[twoodcc]

this is what is going on:

i formatted the drive to MBR with disk utility.
then i use bootcamp to make the drive ready for windows
i startup with the xp disk.
i use the xp disk to format the disk and copy the setup files
then it has to restart
when it comes back up, if i leave the xp disk in, it will boot the xp disk
if i take the disk out, it will say 'no bootable drive, please insert one'
if i hold down option, and then choose the windows drive (the only drive), it will give me the folder with the question mark.

i hope all of this makes sense. i'm beginning to think that something might be wrong with my bootloader somewhere.

what should i do?

[twoodcc]

come on, surely someone can help me out.

i think somehow my bootloader got messed up (i think). is there anyway to reset it to the orginal one?

[MaxPower]

Dude I had the same problem. I formatted one of my SATA drives to be 1/2 HFS, 1/2 fat32. XP install disk would start copying files to the HD, then want to reboot. BAM! same error. I got past that error by making the drive NTFS.

However I couldn't get boot camp to recognize the partition to install to. So I did everything: changed orders of partitions of the SATA drive, added an IDE drive to the CD-rom chain. Nothing would get Boot Camp utility to recognize that there was a boot camp-worthy partition. So I was like 'MEH! Why do I need OSX to grant me permission to use this partition for XP?'

I reboot, hold down the option key and choose the XP partition to boot from and install the Boot Camp utils. Everything works like a champ! Except when I try to use the nifty new Parallels beta that can use Boot Camp partitions as well as disk images. Remember how Boot Camp didn't recognize the drive as being valid? Neither did Parallels.

[twoodcc]

ok, you lost me on the part where you hold down option key, choose XP partition, and then install Boot Camp utils?

so you were able to install windows after you changed yours to NTFS? i'm trying this right now though, so we'll see if mine works in a few minutes....

[twoodcc]

well i still can't get it to work.....even with the bootcamp partition, i get the grey folder with a question mark in it

[Philip J. Fry]

Originally Posted by twoodcc 

come on, surely someone can help me out.

i think somehow my bootloader got messed up (i think). is there anyway to reset it to the orginal one?

Short answer, yes, but it requires you to format and reinstall the OS.

[twoodcc]

Originally Posted by Philip J. Fry 

Short answer, yes, but it requires you to format and reinstall the OS.

so if i install mac os x on the drive that i want to put windows on, then i can do it? i hope so, cuz i'm installing right now.....