Do's and Don'ts of installing multiple OSes on MacBook Pro Late 2011

I have successfully installed macOS High Sierra, Windows 10, and Ubuntu 20.04 on MacBook Pro Late 2011, and there were some challenges worth noting down.

Formatting the disk

When booting into recovery mode to format the disk, the installation USB used must be of an OS X (Mavericks, for my case), not a macOS (newer version). I once booted into recovery mode using macOS High Sierra installation USB to format the disk with GUID Partition Map scheme, and then I was unabled to install Windows 10 through VirtualBox. I got the error message "The selected disk is of the GPT partition style." when selecting a partition to install Windows on. 

This is because I tried to install Windows using legacy mode and then Windows required a MBR disk, but it was GPT disk. However, when I booted into recovery mode using OS X Mavericks installation USB instead to format the disk with GPT Partition Table cheme, the error message was gone. Why? because the disk was hybrid MBR, not pure GPT, and so Mac OS saw it as GPT but Windows saw it as MBR. As Windows did not support EFI mode at that time, Apple used hybrid MBR to allow users to install Windows on its machines that used EFI boot.

Partitioning the disk

The disk must be partitioned as needed before installing any OSes on it or one of the OSes won't boot after the partition is resized or a new partition is created. 

At first, I didn't do that. After installing macOS High Sierra and Windows 10, I created another partition from the Windows 10 partition and then Windows stopped booting. It's because of the OS's boot entry is missing from the MBR, and I don't know why but this post claimed to fix that using a third-party tool. Unfortunately, I've never succeeded.

Ordering the partitions

In my case, I have 5 primary partitions:

1. EFI system partition
2. macOS
3. Windows
4. DATA
5. Linux

The first partition was hidden and created automatically by DiskUtility so I shouldn't have mentioned it but this is to show that the DATA partition must be the fourth partition so that it would appear in File Explorer (as I wanted) when booting into Windows. If it was the last one, it wouldn't show up. This is because the disk was MBR to Windows and so it could have only four primary partitions. Windows recognized only the first four partitions and ignored the rest so Linux partition was treated as unallocated space (this can be checked in Disk Management).

In DiskUtility (of OS X Mavericks), the first partition is graphically on top. Since the EFI system partition is not visible in DiskUtility, the macOS partition is on top instead.

Installing Windows using BIOS legacy mode without CD-ROM

Since my CD-ROM drive stopped working a long time ago, I couldn't install Windows with Boot Camp Assistant because my machine, by default, only looked for Windows installation files from the CD-ROM drive but it couldn't find it. 

When I forced the machine to look for the Windows installation files from a USB drive (by holding down the Option key while it's starting), it worked but Windows was installed using EFI mode instead, and the problem with EFI mode is the external monitor is not detected on Windows. This problem only happens on my Mac model, not the newer ones.

Everything worked fine when installing Windows using BIOS legacy mode, and the workaround was installing it through VirtualBox. I noted it down here.

How to clone Ubuntu OS partition?

I'm using Macbook Pro 13-inch Late 2011 running Ubuntu 20.04. I used the built-in application called Disks to backup the Ubuntu system partition into a disk image (*.img file) and then restore the disk image back to the partition.

IMPORTANT 

• When backing up a system partition, the EFI system partition should also be backed up if it exists (using either Disks application or cp command)
• The backed up or source partition must be smaller than or equal to the destination partition
• The size of the disk image (*.img file) equals the size of the (backed up) source partition even if the partition has free space. The source partition should be resized as small as possible so that the resulting disk image is acceptably small.

To Backup

Backing up Ubuntu partition:

• Boot into Ubuntu Live (on USB) and chose Try Ubuntu

• Open Disks application from the menu (press Windows key and type Disks)

• Select the partition to backup 

• (Optional) Click on the settings icon for more options and select Resize

• Click on the settings icon for more options then select Create Partition Image...

• Make sure the file name and location are correct. The partition for storing the disk image must be mounted or it'll fail with a message like there is not enough space or something else confusing.

Backing up EFI system partition:

The EFI system partition is where the Ubuntu bootloader locates in because I manually chose the partition for the bootloader while installing Ubuntu (It's a must to install Ubuntu using EFI mode).

I used the method above to clone (backup) this partition, and also manually copied its content using cp command. Of course, using cp command is simpler and works just fine. The partition has only one directory named EFI.

> sudo mkdir /mnt/sda1
> sudo mount -o loop /dev/sda1 /mnt/sda1
> sudo cp -rf /mnt/sda1/EFI /media/myusb/ubuntu-efi/

To Restore

Restoring Ubuntu partition:

• Boot into Ubuntu Live (on USB) and click Try Ubuntu

• Open Disks application from the menu

• Select the (destination) partition for running Ubuntu 

• Click on the settings icon for more options and select Restore Partition Image...

• Browse to the (source) partition that the disk image (*.img file) is stored on

• Select the disk image file and click Start Restoring

Restoring EFI system partition:

I opened Terminal and used the cp command to copy it back from the USB drive to the EFI system partition (in my case, /dev/sda1). 

> sudo mkdir /mnt/sda1     

> sudo mount -o loop /dev/sda1 /mnt/sda1    

> sudo cp -rf /media/myusb/ubuntu-efi/EFI/ubuntu /mnt/sda1/EFI/

> sudo cp -rf /media/myusb/ubuntu-efi/EFI/BOOT /mnt/sda1/EFI/

Successfully Tested Scenarios

Scenario 1 

1. Create a virtual machine and install Ubuntu with VirtualBox, enabling EFI mode
- Partition 1: 500 MB (EFI system)
- Partition 2: 50 GB (FAT32 - empty)
- Partition 3: 200 GB (NTFS - empty)
- Partition 4: 40 GB (EXT4 - Ubuntu)
2. Reboot into Ubuntu Live through a virtual CD-ROM attached with the Ubuntu installation ISO file and choose Try Ubuntu
3. Open Disks application from the menu and use it to backup Partition 4 (Ubuntu system partition) to a disk image (*.img file) stored on Partition 3.
4. Restore the disk image file to Partition 2
5. Format and erase Partition 4
6. Optional: backup Partition 1 to a disk image stored on Partition 3
7. Close the virtual machine and start it again

Scenario 2

1. Boot into Recovery mode on MacBook Pro Late 2011
2. Create the following partitions:
- Partition 1: 70 GB (Mac OS Extended)
- Partition 2: 100 GB (exFAT)
- Partition 3: 90 GB (FAT 32)
- Partition 4: 200 GB (exFAT)
3. Install macOS High Sierra on Partition 1 
4. Install Ubuntu 20.04 on Partition 3 (formatted as ext4)
5. Boot into Ubuntu Live USB and choose Try Ubuntu
6. Open Disks application from the menu
7. Format Partition 4 as NTFS
8. Optional: resize Partition 3 to 20 GB (leaving 70 GB of free space)
9. Backup Partition 3 (Ubuntu) as a disk image (*.img file) and store it on Partition 4 
10. Format and erase Partition 3 (this can also be done in macOS)
11. Restore the disk image from Partition 4 to Partition 3
12. Reboot the machine

Setting environment variables on Ubuntu

Example

export JAVA_HOME=/usr/local/jdk-15.0.2

export PATH="$PATH:$JAVA_HOME/bin"

Without the export command, the variables are just shell variables; it means they aren't recognized by the sub processes or programs that start from the shell. 

Login shell vs non-login shell

A shell in Unix is a program that provides command line interface for OS and user interaction. The Terminal application is just an emulator or GUI for a shell.

Login shell - ssh is an example.

Non-login shell - the Terminal application by default starts a non-login shell but inherits the user environment variablbes loaded from the graphical login shell.

Session-wide environment variables

It affects only specific user.

The ~/.profile file

Each user has its own .profile file. It gets executed by the DisplayManager when the desktop session loads as well as by the login shell when one logs in from the textual console.

The ~/.profile file is not automatically executed by just restarting the Terminal application because it's not a login shell. For the file modification to take effect, logout the user account and login again.

System-wide environment variables

It affects the system as a whole (rather than just a specific user). 

The /etc/environment file

The downside is variables do not expand. In the example below, the PATH variable would end up containing only "/bin" because $PATH and $JAVA_HOME don't get replaced with their values.

export JAVA_HOME=/usr/local/jdk-15.0.2

export PATH="$PATH:$JAVA_HOME/bin"

The /etc/profile & /etc/profile.d/*.sh files

The /etc/profile is often used for setting system-wide environment variables but it is a configuration file so it's inappropriate to edit that file. The /etc/profile.d directory should be used instead. It (and any sh files inside) get executed whenever a bash login shell is entered (e.g. when logging in from the console or over ssh), as well as by the DisplayManager when the desktop session loads. 

For example, create the /etc/profile.d/myvars.sh file and set the variables as followings:

export JAVA_HOME=/usr/local/jdk-15.0.2

export PATH="$PATH:$JAVA_HOME/bin"

WiFi is not working on a fresh-install Ubuntu 20.04

I'm using Macbook Pro Late 2011 to install Ubuntu 20.04 on it. WiFi was working fine when trying Ubuntu from Live USB, but it wasn't after the installation. I couldn't find the WiFi adapter in Network settings.

First, when I opened Software & Updates > Additional Drivers, I saw:

Broadcom Inc. and subsidaries: BCM4331 802. 11a/b/g/n (AirPort Extreme)

The option Do not use the device  below it was checked and then I check another option to use the device and clicked Apply Changes but failed.

Second, I mounted the Ubuntu installation ISO file as a CD-ROM (using commands in Terminal) then opened Software & Updates again and selected Ubuntu Software tab. Under Installable from CD-ROM/DVD label, I checked Cdrom with Ubuntu 20.04 then repeat the first step but still no luck.

The solution below (that I copied from here) worked. 

1. Extract the Ubuntu installation ISO file (ubuntu-20.04.*.iso) to ~/Downloads folder then open Terminal and run:

> sudo chmod -R 777 ~/Downloads/ubuntu-20.04.*

2. Find the broadcom firmware on another machine:

- Download broadcom-wl-6.30.163.46.tar.bz2 (or later) from here or my backup.

- Extract it to ~/Downloads folder

3. Run the following commands in Terminal:

> cd ubuntu-20.04.*/

> sudo dpkg -i ./pool/main/b/b43-fwcutter/b43-fwcutter_019-4_amd64.deb

> cd ~/Downloads/broadcom-wl-6.30.163.46

> sudo b43-fwcutter -w /lib/firmware broadcom-wl-6.30.163.46.wl_apsta.o

 

> sync

> sudo modprobe -r b43 

> sudo modprobe b43 

4. Check the Network settings again and the WiFI icon should appear.

Testing

sudo asr restore --source /dev/disk1 --toSnapshot 9942DBA2-5C5C-4A6C-B099-79AE2C7B011D --target /dev/disk3 --erase
	Validating target...done
	Validating source...done
	Erase contents of /dev/disk3 ()? [ny]: y
	Replicating ....10....20....30....40....50....60....70....80....90....100
	Replicating ....10....20....30....40....50....60....70....80....90....100
	Restored target device is /dev/disk3s2.
Restore completed successfully.

Cloning a macOS Big Sur partition to a USB Drive (bootable)

I'm using MacBook Air 2013 running macOS Big Sur. This is how I made a bootable backup of my macOS partition to another partition on my USB drive. Apple Software Restore (asr command line utility) allows a user to restore the content of a (system) volume (disk/partition) to another volume or disk image. This can be thought of cloning a partition.

Step 1

My USB drive has 4 partitions as shown in the image below. The internal system volume (source), macOS Big Sur, is going to be restored to NAK-macOSBigSur partition (target) on the USB drive. The partition is formatted as APFS with GUID Partition Map scheme.

NOTE: This post is about restoring from a snapshot of the system volume (which is explained in the next steps). If there is no snapshot and so it won't be specified in the command, the size of target volume (or disk image) must be greater than the size of the source system volume (not just the size of the system volume's content) or the restore will fail. Just make sure the target volume's size is bigger before the restore and then shrink it later.

Step 2

Note down the identifiers of the source system volume, macOS Big Sur, and the target USB's partition. They can be viewed in DiskUtility or from Terminal using this command:

> diskutil apfs list

APFS Containers (2 found)

|

+-- Container disk1 0A4D95E1-BDA4-4BEF-B349-D34D0B1EAD0B

|   ====================================================

|   APFS Container Reference:     disk1

|   Size (Capacity Ceiling):      89999998976 B (90.0 GB)

|   Capacity In Use By Volumes:   65204166656 B (65.2 GB) (72.4% used)

|   Capacity Not Allocated:       24795832320 B (24.8 GB) (27.6% free)

|   |

|   +-< Physical Store disk0s2 E0056EF5-6FCD-4D45-AB00-C7D273999AE5

|   |   -----------------------------------------------------------

|   |   APFS Physical Store Disk:   disk0s2

|   |   Size:                       89999998976 B (90.0 GB)

|   |

|   +-> Volume disk1s1 23C04205-6361-398C-989F-10195CDC66BA

|   |   ---------------------------------------------------

|   |   APFS Volume Disk (Role):   disk1s1 (Data)

|   |   Name:                      macOS Big Sur - Data (Case-insensitive)

|   |   Mount Point:               /System/Volumes/Data

|   |   Capacity Consumed:         47762022400 B (47.8 GB)

|   |   Sealed:                    No

|   |   FileVault:                 No

|   |

|   +-> Volume disk1s2 0300C5AA-7F28-4FB1-9B21-F128B56BD685

|   |   ---------------------------------------------------

|   |   APFS Volume Disk (Role):   disk1s2 (Preboot)

|   |   Name:                      Preboot (Case-insensitive)

|   |   Mount Point:               /System/Volumes/Preboot

|   |   Capacity Consumed:         284585984 B (284.6 MB)

|   |   Sealed:                    No

|   |   FileVault:                 No

|   |

|   +-> Volume disk1s3 FF1FA02B-5C9E-41E9-8193-4676E5DC57D3

|   |   ---------------------------------------------------

|   |   APFS Volume Disk (Role):   disk1s3 (Recovery)

|   |   Name:                      Recovery (Case-insensitive)

|   |   Mount Point:               Not Mounted

|   |   Capacity Consumed:         623341568 B (623.3 MB)

|   |   Sealed:                    No

|   |   FileVault:                 No

|   |

|   +-> Volume disk1s4 A0B8A157-01F7-4563-9C6A-CC869FE11FB5

|   |   ---------------------------------------------------

|   |   APFS Volume Disk (Role):   disk1s4 (VM)

|   |   Name:                      VM (Case-insensitive)

|   |   Mount Point:               /System/Volumes/VM

|   |   Capacity Consumed:         1074819072 B (1.1 GB)

|   |   Sealed:                    No

|   |   FileVault:                 No

|   |

|   +-> Volume disk1s5 8C1ADEAE-7361-415F-AEBF-C64BD1C00146

|       ---------------------------------------------------

|       APFS Volume Disk (Role):   disk1s5 (System)

|       Name:                      macOS Big Sur (Case-insensitive)

|       Mount Point:               Not Mounted

|       Capacity Consumed:         15330869248 B (15.3 GB)

|       Sealed:                    Broken

|       FileVault:                 No

|       |

|       Snapshot:                  9942DBA2-5C5C-4A6C-B099-79AE2C7B011D

|       Snapshot Disk:             disk1s5s1

|       Snapshot Mount Point:      /

|       Snapshot Sealed:           Yes

|

+-- Container disk3 FD345835-64FB-4924-962B-FB26C2B8F980

    ====================================================

    APFS Container Reference:     disk3

    Size (Capacity Ceiling):      76559953920 B (76.6 GB)

    Capacity In Use By Volumes:   122478592 B (122.5 MB) (0.2% used)

    Capacity Not Allocated:       76437475328 B (76.4 GB) (99.8% free)

    |

    +-< Physical Store disk4s5 17F2CE1B-2E10-411D-8ECF-0435F949DFAE

    |   -----------------------------------------------------------

    |   APFS Physical Store Disk:   disk4s5

    |   Size:                       76559953920 B (76.6 GB)

    |

    +-> Volume disk3s1 714E92A0-4F22-47A0-A72C-449E389BFC23

        ---------------------------------------------------

        APFS Volume Disk (Role):   disk3s1 (No specific role)

        Name:                      NAK-macOSBigSur (Case-insensitive)

        Mount Point:               /Volumes/NAK-macOSBigSur

        Capacity Consumed:         827392 B (827.4 KB)

        Sealed:                    No

        FileVault:                 No

Step  3

Run Apple Software Restore command as following:

> sudo asr restore --source /dev/disk1 --toSnapshot 9942DBA2-5C5C-4A6C-B099-79AE2C7B011D --target /dev/disk5 --erase --buffersize 32m  

Password:

Validating target...done

Validating source...done

Erase contents of /dev/disk5 ()? [ny]: y

Replicating ....10....20....30....40....50....60....70....80....90....100

Replicating ....10....20....30....40....50....60....70....80....90....100

Restored target device is /dev/disk5s2.

Restore completed successfully.

Apple does not allow restoring a system volume when its seal is broken and so is mine, then specifying the --snapshot option is a workaround to bypass the restriction. The snapshot was created by macOS Big Sur automatically when it updated itself and so it's the OS update snapshot.

The seal is part of Signed System Volume (SSV) technology, which is used to protect a system content on a signed system volume. With SSV, the kernel rejects any data or code (at runtime) that does not have a valid cryptographic signature from Apple to protect the integrity of the system content. I'm not sure if the seal is broken because I once booted into Recovery mode and used DiskUtility to restore the system volume to a USB drive. But, some people on the internet said the seal was broken even for a fresh install of Big Sur. 

/dev/disk1 is the identifier of the (source) system volume's container. The identifier of the system volume can also be used, /dev/disk1s1, in this case.

/dev/disk5 is the identifier of the target USB partition's container. The identifier of the partition can also be used, /dev/disk3s1, in this case.

--buffersize 32m option (32m means 32 Megabytes) makes the asr command run faster than the default buffer size. This is ideal for block-copies between partitions.  The size should be changed and experimented for an optimal value.

And the image below shows how my USB drive's partition changed after restore completed.

macOS Sierra

The asr restore command might throw the error below.

Source volume is read-write and cannot be unmounted, so it can't be block copied.

To solve that, the asr restore command must be run in Mac's Recovery mode (restart the machine and hold Command + R).

macOS High Sierra

The asr restore command always fail at the end. Many people reported the same so I downgraded to macOS Sierra.

Errors restoring or creating a disk image from a volume using DiskUtility

I'm using Macbook Air running macOS Big Sur, and I was having troubles performing disk restore using DiskUtility.

ERROR 1: I was unable to restore a volume to a new blank disk image I created. 

There could be a couple reasons such as the size of the blank disk image is smaller than the size of the source volume or there was no partition in the disk image (must be manually created at least 1 partition). But, even if I did follow all these requirements, the restore still failed.

ERROR 2: When trying to create a new disk image from a device or folder, I got the error message like "...operation not permitted". 

The function to create a new image from a device/folder is useful because the size of the new disk image will automatically be set to the size of the source device/folder, and the contents of the device/folder are restored (cloned) to the new disk image. 

SOLUTION

The errors occured because DiskUtility did not have enough privileges to perform those operations. After assigning a Full Disk Access permission to DiskUtility, I could restore a volume to a disk image (and vice versa) without any problems.

How to assign Full Disk Access permission to DiskUtility?

Open System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy then select Full Disk Access from the listbox on the left and click on the Plus sign to add DiskUtility to the right listbox and make sure it's checked.

Backing up macOS with Time Machine

I installed macOS Big Sur on my MacBook Air (11-inch 2013) and used Time Machine application to backup the macOS partition to an external USB drive. 

I also created a bootable macOS Big Sur installation USB stick for restoring the changes back in time using Time Machine, or just installing a fresh macOS Big Sur. In fact, I can also boot into Recovery Mode to perform restore or install too (pressing Command + R while the machine is starting). If the hidden Recovery partition that macOS created is also corrupted or erased, the built-in internet Recovery Mode is used instead. The internet Recovery needs WiFi access to download recovery system image from Apple then start the Recovery mode.

Time Machine backs up the neccesary files to an external hard drive and then uses the backup drive to restore the files back in time. Time Machine can be thought of System Restore in Windows (it's not cloning). I formatted the backup drive using Mac OS Extended (journaled) file system but macOS Big Sur's Time Machine reformatted it as APFS (Case-sensitive). 

Backing up with Time Machine

1. Open System Preferences > Time Machine

2. Click on Select Disk... button and choose a drive or a partition to store the backup files. In my case, the partition's name is Time Machine's Backups (MBA-BigSur) as shown in the image below.

3. Click Options... button and make sure to add any drives or paritions other than the one running OS in the exlusion list

4. Uncheck Backup Automatically so it only backs up when neended.

5. Check Show Time Machine in menu bar then the clock icon will appear at the top of the screen

6. Click on the Time Machine icon in the menu bar and select Back Up Now

ERROR: " This copy of the Install OS X Mavericks application can't be verified. it may have been corrupted or tampered with during downloading"

The error messsage was thrown when running OS X Mavericks Installer (previously downloaded from App Store).

For my case, this is because the installer file was downloaded years ago so the certificate come with it had expired. I should re-download it but it was no longer available on App Store.

Thus, the workaround is to change my machine's date (clock) to the release year of OS X Mavericks. It's easy to change the date if the installer is launched from the running OS X prior to Mavericks, but if it is launched from Recovery mode, it invovles running commands in Terminal (there's enough posts on the net about this though).

Creating OS X Mavericks (or macOS) Bootable USB Drive

When downloading OS X Mavericks from App Store, the installer file's name might be something like  "Install OS X Mavericks.app" and stored in /Application folder.  Double click on the file would launch the installer then lead to restarting machine and installing the OS X Mavericks. 

But, OS X Mavericks was not available on App Store anymore so I downloaded it from someone else's backup on the net. He renamed the file "Install OS X Mavericks.app" to "Mavericks.app" and wrapped it in a DMG file.

I'm using MacBook Air running macOS Big Sur to make this bootable USB drive, just in case my machine fails to boot for some reasons.

Method 1

1. Prepare a USB stick with at least 6 GB then open DiskUtility to format it as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and name it as InstallOSXMavericks.

2. Double click on the DMG file in Finder to mount it and copy the Mavericks.app to the /Applications folder.

3. Open Terminal and run the following command:

sudo /Applications/Mavericks.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/InstallOSXMavericks --applicationpath /Applications/Mavericks.app --nointeraction

NOTE: For macOS Sierra, the command might fail with the error message below:

/Volumes/NAK-InstallMacOSSierra is not a valid volume mount point.

If it does, run the following command:

sudo plutil -replace CFBundleShortVersionString -string "12.6.03" /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Sierra.app/Contents/Info.plist

4. Restart the machine. Before it starts, press and hold Option key until the boot menu shows up. Choose Install OS X Mavericks and wait to see if it's really bootable.

Method 2

1. Make sure DiskUtility has Full Disk Access permission. If not, assign it the permission, and here is how.

2. Prepare a USB stick with at least 6 GB then open DiskUtility to format it as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and name it as InstallOSXMavericks.

3. Open Finder then double click on the installer file (DMG) to mount it

4. Navigate to the mounted image file then right click on Mavericks.app and select Show Package Contents. After that, open this folder Contents > SharedSupport and double click on InstallESD.dmg file to mount and show it in DiskUtility.

5. Select the USB drive from the side bar then click Restore and choose InstallESD.dmg from "Restore from" combobox and click Restore again.

6. When the restore completes, restart the machine. Before it starts, press and hold Option key until the boot menu shows up. It would not show Install OS X Mavericks like in Method 1 but EFI instead. Choose EFI then wait to see if it's really bootable. There can be another bootable device showing as EFI too. This is confusing and need to guess and try.  

NOTE: I used Method 1 to create a bootable USB for macOS Big Sur too and it worked.

REFERENCE

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201372

Creating a bootable Windows 10 installation USB drive

The easieset way to create a bootable installation media (USB drive) for Windows 10 (or any other Operating Systems) is using UNetbootin (a free open-source software). It can run on Mac OSes, Windows, and Linux.

I downloaded and installed UNetbootin on my MacBook Air (running macOS Big Sur) and used it to create a bootable Windows 10 installation USB drive successfully. It had two options for writing the Windows 10 setup file to the USB stick: automatically downloading Windows 10 and using local ISO file of Windows 10. I tried it with my MacBook Pro, and it did boot up from that USB. 

Step 1:

Open Terminal and run the following command to see the device identifier of the USB partition for storing Windows 10 installation file (which can be downloaded for free from Microsoft's website).

> diskutil list

For my case, I named the USB parition as REPAIRWIN10 and then the assigned identifier was disk2s6.

Step 2:

Start UNetbootin application and configure it as followings:

Unable to create a System Restore point on Windows 10 running on Macbook Pro 2011

After successfully installing Windows 10 on Macbook Pro 2011, I tried to create a System Restore point but got the failure message below.

The restore point could not be created. The shadow copy provider had an error (code 0x80042306).

Many people on the net recommended starting the Shadow Copy Provider in Services (press Windows + R then type services.msc) if it isn't running or restarting it if it is already running, but that didn't fix it.

Then, I checked the logs in Event Viewer and see the description of the error code 0x80042306 below. NOTE: To start Event Viewer, open Control Panel > System and Security then click on View event logs under Administrative Tools. After that, select Event Viewer (Local) > Windows Logs > Application (or System) and create a System Restore point so that the error shows up in the logs again.

Volume Shadow Copy Service error: Unexpected error CreateFileW(\\?\GLOBALROOT\Device\HarddiskVolumeShadowCopy38...

I googled it and some people said the AppleHFS driver (from Boot Camp) is the cause of the error, and they suggested disabling it. The driver allows read-only access to an HFS drive (HFS is a Mac OS file system format). Since I didn't need to access any HFS drives, I was fine with it. After disabling it, I was able to create System Restore.

Disabling AppleHFS driver:

1. Download and install Autoruns program (a part of Sysinternals Utilities to see the description of the error code).

2. Open File Explorer then navigate to C:\Windows\System32\drivers and rename the file AppleHFS.sys to AppleHFS_DISABLED.sys (or anything else).

3. Restart the machine.

Solved Issues while installing Windows 10 with VirtualBox (v6)

Message: "Something went wrong (OOBESETTINGS)"

This message showed up in the middle of installing Windows 10 with VirtualBox.

Solution 1

1. Close the window and choose Power off the machine.

2. Go to Settings and set number of CPU cores to 2.

3. Start the machine again.

Solution 2

1. Press Shift + F10 to open Command Prompt and then run the following commands:

> net user Administrator /active:yes
> net user /add MyName MyPassword
> net localgroup administrators MyName /add
> cd %windir%\system32\oobe
> msoobe.exe

2. Close the Command Prompt window then select Machine > Reset to restart the virtual machine. Don't use the close button at the edge of the window of the running machine to forcefully shut it off, it might corrupt the virtual hard disk, and the virtual machine can't start. If the similar error message shows up again or it's stuck at "Just a moment" screen, just restart it again.

3. Click OK when the message below shows up.

then, it'll lead to Administrator login screen below. From this point forward, the error message should never appear again.

NOTE: After the installation's completed, disable the Administrator user because viruses can use the user to make change to the system files (even in Boot Sector).

Useful programs and browser's extensions for my Macbook Pro 2011 running Windows 10

Programs

QTTabBar

It adds tabs to File Explorer.

Notepad++

It's a free source code editor supported several languages.

VLC

It's easy to add subtitle for a movie and can also increase the brightness and contrast of a video if it's too dark.

Free Download Manager

- Free
- Download any files faster 
- Integrate with browsers (using extension)
- Download torrents
- Download Youtube videos (in many formats or sizes)
iGetter is a good alternative; it's free, supports browser integration, and can download a whole site.

Chrome Extensions

Video DownloadHelper (Offered by: www.downloadhelper.net)

It can download movies (MP4 files) from any sites like kissasian.al.

Free Download Manager (Offered by: Free Download Manager.ORG)

It helps transfer any downloads, even from Video DownloadHelper extension, to Free Download Manager desktop program.

#1 FB Video Downloader HD+ (SnapSave) (Offered by: SnapSave Company)

It can download videos from Facebook, just clicking on the panel at the top right corner of a video without even playing. It also provides an option to download different video sizes.