Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with bootcamp

Help me join my friends in their Age of Empires game.

wolfr — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 10:52:39 -0800

How do I beat the Boot Camp assistant? Mac/Boot Camp problem. I am the sole Mac user at a friend's weekend, which mostly consists of gaming together. Earlier this week I installed Windows 7 using Boot Camp on my iMac (Snow Leopard) without any significant problems.

Yesterday I tried to do the same for my Macbook Pro, yet Boot Camp assistant told me it couldn't partition the drives. It suggested I backed up my information, erased the hard disk, reinstalled Mac OSX, then tried running Boot Camp assistant again to partition the hard drives.

I tried to avoid this situation by doing the following (a Google search yielded these possible solutions):

(1) Verifying disk permissions and repairing them using Disk Utility
(2) Running iDefrag to defragment the hard drive

None of these helped.

I have:

(1) A disk image of Snow Leopard on my HD, but no physical disc
(2) A physical Windows 7 disc
(3) A 500Gb external USB HD that is a Time Machine backup of my current system

I am at a loss how to continue fixing my problem without a physical Snow Leopard DVD. It's too late to run out to the shop now for DVDs. My physical DVDs are in my hometown, 2,5 hours away.

Can I somehow bypass the Boot Camp Assistant, create the partition manually? I think Windows has to run on an NFTS formatted hard drive (partition?), but that doesn't appear to be an option in Disk Utility.

Thanks!

Is 64-bit Win7/BootCamp worth some effort?

Zonker — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 08:25:04 -0800

Is 64-bit Win7 possible/worth the hassle on a somewhat elderly Macbook Pro? My late '06 Macbook Pro (version 2,2) won't boot the 64-bit Windows 7 installer (it hangs at "Select CD-Rom Boot Type"), but the 32-bit version installs fine through Boot Camp. It looks like there's a hack (here) that would allow me to boot the 64-bit version by burning it to DVD in a slightly different way.

Is the 64-bit version worth the effort? Is there a significant difference in compatibility with Parallels Desktop between the 32- and 64-bit versions? Any other considerations I should have in mind?

Mac and MMO's don't mix.

Anonymous — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 11:23:54 -0800

I'm a gamer. I bought a mac. After going through a lot of hassles with Boot Camp, I've decided to switch back. I'll get around $1700 for returning the mac... My question is, would it be better to buy a laptop around this price or sell my desktop as well to up my budget? Quick note: This question is anonymous because my entire social circle knows about the situation, and I don't want them knowing about my other, more personal questions on the main account.

I did get boot camp to work for awhile, but then I ran out of hard drive space on my Windows partition. Low and behold, you can't dynamically resize drives. Instead of going through the reinstall when I run out of space again (or giving my mac partition a measly 5GB... What is it even there for?) , I decided to just buy a gaming laptop.

I've been looking at the G71GX and the G51Vx.(http://usa.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=0rtKwgmuen69jiqw).

Around May of '08, I built a desktop with top of the line gaming equipment at the time (specifically, to run Age of Conan.) I'm away in college now, so most of the time it sits collecting dust. However, I'm worried that if I do sell it, I'll find the laptop doesn't measure up and regret it... Anyone have some experience with this that can chime in? (I've never bought a laptop for gaming before.)

Also, I mention the date/equipment because I'm trying to guestimate how much it'll sell for. My guess is around $500-$600, but could it be even less than that? (I can give specific specs if need be.)

iMac eats my CD's

sindas — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 19:47:50 -0800

Pseudo broken iMac and boot camp issues: replaced old failing hard drive, and cd-drive subsequently breaks, among other things The computer in question is a 20-inch iMac aluminum 2ghz processor.

I successfully clean-installed snow leopard after formatting the new drive, but the disc refused to come out. After trying everything, I opened up the drive and removed the disc manually.

Windows (be it vista, or 7 beta) refuses to install on the boot camp partition using an external HDD that I imaged, or an external DVD drive. Once I restart so that the installation can begin, it hangs forever at the gray screen.

I also tried installing rEFIt: it allows me to select the DVD, begin to boot from it, and then hangs forever (before the disc even loads), and disallows me from trying to boot from an external HDD.

What should I try next?

Get words to mah team!

razzamatazm — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 23:21:56 -0800

Is it possible to connect a Jawbone headset via bluetooth to an intel mac bootcamp'd into XP? I have tried multiple bluetooth stacks, and it seems like I've gotten close, but so far no cigar (or Team Fortress 2 chat). Does the hive have any experience with this conundrum? For what it's worth, I do have a seperate bluetooth dongle that I can plug in. It's very generic so I can't give many specifics.

Help me close this can of worms!

siclik — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 11:11:45 -0800

Trouble reinstalling BootCamp Manager in Win XP SP3. Error 2753. I started having problems getting BootCamp Manager to start, so this morning I decided to uninstall and attempted to reinstall without much luck.

First, I inserted my Leopard disk which has BootCamp Manager 2.0 on it, and I always get an error 2753 stating that the "installation has encountered an unexpected error".

So I pulled out my old BootCamp Manager v1.4 disk, and I get the same exact error.

Then, I went to the Apple website to download the latest version (2.1) but it throws an error at me stating that it's an upgrade and can't be installed without a prior version of BootCamp installed (which is frustrating because, as far as I understand, 2.1 is the only version that can be installed on top of SP3).

I've uninstalled AVG antivirus thinking that was the culprit but no dice.

What should my next move be? I REALLY don't want to have to reinstall Windows today. Is there a full 2.1 installation package out there that doesn't require a previous installation of BootCamp to run?

Thanks for your input!

How can I triple-boot OS X, Windows XP and Ubuntu on my Macbook?

ilumos — Sat, 02 May 2009 07:38:54 -0800

How can I triple-boot OS X, Windows XP and Ubuntu on my Macbook? I already have OS X and Windows XP running great with bootcamp, how can I add Ubuntu to my arsenal without fudging the bootloader?

Cross-Platform Crashing on a Macbook Pro

N2O1138 — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 18:04:43 -0800

I have Leopard and Windows 7 (7057) installed on my Late 2007 (possibly older, I got it refurbished) Macbook Pro 15". My problem is, every time I boot into either OS, I get a kernel panic or BSOD respectively. The fact that it happens in 2 different operating systems makes me almost positive that it's a hardware problem. Unfortunately, I don't know very much about computer hardware, so I don't really know what to troubleshoot first, and I don't want to void the warranty by opening the case (I plan to take it to the Apple Store if nobody here can solve the problem). Specifically, either operating system will crash about a minute into booting up. I don't think the problem can be too serious because everything graphically looks fine and all my files are intact. This leads me to think that maybe it's a RAM problem, and that it runs out of memory and crashes during bootup. Safe Mode in Windows works fine (I'm using it now), and still reports the correct 2gb of RAM. I haven't done safe boot to OS X yet.

The Blue Screen says
"Uncorrectable Hardware Error" and below it gives the code
*** STOP: 0x00000124 (0x00000000,0x85BAE024,0xF2000000,0x00060151)

If it were just what I'm experiencing on Windows, I might think it was something to do with drivers, but it's on both operating systems.

New Mac Setup

Admiral Haddock — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 09:56:33 -0800

OK, so my new Mac will arrive next week. Can power users fill me in on best practices for setting it up? I've used Macs for a looooong time now, but I think I've really lost touch with how they should be set up. I am currently running off of a first-generation MacBook where everything is set up on a single admin user (without a password--ugh).

So, starting from scratch, I'd like to set this up with an admin user, a user for me, and a guest user with limited privileges (but full access to iTunes and innocuous stuff). I've read the great tutorial on from this post already, but I still have (possibly stupid) questions that I'd love your thoughts on.

1) I presume I'll use migration assistant to get everything I want from the MacBook over to the Mac Pro. Do I set up an administrator first and then add the MacBook account as a new user? Or set up administrator and a new user, and import to the new user account directly? I've never used different accounts before--do you install programs while logged in as the administrator and then set which users have access? Or install as the user (with the admin password)? If you install as a user, can the administrator then share with the other accounts?

2) What about security? This thread has a lot of advice I hope to follow. But a couple other questions: I expect my home directory for the user account will be about 300-500 GB. Is Filevault able to decrypt/encrypt large directories on the fly, or does it get choked up? Does it make more sense just to use encryption on certain subfolders, rather than the whole user directory? If so, what program? Should I be setting up an Open Firmware password? Or is this just overkill?

3) Would it make sense to keep all of my documents on a second drive in one of the extra bays, so that I can yank the personal stuff if I ever have to send in the machine?

4) What about installing Windows? I think I'm assuming I might install it with Bootcamp, but I have an old version of Parallels I might upgrade to the latest and greatest. Is it safer to install Windows on a dedicated drive? How does Windows (either in Boot Camp or in virtualization) play with multiple accounts/security settings?

I'd definitely like to set up the new machine right the first time. Thanks in advance for your input!

Installing Windows 7 on a MBP with a non-working DVD drive

N2O1138 — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 23:22:32 -0800

How can I install Windows 7 (via Boot Camp or rEFIt) from an ISO? I think the Superdrive on my Macbook Pro (10.5.6) is on its last legs, because it ejects almost anything I put in it. (Meaning blank DVDs, and the DVD I burned of the ISO on my Windows XP desktop with ImgBurn). It's not extremely old (I got it refurbished on Christmas 2007), but still old enough to be out of warranty (at least I would think so). What I have available: 1tb My Book Firewire External Hard Drive 4gb 1st gen iPod Nano, that isn't even formatted as an iPod right now, so it's basically just a 4gb USB flash drive. I know I can boot from it if it's set up right, because I've been using it with this What I've tried so far:
I can't restore the iPod to the ISO in Disk Utility, so I tried to convert the ISO to a DMG (in Disk Utility and using a program called Converso), getting errors both times.

I tried mounting the ISO, erasing everything on the iPod, and copying everything straight out of the ISO to the iPod, but it doesn't appear as anything bootable.

Please help if you can

Recommend a Manhattan boot camp fitness program?

Anonymous — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 08:47:24 -0800

Recommendations for a fitness boot camp in Manhattan? I'm a late 20s female who is looking to get in better shape/lose 10-15 lbs. I go to the gym on a regular basis and watch what I eat, but I need something more. I have a hard time motivating myself to do strength training work by myself, though I know that I need to do it.

I've worked with a personal trainer in the past and I really liked the experience, but I can't afford the costs of a trainer at the moment. I think a boot camp atmosphere might work for me like the trainer did, with someone to tell me what to do and perhaps kick my ass a bit. Also, I played team sports up until college and I'm a little bit competitive, so I think the group dynamic may work in my favor as well.

I've googled and seen lots of options, but I'm hoping for personal experiences or recommendations if anyone has done one of these programs. Ideally it would be pre-work (or late evening, as I often get stuck late at work) and convenient to the east village/union square/midtown east. Any other details about any programs (including approximate costs, since many of them don't have that one their websites) would be great. Thank you.

Fallout 3 on a Mac?

Pants! — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 11:49:05 -0800

Best way to play Fallout 3 on my Intel Mac running Leopard? I know that things like Bootcamp and Wine exist but that is the extent of my knowledge. Do I need to buy anything? If I buy those things will it still not work? If I need to install Windows, what's the cheapest way to do that? Will installing Windows open up my precious computer to hordes of hacker kiddies, even if I only use it to play this game?

Alternatively, is there a chance in hell it will be released for the Mac in 2009?

Bootcamp flummoxes wireless connection.

It ain't over yet — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 10:21:16 -0800

I've got two Macbook Pros and a wireless router. Everything works great, except when I restart one of the MBPs in Bootcamp (XP, Service Pack 3), suddenly the wireless connection on both MBPs gets spotty -- off and on, off and on -- although a hard ethernet connection from the Bootcamped MBP works fine. Flummoxing. Any ideas?

Hands-free reboot?

zardoz — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 18:52:16 -0800

I have an Intel iMac, and have partitioned off a Boot Camp drive that contains Windows XP. Is there any way to restart the computer into Windows without having to hold down the Alt key? I generally run OS X, but sometimes boot up Windows for various applications. I'll go to the apple menu, select "restart", wait for the shutdown and then I have to hold down the Alt button (I have a Microsoft keyboard; maybe the Mac keyboard key is something else), and then I choose which partition to boot, Mac or Windows.

I want to skip those last steps. I know I can, in OS X, go to the System Preferences and choose the default boot drive, and I've got OS X as my default. But what I want is an option right in the apple drop down menu. Instead of just "restart" and "shut down", I wish there were an additional option: "reboot in [Windows]".

And it would be great if there were yet another way to do the same thing within Windows; again, instead of just "shut down" or "restart", I could choose the drive right then and there.

Is there anything I can do to make this happen? It's not really that much time wasted, but I'd like to be able to not touch the keyboard, sort of a set-it-and-forget-it type of reboot.

Windows for Cheap!

leotrotsky — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 16:37:34 -0800

Macfilter: Cheapest way to get my mac up running either xp or vista? Shelling out over $100 for windows just seems a little ridiculous. I'd prefer an emulator over bootcamp, and just need to run a single windows app (trying to upload data from my Polar heart rate monitor)

Looking for an e-guitar boot camp!

lord_yo — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 07:14:15 -0800

My wife and I are looking for a "boot camp" to learn to play electric guitar. Can you recommend any kind of retreats, workshops camps, schools, that offer intense one- or two-week e-guitar training in a pleasant, vacation-like surroundings? We are based in Switzerland; European workshops - if there are any - would be our first pick, but we're open for other options as well. We speak English, German and French.

Graphics driver issues for XP on an iMac

mdonley — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 10:29:03 -0800

We can't boot into Windows XP, except in VGA mode, without the screen going black after the Windows XP "loading bar screen"; we can still hear everything, though. This is on an Intel iMac running Boot Camp, and the Mac side (Leopard) works fine, which leads me to believe this isn't a problem with hardware. Here's the chronology of what's happened so far. I'll try to provide as much detail as possible, which means I might include some red herrings; we're relative novices with Windows, so bear with us.

1. Upon restarting into Windows from the Mac side last night, an error message was displayed before any of the Windows warm-up/loading screens came up: "Unable to find Windows/system32/config/system" and asked us to insert the Windows XP disk to reinstall this file. (We're not totally recalling the phrasing here.)

2. Upon inserting the disk, we ran "chkdsk /r". This took hours and it was late, so we headed to bed.

3. This morning, the process looked finished, so we restarted.

4. The problem, as described in the lead-in above, occurred.

5. We went to VGA mode, and upon trying to go through the Appearance>Display control panel, were given an error message which told us that "the current graphics display driver cannot be used because it was written for a previous version of Windows" (which makes no sense, since we've never had another version of Windows on this computer...) and that we need to either "contact our hardware manufacturer to get an upgraded driver" (presumably this is Apple?) or "select one of the Microsoft provided drivers."

So the question seems to be: how do we procure this new driver? We can't get on the internet from the Windows side, and if it's telling us the driver that came with XP is somehow not compatible anymore, I'm not sure what we need to do. Where do we look?

One other thing that may be worthy of note, based on what I've read in other forums, is that this computer is used for some pretty heavy MMORPG playing, so perhaps the video card or graphics hardware may be reacting to being really hot and giving us display problems? We don't have any cooling system set up other than what came with the iMac.

If it makes a difference, I'm typing this question on a Macbook without Windows/Boot Camp.

Windows XP SP2 hangs on install. Why?

Electrius — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 07:56:19 -0800

Help me with a weird Windows install problem. I have a two-year-old MacBook Pro which I have upgraded with 10.5. I was able to successfully install Windows Vista on it with the Bootcamp Beta under 10.4. Later, I wiped my Windows partition and resolved to install Windows XP instead. Using a tested Windows XP CD, I started the install but it would hang when it reached this screen, before I even press ENTER or F3 or R, all of which I have tested and which have had no effect. I have tried this with two different Windows XP Professional SP2 discs and the result has been identical.

I have searched far and wide to try to find the answer to this problem on Google and have plumbed the depths of Apple's support files, but to no avail. Apparently this problem is either unique or I'm not calling it by the right name.

I would prefer to not have to either use Windows Vista or try to find another Windows disc, although if that's the only option I suppose I have no choice if I ever want to play Team Fortress 2 again. I am reasonably computer-literate.

So, then, the questions:
1) What is causing this? CD drive failure? Bizarre bug in the particular verison I'm using?
2) How can I fix the problem? Some voodoo key combination at bootup? Use a different version of Windows altogether? Give up? Repartition my hard-drive?
3) Does this problem indicate a larger issue with my computer?

Keeping the same iTunes Library across Boot Camp?

dunkadunc — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 14:24:29 -0800

iTunesfilter: I'm running Mac OS 10.4 and Windows XP on my Mac Mini using Boot Camp. Thing is, I'd like to keep the two iTunes libraries in sync with each other. The actual music files are kept on an external hard drive, due to the library's size.
I do most of my music management in Mac OS, but I'd like to have the changes I make in OSX show up in Windows, as well. Is there some sort of software/script that will sync the Windows library with the Mac one, periodically?
Thanks in advance!

Windows XP-Boot Camp-File Checking nonsense

mdonley — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 17:54:38 -0800

We are having a problem with hours-long file checks when booting into Windows XP (Home Edition, with SP2) via Boot Camp on an iMac running Leopard. Here's what happens when we restart the computer and seek to go into Windows:

- Restart
- Hold down Option key
- Choose Windows XP image
- Windows XP "loading" screen appears (with progress bar moving)
- Blue DOS-ish screen asking if we want to perform a file check to weed out corrupted files (I don't have the exact text), with the prompt to skip it by pressing any key
- Sometimes pressing the key works and XP finishes loading and the desktop appears...
- But sometimes it doesn't and we wait anywhere from 6 to 12 hours for the thing to finally get to the desktop!
- During the interminable wait, a tally of files and a percentage-complete figure are displayed on the screen, still in blue DOS-ish mode.

Some other details which might be helpful:

- This problem didn't occur for the first few weeks we had the computer (which we obtained last year);
- We have wiped the partition and reinstalled XP once, which didn't seem to help;
- The Windows side of things is used to play a MMORPG, Final Fantasy XI, the vast majority of the time, and might have some sort of third-party software installed, while the Mac side is more productivity-oriented;
- We have all the original installation stuff for both OS X and XP but would prefer to not lose all our data;
- The word "FAT32" seems to figure prominently in the blue-screened file checks and I'm not sure why after reading the Wikipedia page on FAT, unless this is some sort of defragmenting thing (though that may be a red herring).

Finally, this computer is mostly manned by a teenager (*points accusingly at non-MeFite brother*) who's heavy on the gaming and light on the technical details of how it all works; rare excursions into the brother's lair have been my only encounters with the problem. We use the computer for games, internet surfing, and light office stuff, so we haven't really tinkered under the hood; any step-by-step/simple explanations or advice you can offer would be fabulous.

If you can help us solve this we will, no joke, send you (edible) cookies.

Thanks!

Help me understand Boot Camp and its limitations, please!

DMan — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 18:09:42 -0800

I'm purchasing an iMac sometime this weekend (yay!) and I'm trying to figure out how I want to partition the drive for Boot Camp... So I'm getting a new iMac, and as a computer engineering student I can definitely see where I'll want to test hardware or software on multiple platforms--Windows XP is a necessity, and I'd love to have Vista and Linux if possible.

So, first off, is this possible? I've seen some stuff recently about Linux being difficult to install on a Mac with Boot Camp, is that true? And also, can I have both a XP and Vista installation on my computer, on separate partitions? I have OEM versions of both OS's.

If this is possible, what's the best way for me to partition the drive, space-wise? Out of the 3 I'd like to install (XP, Vista, and Linux) I know for a fact I'll be using XP the most, mainly for gaming but also for Office and a few other Windows-only apps. So I was thinking about 60GB for XP, and the bare minimum for Ubuntu. So assuming I can install all those OS's, how much space should I save for each one? I'd rather partition it all at once rather than go back and do it later.

My final question is a bit more simple. Would I be able to create a separate partition on the drive to store my music? Rather than create a new copy of the music on each partition, I'd rather have a separate "Music" drive. I can't use an external because the only one I have is going to be used for Time Machine.

To recap:

- Can I install Windows XP, Vista, and Ubuntu on my iMac along with Leopard?

- What's the minimum space I'd need for Vista and Ubuntu? Drive is a 500GB; I'd like to leave, at bare minimum, 300GB free on the Leopard partition.

- Can I easily create a separate partition for music? About 20 GB would be all I'd need.

Thanks for all the help! I'm new to Apple computers, so this should be interesting.

Technology Educational Grant

bob bisquick — Fri, 09 May 2008 07:11:41 -0800

How to pay for a computer programming class? I would like to take a boot camp microsoft MCPD class in the fall. My job is grant funded, so they can't pay for it. Is there a way I can get money for the class, like a grant of some kind? I can get a loan, but I would like to avoid debt if I can.

OSX latency monitoring for windows games

mccarty.tim — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 10:07:43 -0800

Is there a way I can monitor latency to gaming servers easily in OSX, preferably through a widget? My computer spends most of its time in my college dorm. My college internet connection is good, not great. The speed is consistently fast enough to get things done, but latency fluctuates. Sometimes, it can stay around 400MS for an hour or so. At good times, the latency is around 12 MS for servers in the same region.

What complicates things is that I like TF2, a windows game, and I have to reboot my computer, a MacBook Pro, into bootcamp to play it. If I reboot into Windows and find that the latency is high, I just wasted a lot of time.

Is there a widget for the dashboard so that I could monitor Steam servers and their latencies so I know if it's worth my time to reboot? Or is there a webpage I could turn into a webclip to help me out? Thanks for your help.

Upgrade my Mac and still share my iTunes with XP?

Rafaelloello — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 18:51:31 -0800

OSX (Tiger) and XP are currently sharing one iTunes library via MacDrive and some trickery but I'm gun-shy upgrading iTunes or moving to Leopard... I am currently able to access my Mac iTunes (7.4.2) and Mac formatted iPod from XP on my dual-booting Mac (still running the BootCamp beta from last fall). I have been gun-shy to upgrade my Mac OS or iTunes for fear of losing this functionality. I upgraded iTunes last fall under both XP and OSX and it broke and I had a devil of a time rolling both versions back (thanks Winclone!) to regain what I had before the upgrade. Ever since I've resisted most of the Apple software updates. I love having one library and have the added bonus of being able to sync my Mac formatted iPod and access my iTunes Store account from the XP side through the wonders of MacDrive 7. I was wondering if anybody else has been able to achieve this level of parallelism on later versions of iTunes and/or Leopard. All I did was install iTunes on both OS's and point them at the same library on the Mac HFS partition. Macdrive 7 makes this partion readable/writable by XP. The only trickery involved is renaming your Mac "iTunes Library" to "iTunes Library.itl". Apparently OSX doesn't car if you add the "itl" extension and its required on the XP side.

Even if nobody has done this, maybe someone would be brave enough to try and let me know how it goes, maybe on a fully updated version of Leopard? You can download a fully functional version of MacDrive from mediafour.com but it's only good for 5 days.

Thanks in advance.