MacBook – How to install Windows 10 on Mac without removing the existing Linux partitions

bootcampdisk-formatmacbook propartitionwindows

I have a MacBook Air (El Captain) with Kali-Linux dual booted. Well, kind of. It's a 4 GB partition for live and a 15 GB partition for persistency.

So, all I wanted to know is, do I have any possibility of adding Windows onto my internal SSD too?

Best Answer

As far as I know, you can do it, but the order of installation should go like these:

Install Apple's Bootcamp and use it to install Windows 10

Use Windows 10 to shrink the Bootcamp partition, freeing up space to

Install Linux

Install rEFInd as a Boot Manager for all 3 OSes

All details are provided by Rob Pickering: https://robpickering.com/triple-boot-macbook-pro-macos-windows-10-linux/

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MacOS – No bootable disk when booting Windows after installing Linux on Mac

MacBook Pros from 2012 will use the legacy MBR/BIOS boot method for Windows. (If you’re reading this and your Mac is from 2014 or newer, the following instructions may not be relevant.)

When I resized my Windows Bootcamp partition during a clone to a new drive, I found it would no longer show up in the standard Mac boot menu, and when attempting to boot from rEFInd it would display a similar error message to what you’ve described.

The steps I followed to fix this were:

Disable Apple SIP by restarting into recovery mode (hold Command+R), open Terminal, and type:
```
csrutil disable
```
Reboot into OSX, install the gdisk command line tool, and use it to regenerate the hybrid GPT+MBR boot records. The instructions can get a bit long, so I suggest you read them here. If you are also booting Linux, you may need to ensure you include your Linux partition in the list of bootable partitions during the MBR creation step. (I’m only booting OSX + Windows so I cannot test this step with Linux.)
If Windows will still not boot (at this point I was seeing a blue screen of death with an error about winload.exe), you need to repair the boot files by booting to an installation disc/USB of the Windows version you have, then choose repair Windows installation. If the automated “Start-up Repair” option doesn’t work, you can try running these commands:

Note: first check that C:\ is actually the correct drive that you intend to perform the repair on. Otherwise replace c: in the commands below with the relevant drive letter.
```
bootsect /nt60 c: /mbr
attrib  -r  -h  -s  c:\boot\bcd
del c:\boot\bcd
bcdboot c:\windows /s c: /f BIOS
```
Source: https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/333605/30551

It took me quite a few hours of trial and error to get this working, so hopefully this saves others some trouble. ?

How to install Windows 10 on external SSD that currently runs OS X

As Apple states here: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201456

Can I install Windows on an external drive?

No, Boot Camp requires that Windows be installed on your internal hard disk.

There's a workaround, which doesn't use Bootcamp. Personally, I haven't tried it. http://bleeptobleep.blogspot.gr/2013/02/mac-install-windows-7-or-8-on-external.html

Best Answer

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