Intel Macs have always been able to run Windows in parallel, and it's is even officially supported by Apple by the grace of Boot Camp, which makes a partition and boot disc for you with the necessary drivers.
If you have an older Mac (2010-2012), you might have some trouble using Boot Camp in MacOS X Yosemite. For some reason Apple does not allow Macs with a SuperDrive to make a bootable USB stick with Windows from an image. Since the optical SuperDrive in my Mac recently quit on me (and because USB is much better), this has lead me around the murky corners of message boards in search for a solution, which I now share with you here.
Of course beware that this is not an offical Apple support guide. Use at your own discretion and do backups etc.
Update 2017-01-07: Added instructions how to disable SIP on macOS El Capitan and later.
What's needed for a clean install on a Mac A backup of the disk before it's erased. Two options are to use Duplicate (a free utility which can copy and paste an entire bootable volume), or Mac Backup Guru (a paid, fully featured backup utility with unique incremental backups capability) for that. Here is a detailed guide for the process. A Mac operating system installer. MacOS Big Sur can. Locate the file named Install OS X Yosemite, and then right-click the file and select Show Package Contents. Open the Contents folder, then open the Shared Support folder. Here you will find the disk image that contains the files you need to create a bootable installer. Double-click the InstallESD.dmg file. Doing so will mount the InstallESD.
Make a bootable USB flash drive
First you need a USB flash drive of 8 GB or more. Then you need to start Boot Camp Assistant:
The first menu point should be 'Create a Windows 7 or later version install disk'. If your screen doesn't look like this, you have to do some ninja stuff. Thiruvasagam tamil with meaning. To convince Boot Camp Assistant that you are grown enough to use ISO images, follow these steps:
- Go to Applications > Utilities > Boot Camp Assistant and right click to Show Package Contents
- Add Read & Write access to Administrators on the folder
Contentsand the fileInfo.plist - Edit the file
Info.plistwith Xcode - Delete the
Prepart from the keyUSBBootSupportedModelsand add your Mac model
To see your model version open > About This Mac > System Report > Model Identifier e.g. 'MacBookPro6,2'.
Finally you have to codesign Boot Camp Assistant or it will crash on run. Open the terminal and run this command:
You might be asked to download a developer tool from Apple. After installation open a new Terminal window and run the command again.
Start Boot Camp Assistant again, and it should look like the screenshot. Now just go through the steps, point it to your Windows installation ISO, and create a bootable flash drive.
Installing Windows
Restart your Mac and hold down the ⌥ (option) key. You should see some boot options. Select 'EFI Boot' and you should boot into the Windows installation.
When you have entered the license key and clicked 'next' a half dozen times, you are presented with a list of partitions, one of them being your newly created Boot Camp (usually partition 4).If selecting this as install target works for you: great! Take it home. If this doesn't work, and you get a GPT disk error, read on …
Can't use Boot Camp partition
You have come all this way, only to be met by this pesky error message:
Windows cannot be installed to this disk. The selected disk has an MBR partition table. On EFI systems, Windows can only be installed GPT disks.
But don't worry, there is a fix:
- Remove any Boot Camp partitions, restoring the partition table to one big Apple partitition
- Use Disk Utility in OS X to create empty space of the size you want the Windows partitition to be (don't create a partition)
- Restart the Mac to the USB drive
- Using the Windows Advanced partition options, create a new partition in the empty space
- Proceed with installation onto the new partition
- Windows 8 installs!
It seems that Boot Camp will mess up the partition table, but as long as you create the new partition yourself, all is well in the world.
Final tip: fan control
If you have installed an SSD in your old Mac, the heat sensors in the harddrive will no longer be what the system expects, and thus the fans are spinning at max to protect the hardware. Because it's nice to retain your hearing, you can install the wonderful Macs Fan Control app and set the system to watch for another sensor, e.g. the S.M.A.R.T one in your SSD.
macOS El Capitan and Sierra
El Capitan added a new security feature called System Integrity Protection (SIP), that protects files from being modified, even by a root account. To modify Info.plist you will have to disable SIP using the following steps:
- Reboot your Mac into Recovery Mode by restarting your computer and holding down CMD+R until the Apple logo appears on your screen.
- Click Utilities > Terminal.
- In the Terminal window, type in
csrutil disableand press Enter. - Restart your Mac.
You can reenable SIP by repeating these steps and running csrutil enable in the Terminal instead.
Want to learn how to create a bootable USB installer for OS X Yosemite?. Here is the complete step by step guide which you can follow on your MAC create the bootable USB disc. We all know that Yosemite OS X is the latest operating system form Apple, which comes with lots of new features and improvement. If you are interested in new OS and want to try it then sign up for the OS X Beta Program here, which will allow them to test the new OS, if selected.
Once you have the installation app for Yosemite (Install OS X 10.10 Developer Preview), don't install it directly, other wise you will lose the file and can't make the USB disc. To get started all you nee a *GB or above USB drive, Apple computer with Mac App Store (10.6.8+) and OS X Yosemite installer.
Create OS X Yosemite Bootable USB Drive
Step 1. Insert the USB drive or Disc on youir MAC and run the Disk Utility app from the Applications > Utilities folder.
Step 2. Now in the app select the USB drive and Selct the Partition Tab.
Step 3. Under Partition Layout, select 1 Partition from the drop-down menu. And enter the Partition information Name: 'yosemite', Format: 'Mac OS Extended (Journaled)'.
Step 4. Click the Options.. button and Select GUID Partition Table. After that hit the 'Ok' button then 'Partition' button.
Step 5. Now the partition process will start and this will take some time to format and making USB drive as a 1 partition
Now the USB part is over and lets move to the OS X Yosemite installer package.
Step 6. Go to Applications again and find the Install OS X 10.10 Developer Preview app that you downloaded.
Update 2017-01-07: Added instructions how to disable SIP on macOS El Capitan and later.
What's needed for a clean install on a Mac A backup of the disk before it's erased. Two options are to use Duplicate (a free utility which can copy and paste an entire bootable volume), or Mac Backup Guru (a paid, fully featured backup utility with unique incremental backups capability) for that. Here is a detailed guide for the process. A Mac operating system installer. MacOS Big Sur can. Locate the file named Install OS X Yosemite, and then right-click the file and select Show Package Contents. Open the Contents folder, then open the Shared Support folder. Here you will find the disk image that contains the files you need to create a bootable installer. Double-click the InstallESD.dmg file. Doing so will mount the InstallESD.
Make a bootable USB flash drive
First you need a USB flash drive of 8 GB or more. Then you need to start Boot Camp Assistant:
The first menu point should be 'Create a Windows 7 or later version install disk'. If your screen doesn't look like this, you have to do some ninja stuff. Thiruvasagam tamil with meaning. To convince Boot Camp Assistant that you are grown enough to use ISO images, follow these steps:
- Go to Applications > Utilities > Boot Camp Assistant and right click to Show Package Contents
- Add Read & Write access to Administrators on the folder
Contentsand the fileInfo.plist - Edit the file
Info.plistwith Xcode - Delete the
Prepart from the keyUSBBootSupportedModelsand add your Mac model
To see your model version open > About This Mac > System Report > Model Identifier e.g. 'MacBookPro6,2'.
Finally you have to codesign Boot Camp Assistant or it will crash on run. Open the terminal and run this command:
You might be asked to download a developer tool from Apple. After installation open a new Terminal window and run the command again.
Start Boot Camp Assistant again, and it should look like the screenshot. Now just go through the steps, point it to your Windows installation ISO, and create a bootable flash drive.
Installing Windows
Restart your Mac and hold down the ⌥ (option) key. You should see some boot options. Select 'EFI Boot' and you should boot into the Windows installation.
When you have entered the license key and clicked 'next' a half dozen times, you are presented with a list of partitions, one of them being your newly created Boot Camp (usually partition 4).If selecting this as install target works for you: great! Take it home. If this doesn't work, and you get a GPT disk error, read on …
Can't use Boot Camp partition
You have come all this way, only to be met by this pesky error message:
Windows cannot be installed to this disk. The selected disk has an MBR partition table. On EFI systems, Windows can only be installed GPT disks.
But don't worry, there is a fix:
- Remove any Boot Camp partitions, restoring the partition table to one big Apple partitition
- Use Disk Utility in OS X to create empty space of the size you want the Windows partitition to be (don't create a partition)
- Restart the Mac to the USB drive
- Using the Windows Advanced partition options, create a new partition in the empty space
- Proceed with installation onto the new partition
- Windows 8 installs!
It seems that Boot Camp will mess up the partition table, but as long as you create the new partition yourself, all is well in the world.
Final tip: fan control
If you have installed an SSD in your old Mac, the heat sensors in the harddrive will no longer be what the system expects, and thus the fans are spinning at max to protect the hardware. Because it's nice to retain your hearing, you can install the wonderful Macs Fan Control app and set the system to watch for another sensor, e.g. the S.M.A.R.T one in your SSD.
macOS El Capitan and Sierra
El Capitan added a new security feature called System Integrity Protection (SIP), that protects files from being modified, even by a root account. To modify Info.plist you will have to disable SIP using the following steps:
- Reboot your Mac into Recovery Mode by restarting your computer and holding down CMD+R until the Apple logo appears on your screen.
- Click Utilities > Terminal.
- In the Terminal window, type in
csrutil disableand press Enter. - Restart your Mac.
You can reenable SIP by repeating these steps and running csrutil enable in the Terminal instead.
Want to learn how to create a bootable USB installer for OS X Yosemite?. Here is the complete step by step guide which you can follow on your MAC create the bootable USB disc. We all know that Yosemite OS X is the latest operating system form Apple, which comes with lots of new features and improvement. If you are interested in new OS and want to try it then sign up for the OS X Beta Program here, which will allow them to test the new OS, if selected.
Once you have the installation app for Yosemite (Install OS X 10.10 Developer Preview), don't install it directly, other wise you will lose the file and can't make the USB disc. To get started all you nee a *GB or above USB drive, Apple computer with Mac App Store (10.6.8+) and OS X Yosemite installer.
Create OS X Yosemite Bootable USB Drive
Step 1. Insert the USB drive or Disc on youir MAC and run the Disk Utility app from the Applications > Utilities folder.
Step 2. Now in the app select the USB drive and Selct the Partition Tab.
Step 3. Under Partition Layout, select 1 Partition from the drop-down menu. And enter the Partition information Name: 'yosemite', Format: 'Mac OS Extended (Journaled)'.
Step 4. Click the Options.. button and Select GUID Partition Table. After that hit the 'Ok' button then 'Partition' button.
Step 5. Now the partition process will start and this will take some time to format and making USB drive as a 1 partition
Now the USB part is over and lets move to the OS X Yosemite installer package.
Step 6. Go to Applications again and find the Install OS X 10.10 Developer Preview app that you downloaded.
Step 7. Right-click the installer and select Show Package Contents from the context menu. See the Screenshot below:-
Step 8. Now navigate to Contents -> SharedSupport and open InstallESD.dmg
Step 9. This will start the verify process on your MAC. Wait for some time…….
Step 10. Once the verify process is done you will see the Package Folder.
Step 11. Don't do anything with this Packages folder just yet. First, we need to unhide the files located in this newly mounted OS X Install ESD image.
Step 12. Launch Terminal.app to enter a command to unhide the file and folder on your MAC.
Step 13. Enter the below mention two commands one by one:-
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE
Install Disk Creator Yosemite
killall Finder
Step 14. Now you will see three more files next to the Package folder (Step 10)
Step 15. Switch back to Disk Utility.app to select the partition name created in step 3.
Step 16. Now drag the partition from the device list to the Destination box. Also, drag the BaseSystem.dmg to the Source path
Hit the Restore button.
Install Disk Creator Yosemite Full
Step 17. Now a new popup screen appears. From here click on Erase to start the restore process, then enter in your admin password and hit OK to proceed.
Step 18. Once the restore process is done, you will see a new window son your screen. Like the screen below:-
Step 19. Here, open the 'System' > 'Installation' folders and move the Packages file to trash.
Install Disk Creator Yosemite Free
Step 20. Now copy the Packages folder from Step 10 and paste it into the Installation folder that you just opened in previous step.
Step 21. Now Hide the system files again using this command on terminal window
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles NO
Install Yosemite From Usb
That's it!. To perform a clean install on your MAC, simply insert the USB drive that you created, power on the computer, and hold down the [option] key to access the boot selection menu. From there, select the USB drive partition, and follow the prompts to install OSX 10.10 on your Mac.
