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User profile for user: chrisedmund06
chrisedmund06 Author
User level: Level 1
4 points

Bootcamp starts Windows after downloading without letting me allocate partition

Earlier today I was installing Windows using Bootcamp Assistant. I’ve followed the guide and everything is going well until my iMac restarts by itself then boots up the Windows Installation without letting me allocate a partition beforehand. when I was on the Windows Setup it shows three drives, one is my external USB harddrive which was used to install Windows, second was my iMac drive, third was a random drive that contains only 200MB of space. at this point I realized Bootcamp Assistant did not allocate any partition at all, so now I’m stuck and cannot boot up my MacOS and can only boot up Windows which I cannot install either since Bootcamp did not create an allocation.


If anyone can be of assistance, I would be really grateful.

Earlier Mac models

Posted on May 10, 2024 7:20 AM

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4 replies
User profile for user: HWTech
HWTech
User level: Level 9
60,428 points

May 11, 2024 10:14 PM in response to chrisedmund06

Here is an Apple article with instructions for dealing with a missing or broken macOS installation (the first link in that article under "Question Mark" is the one you need to review:

If your Mac doesn't start up all the way - Apple Support


The easiest way forward is likely to perform a clean install of macOS by first erasing the whole physical drive (or Fusion Drive is equipped) followed by reinstalling macOS & restoring from a backup. If the partitions were modified, then it can be very difficult to fix without erasing & starting over.


How much Free storage space did you have on this Mac? Perhaps if you only barely meant the minimum amount of storage space to utilize Windows Bootcamp, then perhaps it just automatically tried to allocate it since there would be no other option. I have no idea though since I only tried using Windows Bootcamp Assistant over a decade ago.

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Bootcamp starts Windows after downloading without letting me allocate partition

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