Hint: Deleting the Mac OS X partition is a bad idea I know some of you are playing with the idea of getting rid of Mac OS X entirely to save money and have a 'clean' system (I get that a lot). Next, reboot your system and hold down the 'option' key while doing so. Only a handful of disk partitioning tools are capable of handling both HFS and NTFS partitions reliably (I have personally tested Paragon CampTune, which works great, but there are a handful of alternatives).ĭecided your size? Then let's hit 'Start Installation' and start the installer. Depending on how much data you want to carry around with you and how many programs you need, you'll likely need a lot more than that: In my example, I give Mac OS X 40GB (since I rarely use it) and Windows 80GB.Ĭhoose the disk size wisely. Windows needs at least 20GB to work properly (system files, page file, hibernation file, system restore points, etc.).

On the next screen, you're going to face a tough choice: How much disk space do you really need for each operating system? At any rate, make sure that 'Download the Windows support software for this Mac' is checked, which starts a download assistant that puts the Boot Camp 4.0 drivers on your desktop, on a separate USB drive or burns it onto a blank CD/DVD. If you'd rather install Windows using a USB thumb drive, read the steps below first and then move on. If you want to (or can) install Windows using your Setup-DVD, just pop it in and hit 'Continue'. Macs without the Superdrive give you the additional choice of creating a bootable USB thumb drive from an ISO. Boot Camp 4.0, which includes all the necessary Windows drivers): On a Mac with an optical drive, the first dialogue box gives you the option to download the 'Windows support software' (i.e. So how does this work? First, start Mac OS X Lion and head over to Go/Utilities/Boot Camp Assistant.

I'll describe these steps using Lion, though the procedure in Snow Leopard doesn't differ a lot (except for the fact that Windows XP and Vista won't work in Lion - yeah, Apple ditched 'legacy' support entirely with Boot Camp 4 and Lion). The first step requires you to shrink the Mac OS X volume and create a separate NTFS partition for Windows. Step 1: Setting up your Boot Camp partition

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