFAT” file system in the list and click “Start.” Remember, this will erase all the files on the drive!
Be absolutely sure you have your files off the drive and that you’ve selected the correct drive you want to format! When you’re done, the drive should work on both Windows PCs and Macs with no problem. By the way, this works great for Windows users too–Macs can’t natively, although they can read files from NTFS drives.
So no matter what your primary platform, exFAT is probably the way to go.
# A USB drive with 8GB or more capacity # One hour free time We are going to use the Boot Camp Assistant software available on Mac. Boot Camp helps you install Windows OS on Intel-based Mac by downloading the necessary support software, creating a partition on your disk for Windows, and then starting the Windows installer. NOTE: We assume that you have an Intel-based Mac machine with Boot Camp Assistant version 5.0 or later. It’s always a good idea to backup the important data on your computer before installing Windows on Mac.
We used MacBook Air (mid 2013) to install Windows 10 on the Mac. The procedure to install Windows 8 or Windows 10 on other Mac machines might be a bit different and pretty much the same. Procedure: Step 1: Launch Boot Camp Assistant software. To launch it, go to Utilities and click on Boot Camp Assistant to open it. Step 2: Once launched, click Continue button on the introduction screen to see the list of options available for your Mac. You will see three options: # Create a Windows 7 or later version install disk # Download the latest Windows support software from Apple # Install Windows 7 or later version If Create a Windows 7 or later version install disk option is not available on your Mac, it’s because your computer doesn’t support installing Windows from USB flash drive.
Simply select the other options available and click Continue button. By default, all three options are enabled.
If you are on Mac Mini or MacBook Air, use the first option (Create a Windows 7 or later version install disk) to create a bootable Windows 10/8 USB flash drive to install Windows 10/8 directly from USB flash drive. Click Continue button to proceed to the next step.
Step 3: (Please skip this step if you haven’t selected Create a Windows 7 or later version install disk option in the above step) In this step, you need to select the Windows 10/8 ISO file and the USB device that you want to use to install Windows 10/8. Boot Camp Assistant will create a bootable USB drive for Windows 10/8 installation. Once you select the ISO file and destination USB drive, click Continue button. Click Continue button if you are prompted with “The drive will be erased” message.
Boot Camp Assistant may take a several minutes to create the bootable Windows 10/8 USB drive (it will also download Windows support software from Apple). Once Boot Camp Assistant finishes creating bootable Windows 10/8 USB, you will get “Boot Camp Assistant is trying to add new helper tool. Type your password to allow this” message.
Type in the password and click Add Helper button to continue. Step 4: Boot Camp Assistant now takes you to Create a partition for Windows window. Drag the divider between the partitions to set the size of the partitions. We recommend a minimum of 30 GB for Windows partition (Microsoft recommends 16 GB but if you want to install other software on Windows 10/8, allocate 30GB). Click Install button to start partitioning the drive and then begin installing Windows 10/8 on your Mac. Your Mac machine will automatically reboot to begin installing Windows.
You will see “Booting from Boot Camp Assistant created boot drive” message. OR If you haven’t selected Create a Windows 7 or later version install disk option in step 2, please insert the Windows 10/8 installation DVD into the tray and click Install button to start partitioning the drive and then Windows installation. Your Mac machine will automatically reboot to begin installing Windows. From here on follow the on screen procedure until you need to select a partition to install Windows. In the Where do you want to install Windows? Screen, select the partition named BOOTCAMP to install Windows 8.
Make sure that you format the BOOTCAMP partition before selecting it as an unformatted drive may give “Windows cannot be installed to this disk x partition x” error. To format the BOOTCAMP partition, select the partition in the list, click Drive options (advanced) and then click Format button. Click Ok button for the prompt. Click Next button to begin installing Windows 10/8 on BOOTCAMP partition. Follow the on screen instructions to finish installing and configuring Windows 8. If you are new to installing Windows 10/8, follow our step-by-step Windows 10/8 installation procedure. Step 5: Once Windows 10/8 is installed and running, you need to install Mac-specific drivers and other support software for Windows.
The support software is on the same USB drive if you have selected Download the latest support software from Apple in step 2. Open the Windows 10/8 USB flash drive (that you have created using Boot Camp Assistant) and navigate to WindowsSupport folder and then double-click on setup.exe file to start installing all drivers and Apple Software Update. If you are getting “Boot Camp requires that your computer is running Windows 7/8” error, then you need manually install all drivers and Apple Software Update. Open the Windows 10/8 USB drive and navigate to Drivers Apple. Here you will find all Apple drivers and other software.
Manually install all required drivers one-by-one. If you want to install drivers for third-party hardware such as NVidia and ATI, you can find the required drivers under Drivers folder in the same drive.
If you get Software you are installing has not passed Windows Logo testing message, click Continue Anyway button. When you switch on your Mac, hold down the Alt key or Option key to see an option to boot into Windows or Mac. Hope this helps! Doesn’t work: 1. Not all models support USB creation. Those with superdrives certainly don’t. To get around that you need to edit the Info.plist inside Boot Camp Assistant.app (BootCampAssistant.app/Contents/Info.plist) To edit do right click on it, show package contents, navigate to Contents and open a terminal in that directory.
Execute “sudo nano Info.plist” and edit the file. You need to add 2 values in there: DARequiredROMVersions IM41.0055.B08 IM42.0071.B03 IM51.0090.B03 IM52.0090.B03 IM61.0093.B01 MP11.005C.B04 MB11.0061.B03 MBP11.0055.B08 MBP12.0061.B03 MBP18.0047.B27 MM11.0055.B08 And: PreUSBBootSupportedModels MacBook7,1 MacBookAir3,2 MacBookPro8,1 MacBookPro8,3 MacPro5,1 Macmini4,1 iMac12,2 These values you can retrive from the System Information application in utilities. Finally DELETE the “Pre” in “PreUSBBootSupportedModels”.
PreUSBBootSupportedModels —- USBBootSupportedModels MacBook7,1 MacBookAir3,2 MacBookPro8,1 MacBookPro8,3 MacPro5,1 Macmini4,1 iMac12,2 In case you’re running it on a WIN 7 only macs and want to install win 8 also delete this: Win7OnlyModels MacBook7,1 MacBookAir3,2 MacBookPro5,5 MacPro2,1 Macmini4,1 iMac10,1 Now you can start Bootcamp Assistant and you will be able to make your USB disk. HOWEVER, if you have a MBR partition table on your HDD, when you try to install Win8 from the USB, it will complain that you can’t install Win8 from EFI on MBR. So you only can do it through DVD. jess says. To install drivers, 1. Select the BootCamp setup 2. Right click and select TroubleShoot Compatibility.
If not able to right click, select the ‘Application Tools’ from the ribbon bar and click ‘TroubleShoot Compatibility’ 3. Select Windows 7 and run. If it shows Windows XP, click next, select the first checkbox saying ‘This program worked in earlier version’, click next and select windows 7 option. The BootCamp will install all drivers like Sound, WiFi for you. Happy Programming Windows in Mac:).
Kevin says. I followed all the above steps and it worked fine, I did have the issue of right click and wifi and what not working. I decided to install the drivers as per the last part, but after restarting it now displays the windows unlock screen for a second and then goes black. Nothing I do after that will wake the screen.
I think that maybe it was the mac display driver that has caused this. I have tried to locate the driver in the system 32 folder but cant. Looks like a fresh install for me.
Karthik says.