Then reboot normally and then use Disk Utitity > Erase Free Space > Zero option (not Erase w/Security Option > Zero) and on 10.7 or later 'Zero' in Disk Utility is the slider selection #2 (one space to the right) and make sure it's Erase FREE space only on the Macintosh HD partition only. Quit Bootcamp and use Disk Utility from the OS X install Disk or via Recovery HD (hold command r at boot) to Repair the drive two times to make sure. There are plenty of videos on YouTube showing the install method too.īacking up BootCamped Windows: For cloning/backing up Windows in BootCamp, search for 'WinClone' on, runs in OS X.įor bad sector issues and failing to partition: on hard drives, (SSD's not affected).

Issues with partitioning with bad sectors and/or data on the lower part of the drive Only supports Windows 7 (recent OS X version supports Windows 8 also.)

Harder to fix and repair than a generic PC which third party Windows software designed for Have to keep OS X partition on the drive for updates, firmware, repairs. Get's malware like a PC, hard to eradicate, may affect OS X Have to boot into OS X or Windows at start time by holding the option key down (to switch if other is set to start first) More 'geekier' requires more computer knowledge and skills. You can run Windows in Apple's BootCamp, which partitions the boot drive and you install Windows in there, which gives the best hardware performance as one directly boots into Windows, but you can't use Windows System Restore or other disk/backup utilities but there is WinClone which clones it from OS X to restore later.įull access to the hardware for 3D games and heavier CPU needsĮasy Mac like setup for BootCamp partition You can run a free virtual machine program ( VirtualBox) which will do the job like the commercial ones do (revert snapshots too), but isn't as feature rich, but it is supported in older OS X versions a lot longer than the commercial versions and it is free, so it only nags to update. Easy to revert to earlier snapshots of the guest OS. You can run a paid commercial virtual machine program (Parallels or VMFusion) that runs Windows/Linux and some OS X versions in a window in OS X, the updates are paid some are more frequent, but it gives more features (copy BootCamp partition to use as a vm for instance) and ease to install.

If one PC program or so, y ou can check if it will run fine in the program called Codeweavers, but it might be a hassle and problematic. If one PC program or so, you can check if it will run well in the program called Wine, but it might be a hassle and problematic. I wrote this because we get a lot of questions what would be the best way to run Windows on a Mac.

Windows virtual machine for mac free