[CuttaCalhoon]

Do I need Boot Camp?

I am a recent switcher; well not quite as I will still use windows along with MAC OS X on my new MacBook. I decided to go for three partitions: OSX, Shared Data (FAT 32), and Win XP (Fat 32). I followed Two Years Two Days - Bootcamp and other stuff to create the three partitions and install XP, not using Boot Camp.

When I first created the three partitions, I downloaded Boot Camp to create the driver CD for XP. I then followed the instructions listed in the link above to install XP on the last partition. I initially chose NTFS file format for XP; however, my XP CD was corrupted: I had to created a XP CD with SP2, using my original XP CD (This sites provides details on how to do this: http://www.theeldergeek.com/slipstreamed_xpsp2_cd.htm), but I used the wrong labeling format (ISO 1 instead of Joliet). Hence, some of my files during the installation of XP were not found.

I had to quit XP installation. I created a new CD, and tried to reinstall but I could not as there was some conflict with the XP files that were already installed. I decided to start over, but I could not erase the partition that I started putting XP on it because it was in NTFS format. So I had to reinstall OS X and start over. This time however, I did not download Boot Camp because I already made the driver CD, and I was not using Boot Camp to create the partitions.

I was able to now install XP when I re burnt the CD using Joliet. I used FAT32 this time for the XP partition. My drive is under 32 GB; moreover, I do not want to be stuck again have to reinstall MAC OS X to erase the NTFS drive. With FAT 32, I can erase the XP partition using disk utility in the OS X install CD. For NTFS, I would have had to re partition all the drives, erase them clean, and reinstall OS X.

My question: Is having Windows XP installed without Boot Camp on my Mac OSX partition OK? I have not re-downloaded boot camp after I restarted from the beginning and reinstalled OS X. When you read the boot camp manual, on page 18 it says boot camp lets you select the operating system on the fly by rebooting and holding down the Option key (alt). However, I do not have boot camp, and I can still select which operating system to boot into by holding down the option key as my MacBook starts up. The GUI is exactly the same as the one on page 18 of the boot camp manual.

I understand I will need boot camp to create a new driver CD in the future if new drivers are available. However, will I be fine running windows and MAC OS X without boot camp right now?

Would appreciate your thoughts.

[ooninay]

I think you'll be okay without Boot Camp. I have in the past reinstalled OS X while leaving an XP partition on the disk, and therefore not reinstalled Boot Camp on my new OS X partition, and Windows continued to work fine. I *think* that the only thing Boot Camp does is 1) repartition the hard drive for you (which you don't need because it's already done) and 2) burn a Windows driver CD, which you also don't need because you already have one. Once that stuff is done, I don't think it does anything else, it just sits there.

[mfbernstein]

Boot Camp does nothing more than provide a nice front-end to Apple's diskutil for repartitioning and an ISO image of the XP drivers. Once you're partitioned and you have your drivers burnt to CD, it serves no purpose.