[live4lax364]

Hi, so I ran the boot camp assistant, allocating 10gb to windows xp partition, and it all went well until windows went to setup. It asked me which format I would like to use, and it gave me 2 options, ntfs, or ntfs <quick>. I chose the full version. It then rebooted the computer and tried to install, but when I had to select a partition, it didnt give me more than one, which didnt match the boot camp partition name I had expected. so I figured that one partition available was Mac OS X. I tried to reboot and it keeps bringing me back to the same thing, so I forced the windows install disk out and tried to boot again, but it wouldnt boot into Mac OS. and I held down option while it booted, and the Mac OS X drive is not even available as a bootable drive... The only option I had was the Mac os x install disc since I popped that in there, but it keeps cycling the reboot, and the chime keeps going off, and I cannot startup the computer at all. It did give me a folder with a '?' on it once. WHAT DO I DO!?!?!!?

[ibook_steve]

You say you were trying to install XP. Was it at least an SP2 disk?

In any case, if you can't boot from an OS X disk and get into Disk Utility, then something is seriously wrong. Are you holding the "c" key at boot with the disk in to boot to it? You need to get to Disk Utility in some fashion. Worst case scenario here is that you formatted your OS X partition. Do you have a backup?

Steve

[live4lax364]

I have a bootable backup of another Mac, and I can access the disk utility from the bootable backup. From what I can see I formatted the Mac OS X partition. damn. I'm unsure of where to go from here. Reformat the internal drive to Mac OS X? After that I opened Carbon Copy Cloner to clone the bootable backup onto the newly formatted internal drive. But It got stuck at "authenticating" and went to sleep, I woke it up and it was still authenticating. It seems to be stuck. Any ideas of what to do from here?

[Spheric Harlot]

I'm willing to bet that was an SP1 or earlier, as this is the exact reason SP2 is the minimum requirement.

[Spheric Harlot]

Use disk utility from the install disk rather than CCC to clone your drive back.

They use the same protocol, except CCC risks ****ing up your backup by implementing incremental backups.

[live4lax364]

I can access Disk utility from the bootable backup. but when I put the install disk in, it cycles the boot chime. could I clone the backup drive to the internal drive from disk utility while running from the backup?

[live4lax364]

I used Disk Utility running off of the external backup. It cloned to the internal drive fine, and the computer at least boots now. I installed windows on my Mac OS X partition, all my files are gone, but at least the computer still works.

Thanks for all your help,

Christian.

[-Q-]

Aw, man, that sucks. Glad you got the computer up and running.

If you're feeling brave and want to try the bootcamp thing again, here's the instructions on how to slipstream Service Pack 2 into your XP install: http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase...slipstream.asp