New
#1
Can Windows 7 be installed to a logical / extended volume?
Earlier in the year I bought myself an Apple Mac Mini. I knew I could run Windows on it and soon installed Windows 7. For various reasons I'd like to run 2 copies of Windows, plus OS-X, plus a shared FAT32 partition which all OSs can see and write to. You wouldn't think that would be so difficult..!
Unfortunately, Macs use the GPT disk partitioning scheme (which doesn't support extended or logical volumes), Instead, it can support up to 128 primary partitions. However, these get presented to Windows as if they were MBR partitions. GPT also needs an EFI partition, giving me 5 partitions minimum for what I need. Windows backup & partitioning tools (e.g. Paragon's Drive Backup) mistakenly see this as an MBR drive with 5 primary partitions and subsequently refuse to work.
Fortunately, Mac OS-X doesn't actually need to be on a GPT drive. It'll run perfectly well from an MBR drive which should in theory save me one partition (the EFI partition). In practice however, installing Win7 on an MBR drive causes it to create a 100MB System partition. This leaves me needing 5 partitions again which gets me right back to square one!!
Is there any way to configure Win7 so that it doesn't need that 100MB partition? Or alternatively, is it possible to install Win 7 on an extended partition where this wouldn't be an issue?