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I am trying to install Windows 10 on my iMac 27" (Mid 2011 - iMac12,2 - 3.4GHz -Core I7, OSX 10.11.6). When rebooting with the WININSTALL key, Windows Setup stops as it says it cannot install on the BootCamp Assistant generated partition (it is FAT32, wants NTFS). So I click the Formatbutton and he now says that the partition is MBR and he wants a GPT. So how do I make a GPT?

Note: Regarding the Boot Camp Assistant application: I modified the info.plist file by removing the "Pre" in ' "PreUSBBootSupportedModels" ' so I could get the checkbox to install Windows on the key.

Next question, I tried partitioning manually as suggested in question: Boot Camp Assistance is stuck on create a partition?, but the command:

sudo  diskutil  apfs  resizeContainer  disk0s2  180.8G  FAT32  BOOTCAMP  70G

fails as diskutil does not understand verbs apfs nor resizeContainer.
So I checked on my MBP running High Sierra and there apfs exists but not resizeContainer. Should I upgrade the iMac to High Sierra?

Here is my diskutil list:

diskutil list:

/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *1.0 TB     disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD            967.3 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3
   4:       Microsoft Basic Data BOOTCAMP                32.0 GB    disk0s5

Here is a list of my WININSTALL:

total 3968
drwxrwxrwx  1 silvano  staff    32768 Feb  1  2014 $WinPEDriver$
-rwxrwxrwx  1 silvano  staff     3219 Feb  1  2014 AutoUnattend.xml
drwxrwxrwx  1 silvano  staff    32768 Feb  1  2014 BootCamp
-rwxrwxrwx  1 silvano  staff      128 Sep 30 18:00 autorun.inf
drwxrwxrwx  1 silvano  staff    32768 Sep 30 19:15 boot
-rwxrwxrwx  1 silvano  staff   397752 Sep 30 17:55 bootmgr
-rwxrwxrwx  1 silvano  staff  1236376 Sep 30 18:00 bootmgr.efi
drwxrwxrwx  1 silvano  staff    32768 Sep 30 19:15 efi
-rwxrwxrwx  1 silvano  staff    80696 Sep 30 18:00 setup.exe
drwxrwxrwx  1 silvano  staff    32768 Sep 30 19:15 sources
drwxrwxrwx  1 silvano  staff    32768 Sep 30 19:15 support
Silvano
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    Are you using a USB flash drive instead of a DVD to install Windows? If you are using a USB flash drive, then what means did you use to put the installation software on the flash drive? Also, what computer did you use? – David Anderson Feb 10 '18 at 12:20
  • I'm actually using a blank HD, because it's faster than a USB key. I put Windows 10 and Windows Support on it with BootCamp Assistant. I did the same for my MBP and there it worked fine. – Silvano Feb 10 '18 at 12:37
  • ...and the computer I used was the same iMac where I am trying to install Windows. – Silvano Feb 10 '18 at 13:05
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    So, you were able to use the Boot Camp Assistant on the 2011 iMac to transfer the Windows 10 files from the ISO to an external drive and download the Boot Camp Support Software from the internet to the same external drive? You did this without modifying the Boot Camp Assistant application in any way? – David Anderson Feb 10 '18 at 13:26
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    I modified the info.plist file by removing the "Pre" in ' "PreUSBBootSupportedModels" ' so I could get the checkbox to install Windows on the key. – Silvano Feb 10 '18 at 13:41
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    Now we are getting somewhere. You might have mentioned that in your question. The path you have chosen will eventually lead to failure. Usually, the resulting install will not boot or some hardware will not work properly. There are various other ways to use an external disk to install Windows on a 2011 iMac. Before I post an answer, let me ask: Why did you not use a Windows 10 DVD to install? – David Anderson Feb 10 '18 at 14:15
  • No, it was an ISO – Silvano Feb 10 '18 at 14:25

1 Answers1

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Your best course of action would be to install Windows 10 the same way Apple instructs you to install Windows 8.1. For these instructions, see the Apple website: Use Windows 8.1 on your Mac with Boot Camp. When using these instructions to install Windows 10, you might want to consider the following.

  • You need to burn the Windows ISO file to a DVD. Some Windows 10 ISO files are large enough that you will need a double layer (DL) DVD. Older versions of OS X used the Disk Utility application to burn the contents of an ISO file to a DVD. With the newer versions of macOS (OS X), you can burn the contents of an ISO file to a DVD directly from a Finder application window. You use the Boot Camp Assistant to download the Boot Camp Support Software to an external drive.
  • You already have a BOOTCAMP partition. Assuming your external drive installer has the correct Boot Camp Support Software, you should be able to install Windows 10 with using the Boot Camp Assistant. Insert the DVD and connect the external drive, restart the iMac and then immediately hold down the option key. When the DVD icon labeled "Windows" appears, select the icon then the arrow below the icon. If during installation, you boot back to macOS (OS X), goto Startup Disk under System Preferences. Select the Windows partition, then restart the iMac to continue installation.

If you do not want to use a DVD, then you can use the accepted answer to the question: How to install Windows 10 into a 2011 iMac without using the Boot Camp Assistant, an optical (DVD) drive or third party tools?. If you are using OSX 10.11.6, then you can skip step 3.

To be clear, Windows installations on this model Mac must use the legacy BIOS boot method. This requires the installation drive to contain partition entries in both the Master Boot Record (MBR) table and the GUID Partition Table (GPT). Windows will only see the MBR table entries and macOS (OS X) will only see the GPT entries. Therefore, Windows with think the drive is MBR partitioned, while macOS (OS X) will think the drive is GPT partitioned.

David Anderson
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    Thank you very much for these clear instructions. Guess I'll try the method with no DVD because my iMac's DVD player is broken and I live in Africa, so it takes me min. 4 weeks to get a new one. – Silvano Feb 10 '18 at 19:50
  • I tried the procedure you suggest but I get stuck at the same point. After the keyboard selection, Windows setup takes me through a few screens (key, select OS, accept license) then I end up on 'Where do you want to install Windows?' and if I select 'BOOTCAMP' it says again that it has an MBR partition table and it can only install on GPT, also he wants an NTFS partition. I never had the option 'Repair your computer' as you show. – Silvano Feb 11 '18 at 08:48
  • Post an image of the contents of the root folder of the external drive as shown in the Finder application. Or, post the output from the command ls -l /Volumes/WINSTALL. – David Anderson Feb 11 '18 at 09:33
  • I posted it by editing my original question. I don't seem to be able to post "code" in a comment – Silvano Feb 11 '18 at 09:57
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    You made a mistake somewhere. Step 7 renames AutoUnattend.xml to NoAutoUnattend.xml. I do not see this change in your posted output. This change causes "Repair your computer" to appear. – David Anderson Feb 11 '18 at 10:03
  • I thought that was to happen on the BOOTCAMP copy of the files. In your procedure you copy the files on the ISO image and WindowSupport on the BOOTCAMP partitiion, then rename 'efi' and 'AutoUnattend' to disable them. It was not clear that you had to do that on the WININSTALL too. – Silvano Feb 11 '18 at 10:26
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    Step 7 renames AutoUnattend.xml on BOOTCAMP. Step 8 copies from BOOTCAMP to WINSTALL. Step 8 renames efi on BOOTCAMP. Therefore, efi does not get renamed on WINSTALL. If you did rename efi on WINSTALL, then you would not be able to boot from the external drive. – David Anderson Feb 11 '18 at 10:34
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    Of course. I skipped step 8 because I already had WININSTALL and oversaw the fact that I had renamed those 2 files on BOOTCAMP. May I ask, why do we need to have two identical copies of the installation kit? doesn't BOOTCAMP get reformatted/overwritten during the Windows setup? – Silvano Feb 11 '18 at 11:05
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    The WINSTALL copy is for EFI booting and the BOOTCAMP copy is form BIOS booting. The Windows Installer will not install Windows unless the Mac is BIOS booted. You can not externally BIOS boot on Macs. Therefore, you need to first external EFI boot in order to setup an internal BIOS boot. In step 10, you EFI boot from the external drive partition labeled WINSTALL. In step 14, you BIOS boot from the internal drive partition labeled BOOTCAMP. – David Anderson Feb 11 '18 at 12:15
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    Regardless of the boot method, a drive X:, containing the necessary operating system files, is created in RAM. Control is transferred to this operating system on RAM drive X:. In step 16, you execute setup /unattend:D:\NoAutoUnattend.xml which launches the graphical Windows Installer stored on the external drive (WINSTALL). Now you are free to reformat the internal BOOTCAMP partition. Since you are BIOS booted, you will not get the error message posted in your question and will be allowed to install Windows in this partition. – David Anderson Feb 11 '18 at 12:23
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    I see. Reminds me of '76, when I booted my CDC 6400 by coding a BIOS in binary by flicking hardware switches on a matrix panel at the back of the CPU cupboard. That loaded the system from a tape… – Silvano Feb 11 '18 at 12:52
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    I restarted from scratch and now after the initial screen with the 4 windows I get a beautiful sky blue screen for a few minutes, then the mac switches itself off. I'll restart from scratch again… – Silvano Feb 11 '18 at 12:54
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    Starting using CDC Cybers in '78. Continued though the `80s. Sometimes, I miss the punch cards, magnetic tapes and noisy line printers. Used to develop software using CP/M microcomputers, then upload to the Cybers over phone lines. At first, there were no IBM-PCs, but the F80 (Fortran IV) compiler and M80 (Z80) macro assembler were written by Microsoft. – David Anderson Feb 11 '18 at 13:38
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    So we served in the same army. I was a systems programmer at CERN in Switzerland. CDC 76-84, then VAX/VMS till '93, worked with Tim Berners-Lee in his crazy idea called World Wide Web, on the VMS interface for the server, then moved to VR and in 2000 I became a filmmaker. So I lost touch with operating systems and boot techniques. Thank you so much for helping me out with my silly problems… ;) – Silvano Feb 11 '18 at 19:06