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arjunM · Jan 4, 2008, 06:37 PM

Hi there,

I am on a 2.33GHz 17" Macbook Pro. I just got a 200GB 7200 RPM harddrive I'd like to put in.
This means I'd have to reinstall everything... Mac OS X, Vista etc.

Will the old bootcamp (1.4beta) still work? Or do I now need to get Leopard in order for my computer to be configured right and bootcamp to work? Wasn't there some kind of expiry date or something?

I am actually trying to avoid Leopard, and I like the way my computer works as it is, except for the disk space of course.

Maybe there would be a way to shadow my existing harddrive with all of its partitions? That would be ideal! No installations necessary!

Any tips?
Thanks
Arjun

Andrew_Campbell · Jan 4, 2008, 08:02 PM

No tips, sadly, but I can verify your assumptions that BootCamp won't run on your new hard drive if you re-install the Operating System. BootCamp is only able to run on Tiger with Existing Installations already setup and running. Attempting to reinstall it in Tiger will not work. You could always try alternative software though. Such as VMWare Fusion or Parellels. Not exactly the same thing, sadly, but an alternative at least. If you're attempting to shadow your disk however, Carbon Copy Cloner might be worth a shot. I have no experience with it, but from what I hear, it can make exact copies of your hard drive.

seanc · Jan 4, 2008, 08:37 PM

For cloning the ENTIRE disk, OS X, Windows, MBR and all, you can use Self Image Self Image - The FREE (and open source) hard drive imaging utility for Windows (Windows program).
The one downside of this is, that it creates an exact copy of the old hard drive, meaning the partition sizes remain the same as they were on the old hard drive. You can edit them with a GParted GParted -- LiveCD live disc easily enough.

Self Image has the option to do disk to disk, or disk to image file. If you want to do disk to disk, you could leave the existing hard drive in the laptop, hook up the new one via an external enclosure and so it that way.

If you choose to use Self Image, make sure the input drive selected is ENTIRE disk, not just the C: partition, otherwise it won't copy the boot loader etc. I haven't tried this on a Mac, so I'm not sure if it will work correctly in terms of copying the OS X HFS partition, but I think it will be alright since I've used it to clone my entire drive on my PC, including the EXT3 formatted Linux partitions.

bishopazrael · Jan 6, 2008, 03:41 AM

Originally Posted by Andrew_Campbell

No tips, sadly, but I can verify your assumptions that BootCamp won't run on your new hard drive if you re-install the Operating System. BootCamp is only able to run on Tiger with Existing Installations already setup and running. Attempting to reinstall it in Tiger will not work.

Wrong.

Install Tiger, run the bootcamp1.4dmg and have at it.

I just did 2 this week like that so please dont tell me it doesnt work.

Sven G · Jan 6, 2008, 04:46 AM

BTW, to clone a Boot Camp partition from Mac OS X, there is also Winclone: I haven't yet tried its restore feature, however...

PaperNotes · Jan 6, 2008, 10:44 AM

I deleted a Vista partition and went back to XP yesterday. I did a basic install of XP SP2 and then immediately restored an XP install from a image back up I made with the Back Up tools built in to XP. It restored everything, drivers, apps, the registry, etc.

Vista has the same back up tools. It can save an entire disk to a .bkf file that you can restore later on.

ghporter · Jan 6, 2008, 10:51 AM

There are a number of tools to clone/image Windows partitions, many of them free. One that I like (because I have experience with the parent app) is the DriveImage plugin used in BartPE. It has some nice advantages, including lots of functionality. On the other hand, some people find the requirement to boot from a CD to image their drives to be a pain-this simply ensures that nothing is active on the source disk, so you don't lose anything. DriveImage supports writable CDs and network drives, which is very handy (but make sure the destination is mounted during boot - or at least plugged in before you start - or you won't be able to find it.

arjunM · Jan 6, 2008, 11:46 AM

Wow, thanks for all the responses.

I'm still not sure what I should be doing, because I definitely need to clone the entire disk, not just the windows partition... hmmm.
Though I suppose being able to revive the windows partition at least might be worth it anyway.

Self Image does sound nice, with the GParted solution. It sounds like exactly what I need. Except I checked the file systems supported by GParted (GParted -- Features) and it doesn't seem that GParted can modify the size of HFS partitions. Other than that it's perfect. The problem is that the ability to grow HFS partitions is pretting critical to my need.

seanc: Do you know of any programs similar to GParted that might support HFS/HFS+ Partitions?

Can I change the size of an HFS+ partition once it's made somehow, when I have one FAT32 and one NTFS partition on the same drive? eee, I wouldn't assume so unless the software had the ability to change all the other partitions sizes at the same time, like GParted.

bishopazrael: this is good to know! I'll keep it in mind if all else fails. It'll have to be my last resort. But at the same time I can start fresh with all my installations again. But I'll have to set up all my software the way I like it again, that can take months.

Andrew_Campbell · 06:53 PM

Originally Posted by bishopazrael

Wrong.

Install Tiger, run the bootcamp1.4dmg and have at it.

I just did 2 this week like that so please dont tell me it doesnt work.

Haha, Bull. The BootCamp assistant has been disabled very recently.

Apple announced yesterday that it was disabling installation and withdrawing support and updating for the Windows-enabling feature in Tiger called Boot Camp effective December 31, 2007.

MacNN also reported on this too, as I'd expect.

Originally Posted by MacNN

Existing Boot Camp beta participants will still be entitled to keep their Windows partitions, but the software that manages installations will be deactivated, and Apple will no longer provide updates, requiring users to upgrade to Leopard if they wish to add to or modify the Boot Camp partition.

Please research before shooting your mouth off.

arjunM · Jan 7, 2008, 02:22 AM

that's too bad in some ways that they're forcing people to buy and upgrade to an OS that, by the sounds of all the press and reviews I've been hearing, really almost takes away from the mac experience.
They should have sold boot camp separately like they were going to, but then again I am thinking in terms of my interests, and probably a lot of other people like me

not in the interests of the corporation we call apple.

ghporter · Jan 7, 2008, 10:06 AM

There's nothing that forces anyone to buy the new OS. What the end of the Beta version does is leave you with a working Windows installation (if you had that to begin with). To get updated drivers, you need to buy Leopard, but again, that's not a big deal because a lot of people are fine with the keyboard and mouse drivers, and can get video drivers somewhere else. No biggie.

Andrew, your last comment bothers me. What part of the story are you complaining about? After December 31 you're not allowed by the license agreement to use the Boot Camp utility, whether you can change your system date to "fool" the utility or not. What research are you saying was missed?

arjunM · Jan 7, 2008, 11:07 AM

ghporter: on Andrew's behalf, I think he was saying that bishopazrael should have done his research before saying that it was possible.

Also, there IS something that forces the user to buy a new OS. The availability of Bootcamp only as an integrated product within the OS forces people to buy Leopard if they want to use Bootcamp now.

Wait.
I might be missing something.

Are you saying that I can just have a formatted drive, repartition that drive (using Disk Utility or the like), install OS X (Tiger) and Windows (Vista) on some (non-boot camp made) partitions and I will still have the OS choice when holding down alt/option at startup?

Apart from the windows drivers, Is the Boot Camp software not required for this? Or is it that I've already installed it once on this machine it's good for life?

I have a feeling I just need to have at it and go for it. Worse come to worst I'll have to buy Leopard.

ghporter · Jan 7, 2008, 12:16 PM

Yes, you can set up your partitions with any utility that will do it. Windows doesn't care what you used to make the partition, and your Mac will boot from the Windows CD. But...you have to manually mess with the partitions (a hassle at best), remember which one is the right one for your Windows partition when it comes time to install, and deal with a lot of other issues. Boot Camp was meant to make it easy to boot into Windows on a Mac. Period. And it was meant for Joe MacUser, not the more technically inclined folks that are suggesting handling the setup yourself.

Besides, if you "really need" Windows, you can buy a usable PC for a couple hundred dollars and not worry about messing up your OS X installation. You just have to deal with all the details that go along with a PC.

arjunM · Jan 7, 2008, 04:48 PM

oh I manually set up my partitions last time anyway using Disk Utility and terminal, not the boot camp assistant. I have a lot of experience with Windows installations, just not so comfortable with the Mac's boot management.

For some reason I thought that screen after you hold down Alt/Option at startup IS boot camp. I guess that's just the normal boot manager in all Macs?

Anyway, I'll deal with things, and let you know how they turned out.

I have a feeling I'll be using Self Image to backup my FAT32 (shared database) and NTFS (Windows Vista) partitions and do a fresh install of Tiger on the new drive, once that's done I'll block a chunk out of the drive using Disk Utility (Leaving enough space for the HFS+ partition for OS X), and then use Self Image to restore my old partitions. Then I'll use GParted to grow up my NTFS and FAT32 sizes so that all the space is used.

I guess I just hope that the boot manager can recognize the Vista partition so that it actually boots into it and ideally, by default.

I'll let you all know how it goes once I get the time to do this.

Thanks again
Arjun

ghporter · Jan 7, 2008, 06:00 PM

That's the boot manager-part of the adaptation made to Intel Macs' system code (what does the same thing as BIOS on a PC) to allow booting anything other than OS X. Works pretty well, too. If Vista installs correctly, it will mark its partition as bootable and it will be seen as such by the boot manager. One part of what Boot Camp does is give you a Control Panel/System Preferences tool for selecting the default OS to boot-you'll have to pretty much select which one to boot each time if my understanding is correct.

arjunM · Jan 8, 2008, 02:14 AM

well, probably not if all goes well, because boot camp has a windows utility that lets me choose which the default startup OS will be as well. I think that should still work. Need to boot into windows to test it, I doubt that it would be disabled now like bootcamp assistant is in OS X. And I have the driver disc burnt. All should be alright, but we'll see soon enough.

bishopazrael · Jan 14, 2008, 09:18 AM

Originally Posted by Andrew_Campbell

Haha, Bull. The BootCamp assistant has been disabled very recently.

MacNN also reported on this too, as I'd expect.

Please research before shooting your mouth off.

Andrew... like the taste of foot in mouth? Please. Please research your answers before shooting YOUR mouth off. How hard do you think it is for a guy like me to keep an image of the bootcamp1.4.dmg? And how hard do you think it is for me to turn the airport off, turn the clock back and install it? Hmmm..... and how about disk images of whole hard drives setup with tiger/xp... tiger/ vista/ xp. Ooops.
My clients pay me for results. And they get them. You obviously don't know that of which you speak, so do me a favor..go back to the shallow end of the pool and put your floaties back on and stay with the kiddies. Just hush now.. us grown folks are talkin....

ghporter · Jan 14, 2008, 09:40 AM

Let's not get testy here. Technically, I believe that the license agreement for BC beta versions prohibits anyone from using them after December 31. I don't know how hard Apple would work to enforce that. But I do know that they won't support anyone who has trouble with it, so bishoprazrel, you're on your own if there's a problem that's actually related to the utility itself. I don't think it's "right" to use the utility today, but it is of course possible to do so-pretty simply.