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Jim Paradise · Sep 17, 2007, 05:48 PM

Well, I'd like to install Boot Camp, but it's giving me sass. When I first got my MBP at the end of July, I figured I'd save time and make a second partition so I wouldn't have to later. I finally snagged a copy of XP today and went to install it, but when I first run Boot Camp Assistant, it says: "The startup disk cannot be partitioned or restored to a single partition. The startup disk must be formatted as a single Mac OS Extended (Jounraled) volume or already partitioned by Boot Camp Assistant for installing Windows."

Why can Boot Camp just up and reformat my second partition? Both partitions are Mac OS Extened (Journaled) at the moment. I find this strikingly odd.

ghporter · Sep 17, 2007, 09:43 PM

Boot Camp simply is not written to mess around with non-standard partitioning setups. You didn't "save time" by partitioning the drive before running Boot Camp, but rather wasted it. Go back into Disk Utility and delete the second partition, making the disk a single partition again, and Boot Camp will work just fine. (You may have to boot from your OS X disc and use Disk Utility from the installer's Tools menu because messing with the partitioning yourself could cause some glitches that may not only stop Boot Camp but OS X programs as well.

Remember, Apple made Boot Camp for "they basic Mac user," not someone who's an advanced user, and not necessarily for anyone who understands what a disk partition is. Let the tool do for you what it's made to do.

Jim Paradise · Sep 17, 2007, 09:52 PM

Originally Posted by ghporter

Boot Camp simply is not written to mess around with non-standard partitioning setups. You didn't "save time" by partitioning the drive before running Boot Camp, but rather wasted it. Go back into Disk Utility and delete the second partition, making the disk a single partition again, and Boot Camp will work just fine. (You may have to boot from your OS X disc and use Disk Utility from the installer's Tools menu because messing with the partitioning yourself could cause some glitches that may not only stop Boot Camp but OS X programs as well.

Remember, Apple made Boot Camp for "they basic Mac user," not someone who's an advanced user, and not necessarily for anyone who understands what a disk partition is. Let the tool do for you what it's made to do.

That's unfourtunate, although I don't see why it isn't a standard partition; I certainly didn't use any bizarre settings. It seems odd that Boot Camp cannot just read the empty partition and rewrite it accordingly - surely Apple must have foreseen this as a possibility? I haven't used Boot Camp before, so I didn't realize that it had to explicitly make the second partition. I also wasn't aware that I could non-destructively combine two partitions using Disk Utility?

ghporter · Sep 18, 2007, 08:01 AM

Boot Camp DOES produce standard partitions, but not the kind you usually get from setting up a Windows partition with Disk Utility. It's a "Master Boot Record" partition, and Disk Utility, having no need of a "master boot record" simply doesn't set up partitions that way.

rehoot · Sep 18, 2007, 09:41 AM

As a last resort for installing bootcamp, look for my long list of instructions in this post:

Follow this link
http://forums.macnn.com/104/alternat...d/#post3480011

Jim Paradise · Sep 18, 2007, 11:10 AM

Originally Posted by ghporter

Boot Camp DOES produce standard partitions, but not the kind you usually get from setting up a Windows partition with Disk Utility. It's a "Master Boot Record" partition, and Disk Utility, having no need of a "master boot record" simply doesn't set up partitions that way.

Well, I get that Boot Camp produces standard partitions. What I don't get is why a) it won't let me into the program, b) erase/reformat the empty partition.

ghporter · Sep 18, 2007, 12:24 PM

Boot Camp is made for non-technical users, so it's built "goof proof" (at least to a large extent). To undo your partitioning, go into the tool you used to make it. Unless you did a whole wipe and install when you first got the Mac, that would be Disk Utility. And Disk Utility may be useful in deleting that partition too, but I've never messed with that sort of thing so I can't say for certain. At worst, you'll need to do a backup and start over, wiping the disk completely and then restoring your backup. And that's not a huge hurdle either, assuming you have a workable backup device.

Jim Paradise · Sep 18, 2007, 12:39 PM

To undo the partitioning, I'd have to do a clean wipe as I've never heard of being able to combine two partitions non-destructively with Disk Utility. Anyway, it will be far too big a hassle to do everything over again, so I'll wait and see if some sort of option becomes available later.

I can understand making it "goof proof", but despite that, I cannot understand Boot Camp's inability to wipe clean an empty partition and format it properly.

silver · 04:43 PM

Since you have a partition scheme already you can try rEFIt. After installing rEFIt reboot system with XP or Vista install disc in CD/DVD drive, you'll be presented with a boot screen that you can select the XP/Vista disc and you should be all good. Bootcamp is mainly a bootloader and drivers to make Windows work with Apple hardware.

from the site:

rEFIt is a boot menu and maintenance toolkit for EFI-based machines like the Intel Macs. You can use it to boot multiple operating systems easily, including triple-boot setups with Boot Camp. It also provides an easy way to enter and explore the EFI pre-boot environment.

Here's the link rEFIt - An EFI Boot Menu and Toolkit

My set up using rEFIt is 1)OS X 10.4.10 2)XP SP2 3)Ubuntu 7.0.4.

silver

Jim Paradise · 09:48 PM

Originally Posted by silver

Since you have a partition scheme already you can try rEFIt. After installing rEFIt reboot system with XP or Vista install disc in CD/DVD drive, you'll be presented with a boot screen that you can select the XP/Vista disc and you should be all good. Bootcamp is mainly a bootloader and drivers to make Windows work with Apple hardware.

from the site:

rEFIt is a boot menu and maintenance toolkit for EFI-based machines like the Intel Macs. You can use it to boot multiple operating systems easily, including triple-boot setups with Boot Camp. It also provides an easy way to enter and explore the EFI pre-boot environment.

Here's the link rEFIt - An EFI Boot Menu and Toolkit

My set up using rEFIt is 1)OS X 10.4.10 2)XP SP2 3)Ubuntu 7.0.4.

silver

Now this is the kind of info I'm lookin' for!

I hope you don't mind if I ask a few further questions, though. The first, perhaps obviously, is how does this differ from Apple's Boot Camp? As I understand it, Boot Camp installs certain drivers (graphics, etc.,). Does this program act similarily?

The second question is will this program reformat the appropriate partition? As it is now, the empty partition is formatted as the regular Mac OS Extended (Journaled), and needs to be formatted to install XP on.

*edit* I checked their website for info and still am a bit confused, so please bear with my questions.