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ghporter · Oct 4, 2007, 09:59 PM

WEP is poo. On a stick. It's really awful-so insecure that anyone can download a tool and begin cracking your traffic within minutes. Really that bad. Now there are a few things about WEP that Macs do differently from PCs. For some reason, Apple decided to "make things easy on users," and handle WEP key input differently from the rest of the industry. Everyone else interprets input as hexadecimal by default, but not Apple. AirPort devices interpret input as plain text by default. You let the AirPort device know you want the input interpreted as hex by prepending a '$' to the input. THIS may be your problem. If you're adding the '$' at the beginning of the key as you enter it in Windows, it will be wrong. Windows handles keys as hex by default and any character other than 0-9, a-f (or A-F) is invalid and the whole input is ignored. Try entering the WEP key with just the hex characters and see if you can connect.

Then start looking at upgrading or updating to use WPA, which is quite secure.

lucky777s · Oct 11, 2007, 09:17 AM

Hi all,

the equipment:
iMac 24 white, bootcamp 1.4 beta, OSX 10.4.10, 2GB ram, 25GB partition created

I burned a CD of XP sp2 from an ISO file in Disk Utility app.

Bootcamp recognizes the CD and reboots. I get the windows dos screen where it lists options to choose from but cannot choose anything with my arrow keys and that screen quickly disappears and sends me to a blank black screen where it says starting BCDW ..ok with a command prompt blinking below.
Have to do a hard reboot with the power button on the back of the imac and hold option to get mac osx back.

Is this the usb keyboard issue? Or is it looking for the Mac drivers? I am guessing that BCDW stands for BootCampDriversWrite? or something. Can't find any mention of this anywhere. Is it just a bad CD?

Any help is appreciated. tia

ghporter · Oct 11, 2007, 09:54 AM

Originally Posted by lucky777s

Hi all,

the equipment:
iMac 24 white, bootcamp 1.4 beta, OSX 10.4.10, 2GB ram, 25GB partition created

I burned a CD of XP sp2 from an ISO file in Disk Utility app.

Bootcamp recognizes the CD and reboots. I get the windows dos screen where it lists options to choose from but cannot choose anything with my arrow keys and that screen quickly disappears and sends me to a blank black screen where it says starting BCDW ..ok with a command prompt blinking below.
Have to do a hard reboot with the power button on the back of the imac and hold option to get mac osx back.

Is this the usb keyboard issue? Or is it looking for the Mac drivers? I am guessing that BCDW stands for BootCampDriversWrite? or something. Can't find any mention of this anywhere. Is it just a bad CD?

Any help is appreciated. tia

Where did you get the ISO file? It certainly doesn't sound like you have a "legitimate" copy of Windows from the way you describe it. BCDW doesn't ring a bell with me either. It sounds very much like you have a corrupt version of XP-maybe it was messed with before the ISO was created. The Windows installer is able to see a Mac keyboard and mouse with no problems at all, which also makes me believe that what you have is not kosher.

Finally, we certainly don't support pirating anyone's software. It's possible to buy XP for a reasonable price (significantly less than the cost of OS X) and thus be legit and honest-and get the support you may need when real problems with Windows might crop up. Bogus copies of Windows will cause you all sorts of problems, from not being able to install crucial updates to having your data corrupted by some jokester who provided a hacked ISO to you just so he could mess with you.

lucky777s · Oct 11, 2007, 10:23 AM

I have my legit cd key, but never had a full install disk from the PC maker. It wouldn't have been SP2 anyway. I updated that much later.

The iso is from a friend and I would just use my own cd key. Don't see the problem. May not be technically allowed, but I don't see why I should buy a fresh copy when I have already bought the os once.

lucky777s · Oct 11, 2007, 04:55 PM

Did some searching for this 'starting BCDW..ok' line I am getting. Seems it stands for some pc burning method for iso's. Bootable CD Wizard. Have to ask my friend how he made this iso. If noone else is seeing this screen then there must be something in the way he burned the iso because all I did was use Disk Utility to burn that iso to CD.

As for my keyboard being recognized I don't think that is the case. I can't eject the cd or enter anything at the command prompt or select any partition when that screen does appear for a brief time.

ghporter · Oct 11, 2007, 07:00 PM

It's better to slipstream your original XP disc with SP2-check out the sticky thread at the top of the forum for details. It's painless, fairly easy, and you'd be using your own disc, reducing the potential ethical issues to almost nil...

bentoon · Oct 26, 2007, 04:26 PM

I am installing Leopard right now on my macbook pro
should I XP or Vista?
I hear all different things

(I use writing = finalDraft, scriptware,
& 3D = games, 3Dstudio max, Virtools)

Thanks,
B

ghporter · Oct 26, 2007, 09:07 PM

XP as far as I'm concerned. Smaller, easier to get, cheaper, apparently more stable, WAY more working drivers...and it's not the resource hog Vista is, either. Personal opinion, just my 2¢ worth...

danbrew · Oct 26, 2007, 09:57 PM

Without question, Vista. Been running Vista ultimate with Bootcamp and a MacPro for months and it is rock solid. Had previously installed XP Pro and had driver issues with the MacPro hardware.

mizer357 · Nov 3, 2007, 03:00 AM

found this forum when this thread came up in a search:
http://forums.macnn.com/104/alternat...sues-power-xp/

i'm currently on a 17" mbp, running tiger 10.4.9, boot camp 1.4 beta, and xp sp2. i'm a fairly saavy, long-time windows user, and moved to the intel mac for it's ability to run mac OS and windows natively. initially i was thrilled, but now i'm a little worried. i've been experiencing cpu spikes while the computer is completely idle when windows is left on for longer periods of time. processor usage goes near or all the way to 100% and the machine eventually becomes completely unresponsive. this is repeatable, as it's happened every time i've left windows on overnight, and sometimes occurs only a few hours after booting up. the behavior also reared its ugly head a couple of times on-site with clients, which really doesn't work for me. the thread linked above is the only one i've been able to find on the web that says anything useful on the matter. the only foolproof way for me to keep windows on for extended periods without a problem is to physically remove the battery and run on AC power. as mentioned in the thread linked above, the battery, in some way, seems to be the culprit.

my question is in three parts:

1) is this issue present on your macbook or mbp? the question is primarily directed towards people who use windows on their mbp's for extended periods of time (at least a full day's worth of work). i'm trying to figure out of if it's possibly a widespread issue or just a configuration bust on isolated machines.

2) if so, is anyone aware of a solid fix besides physically removing the battery? booting into mac os first, disabling the acpi battery driver, installing the microsoft hotfix, or reinstalling the boot camp drivers work for the short-term in one way or another but don't really seem to "fix" the problem.

3) are leopard users running the "final" release of bootcamp with XP experiencing this problem? again, looking for responses from users who keep windows up for a little while.

thanks for the help.

ghporter · Nov 3, 2007, 09:50 AM

I don't use Windows that much anymore-I have OS X to handle all my mundane tasks (admittedly not too many or too taxing-mostly Word and Excel plus browsing). But I haven't seen anything mentioned that's specific to running Windows for long periods as opposed to just running Windows for a while. In other words, I don't see what you're experiencing as a "widespread issue."

Are you running the latest drivers? That should help a lot-especially if you have updated your battery's firmware as well. It doesn't really look like the battery as much as the interaction of the battery and the computer's battery manager that's at fault-and of course only in the Windows context.

Again, since I don't see this as "widespread" I don't think any Leopard users are really having problems like this-they'd have posted them here by now!

mizer357 · Nov 5, 2007, 01:52 AM

thanks for the response ghporter. after making sure all my drivers were updated, i'm still experiencing the problem. i'm going to have to try the leopard upgrade at some point. booting into mac os first, or removing the battery and running on ac should keep the problem at bay in the meantime.

smithy · 11:59 AM

I was wondering if anyone else had a problem with XP crashing in Bootcamp when you use Fn+F2 to decrease the screen brightness?

It used to happen a lot in Bootcamp 1 .2 with the brightness slider thing but still happens sometimes now I've the Bc 2.0 drivers in. Only happens on dimming the screen, not brightening.

I'm pretty sure it boots up again, but then screen doesn't come on so needs to be switched off and on again....pain in the arse

cheers,
Smithy

technophobe · Feb 22, 2009, 09:15 AM

I'm new to this, and am not able to respond in technical language and which I do not fully understand...

I have a bit of a hitch with my bootcamp, a techy (sorry for the name!) friend helped me install it and it works very well so-far, and I have no problems with it. I switch from my mac, by selecting the alternative hard drive, and it then reboots into windows - great!

The reason I got it is so I can use Auto cad - new to this too. I'm wandering why I can't use the keys on my macbook in the same way I would be able to use them if it were a windows PC. They mostly function fine, but I can't seen to get the F1, F2 right through to F12 keys to respond, apart from to affect brightness, desktop, play, pause (mac functions) when they are meant to mean different things in Autocad say. As well as this the touch pad is quite tricky to use, and think I may try to connect a bluetooth mouse - does anyone know if this would work, and also can anyone suggest a solution to the F1, F2 problem.

Many thanks.

ghporter · Feb 22, 2009, 10:15 AM

technophobe, welcome to our forums!

I think you're missing something about the function keys: by default they're NOT function keys on laptops. You have to hold the "fn" key to get the "F1-F12" functions to operate. This should work great for you, even though as I understand it AutoCAD likes to use a LOT of function key combinations...

smithy · Feb 22, 2009, 12:10 PM

technophobe,

Boot camp lets you decide how you want those keys to behave; as mac hardware keys or win F-keys.

To use as win F-keys:
1. Right click the Boot Camp icon in the system tray (a tilted black square)
2. choose Boot Camp control panel
3. click Keyboard tab
4. Tick the checkbox labelled "Use the F1 -F12 keys to control software features"

In this mode hold down Fn plus Fkeys for h/w features.

You'll get used to the touch pad soon enough, though I would probably get the mouse or gfx tablet out if I were doing photo editing; otherwise, I found that it's a faff to keep taking your hand away from the keyboard...

Never used a bluetooth anything, soz.

hth,
smithy.

angelmb · Apr 6, 2009, 09:37 AM

So a friend is gonna be staying here and to avoid the mess to carry a bulky PC I offered to BootCamp my Mac… Given the Mac Pro is my only Mac 'suitable' to such a temporary atrocity (joking) as the iMac and the MBP lack a second internal hard drive, and besides that I don't feel like undergoing any test on those, I ponder:

Mac Pro is a 2006 2.0 GHz, 8 GB RAM & nvidia 8800 GT, so given my zero experience with BootCamp I wonder if I would have to download the proper drivers from nvidia or any other site (no idea which could be those, versiontracker maybe?) since my OS X DVD (actually its BootCamp partition) is going to lack the current Windows drivers for such a card.

Truth be told I couldn't even boot the Mac Pro from my Leopard DVD disc if that was ever needed since it is previous to 10.5.2, therefore lacking any support for the nvidia 8800 GT. Does that matter when it comes to install BootCamp?

Why BootCamp instead of VMware which I have already installed?. You suggested it rightly, the friend needs BootCamp for games, but wonders if a 2.0 GHz only computer is going to be fast enough to run any game we could rent over here. Given I am just a Wii & DS gamer I don't even know what to answer to that, anyhow both the iMac and the unibody MBP are 2.4 GHz and I guess the Xeon CPUs could overcome that GHz difference with some punch power… (ignorance speaking alert).

Oh, OS would be XP SP3 (which I run under VMware), is there anything wrong about it I need to know?, I have read about SATA access/perfomance being abismal… but that was around 2006, is that still right nowadays?

Peripherals wise, my main concern is the wireless Mighty Mouse, I guess I better attach the corded Mighty Mouse while installing all this, and once finished switch to the wireless model, huh?.

Display is the 30" ACD so far I guess drivers are available from Apple… which brings this question, is there a stand-alone download for it?, would this (and/or the XP version) include all the drivers I would need?

Thanks so much.

Bax23 · Apr 14, 2009, 12:40 PM

I have a 24" iMac with a wireless Mighty Mouse and Keyboard (that have been working fine) and have installed Bootcamp with Windows XP SP3. I installed the drivers from the Mac install disks made sure Bootcamp was at the latest version and initially was able to pair the keyboard but not the mouse. In attempt to get that to work I have lost total bluetooth functionality on both the Windows side and the Mac side. The Bluetooth Preference Panel has disappeared in OS X and in Windows I get an error 43 when attempting to make the items "discoverable". I have rebooted and zapped the PRAM but the Preference Panel will still not reappear. Any thoughts on what happened? Is the bluetooth being hijacked by Windows? It is at least visible on that side in Device Manager albeit with an error.

shadlado · Apr 15, 2009, 06:02 PM

Hello, this is my first time asking for help on a forum sorry if i'm n

I did a
partition of 45gigs but didn't know that the drive had to be NTFS now windows will not let me install on the partitioned drive. This is a pronblem because the windows boot disk is in the disk drive, now it keeps loading vista at startup. I don't care really if i get vista on my mac I just want my mac back PLEASE HELP

Cold Warrior · Apr 15, 2009, 07:23 PM

power off your Mac. Press the power button to turn it on and immediately hold the option key down. Hold it until you see several icons on your screen. Choose your Mac / OS X. Now OS X will boot. Once in OS X, re-run the Boot Camp Assistant to remove the Boot Camp partition, then run it again to recreate the partition. Insert the Vista DVD if/when prompted and run the setup.

It's important to remember that Boot Camp Assistant does NOT format the partition for NTFS. Vista's setup/install will do that. Perhaps you should just progress through Vista's wizard and choose to format your boot camp partition as NTFS?

angelmb · Apr 18, 2009, 04:10 PM

Originally Posted by Bax23

I have a 24" iMac with a wireless Mighty Mouse and Keyboard (that have been working fine) and have installed Bootcamp with Windows XP SP3. I installed the drivers from the Mac install disks made sure Bootcamp was at the latest version and initially was able to pair the keyboard but not the mouse. In attempt to get that to work I have lost total bluetooth functionality on both the Windows side and the Mac side. The Bluetooth Preference Panel has disappeared in OS X and in Windows I get an error 43 when attempting to make the items "discoverable". I have rebooted and zapped the PRAM but the Preference Panel will still not reappear. Any thoughts on what happened? Is the bluetooth being hijacked by Windows? It is at least visible on that side in Device Manager albeit with an error.

Ouch, sorry to hear that. I guess I still can use the 'corded' Mighty Mouse. I have done some search and found that you have to do this in order to get BT working again:

1) Unplug ALL USB devices
2) delete ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Bluetooth.plist
3) Power down the computer
4) Take the battery out
5) Leave the computer off for a couple minutes
6) Replace battery
7) Reboot the computer

Some people claim step 2 is all it takes to get BT back on the Mac side. Good luck.

angelmb · Apr 18, 2009, 04:21 PM

BTW, have you followed this step by step?, thanks for your feedback.

Using Bluetooth Devices with Windows
Before you can use a Bluetooth wireless device with Windows on your Mac, you must pair the device with your computer while running Windows.

To pair a wireless Mighty Mouse or Apple keyboard with your Mac:

1. In Windows, open the Bluetooth Devices control panel.

2. In the Devices pane, click Add.

3. Follow the Bluetooth Device Wizard to set up your device.
a) To make your Apple wireless device discoverable, turn the device off and then on again.
b) In the passkey pane, select “Let me choose my own passkey” and enter a numeric code.
- Wireless Mighty Mouse: Enter four zeros (“0000”).
- Apple Wireless Keyboard: Enter six to sixteen digits.

Passkeys for wireless devices are used to encrypt the information transmitted from the devices to your computer. You don’t need to remember the passkey.

Louka · 08:39 AM

Hello! I'm new to this forum so I apologize if my problem is already solved somewhere. Just link me there please.

I want to install Windows XP on my iMac using Bootcamp, but I can't solve the partition problem.
http://www.shrani.si/f/1O/l2/G5DsuVH...09-11-18-a.png

And in Disk Utility says
http://www.shrani.si/f/X/y7/2nWCHTd8...09-11-18-a.png

I don't know what's wrong....Can you please tell me what to do.

...and I don't want to lose all data on my OSX.

Thanks!

ghporter · Nov 19, 2009, 09:21 AM

Welcome to our forums, Louka.

You'll find a number of threads that deal with your particular partition issue. It's all about how Mac OS X handles fragmentation-and how it doesn't deal at all with maintaining free space. The files that need moving can't be moved because there's not enough contiguoous free space for them.

The basic method of handling this is to use Disk Utility to back up your entire OS X partition, then (this part is important) boot from your OS X install disc and run Disk Utility from there (it's under Tools). Once you have DU running, you can erase the existing partition. Now restore your backup. Restoring a backup in this way appears to be much more efficient at using disk space, so your fragmented free space won't be nearly as fragmented anymore.

Once you have all this done, just use the Boot Camp Utility to create your Windows partition and you're in business.

Again, welcome to our forums!

Louka · Nov 19, 2009, 09:50 AM

Thank you !
I'll backup my OSX.
I run OSX 10.6, can i still use OSX 10.5 install disc for making my backup and restoring ?

ghporter · Nov 19, 2009, 09:57 AM

You probably can use a Leopard disc's Disk Utility to do the backup and restore. I like to stay with the disc for the OS version I'm using though. Why not use your Snow Leopard disc?

Louka · Nov 19, 2009, 11:10 AM

Because I'll get my SL disc back tomorrow...and now I got info that I'll get external HD tomorrow instead of today so i'll get my work done tomorrow with SL disc.

ghporter · Nov 19, 2009, 11:20 AM

Cool. Good luck with the process. It's not difficult, but read the Help in Disk Utility to get step by step instructions for both backing up and restoring. Having instructions in hand has given me much more confidence in doing this sort of thing.

Louka · Nov 19, 2009, 04:10 PM

I was thinking....Should I install antivirus system on my windows XP partition when it's done ?
Can I use Windows XP SP3 instead of SP2 ?

Cold Warrior · Nov 22, 2009, 01:12 PM

yes, if you plan on using Windows, it should be used with antivirus.

Windows XP will automatically download and offer to install SP3 unless you've changed some settings.

Louka · Nov 22, 2009, 05:00 PM

Thanks. I'm going to use windows just for games (including online multiplayer).

ghporter · Nov 22, 2009, 06:17 PM

Get something like ClamAV-it's free and works pretty well. Any Windows installation needs antivirus protection if it's at all connected to the outside world, gaming included.

Louka · Nov 23, 2009, 12:34 PM

I have another problem...it's driving me crazy hehe. When I boot from CD Mac OSX 10.6 and try to make .dmg backup it says "Unable to create "nameoffile.dmg" (cannot allocate memory)." What am I doing wrong ?!

Cold Warrior · Nov 23, 2009, 06:32 PM

how are you trying to do this?
The best way to make a clone is to open Disk Utility, Restore tab, and drag your OS X disk to Source and the target backup disk or partition to Destination.

Or are you trying to make a backup of a previous Windows boot camp partition?

Louka · Nov 24, 2009, 02:57 AM

Connect an external hard drive (FireWire or USB) that has sufficient free space to hold at least one copy of the contents of your Macintosh HD.
Start from your Mac OS X 10.5 Install DVD. (Insert the disc, then restart and hold the C key.)
Select your language. Do not start an installation.
Choose Disk Utility from the Utilities menu.
Select the disk you wish to back up (your source disk, such as Macintosh HD) in the source pane on the left.
Click the "New Image" button in the toolbar.
Give your image a useful name such as "04-15-2009 Macintosh HD backup". A date in the name makes it easy to tell when the backup was made.
Be sure the Save destination is a location on your external hard disk, then click "Save" to continue.

Mac OS X v10.5, v10.6: How to back up and restore your files

I'll try it by restore tab.