Afraid to use Boot Camp!

[MewRS]

Hello there!

I'm new to de Mac world but I never had fear from messing up machines with Windows or Linux...
But now I have my new MB and I don't have backup of my data... And I can't make it, because I don't have where to store...

So... I have 16GB free on my HD and I'm going to resize using Boot Camp, setting 10GB for Windows.

What is the chance of losing my data in this operation?

Thanks in advance! ^^

 

[arkitect]

Spare yourself the pain and get a back up external drive first.

Backup and then install Bootcamp…

You won't regret it.

 

[SHADO]

You will not lose data when formatting a Boot Camp drive, but if you are that paranoid, just get a cheap external HD and back up everything onto that, then format.

 

[JNB]

Zero, as long as you print, read, and follow the instructions implicitly. The only problems folks have had is when they just whip through the process and don't pay attention.

FWIW, if you're planning to give yourself a 10GB Windows partition, you won't be able to do much at all, there's not a lot of room for other than a few basic apps. Also--and most importantly--leaving only 6GB of space on the Mac partition will lead to undesirable performance issues.

If your data is important to you at all, you should have a backup strategy, period. You should also have a larger internal HDD to start with. 16GB will disappear faster than you think. If you have a 160GB HDD, you're at 90%, which is functionally "full."

 

[MewRS]

Man! How fast!

Thank you!

Well.. I actually live in a country that is very poor.. So, for me, it's hard to get a "cheap external hd"...
I worked hard to buy my mac...

I have a lot of dvds, though.. So, if I have at least 1% of making something wrong during the resize, I'll backup essential data in DVD for sure..

Thank you all!

 

[cathyy]

Just take note of which partition you select when installing Windows. That's pretty much the only way I can think of that can possibly screw up your computer/data.

 

[MewRS]

Zero, as long as you print, read, and follow the instructions implicitly. The only problems folks have had is when they just whip through the process and don't pay attention.

FWIW, if you're planning to give yourself a 10GB Windows partition, you won't be able to do much at all, there's not a lot of room for other than a few basic apps. Also--and most importantly--leaving only 6GB of space on the Mac partition will lead to undesirable performance issues.

If your data is important to you at all, you should have a backup strategy, period. You should also have a larger internal HDD to start with. 16GB will disappear faster than you think. If you have a 160GB HDD, you're at 90%, which is functionally "full."

Well.. This is true...
My HD is 160... I have to find where is the mass data and backup to DVD or try to remove what I don't want anymore..
But... It's very hard to delete files that you think that you will use someday!

 

[gnasher729]

I'm new to de Mac world but I never had fear from messing up machines with Windows or Linux...
But now I have my new MB and I don't have backup of my data... And I can't make it, because I don't have where to store...

The rule for hard drives is: You _must_ make a backup. The question is not whether your hard drive will fail, but _when_ it will fail. I can order a 500 GB external hard drive on the Internet for about £60. I can 100% guarantee that one day you will be either very, very glad that you bought an external hard drive for backups or you will be very, very sorry that you didn't. That is 100% certain.

 

[MewRS]

Well...
It's the remains from my Windows bad experience when resizing an partition...
Windows went away and did not return!

Well.. Now I have 30gb of free space...

Pretty better, huh?

But I still have to backup sensitiva data..

Thank you all! =)

 

[MewRS]

Well done!

I resized the partition and everything was OK...

In the first attempt, Boot camp said me that could not resize the partition because there was some files that couldn't be moved..

So I used an minor size... And everything was OK..

At 98% the bar has freeze... About 2 hours later, I decided to exit Boot Camp and start over again... But it said that the disk was already partitionated..
Then, I installed windows and everything was ok!


Thank you, guys! ^^

 

[hacksaw-C87]

Will someone please explain to me how the partition works? I'm a Newbie. Does it mean I slice off part of my hard drive for windows so Mac can boot directly from it? Does it also mean that I can install specific windows application (i.e. MS Office, Video Games) directly on to that partition? Thanks for help and sorry for relatively tame question.

 

[argos4000]

Will someone please explain to me how the partition works? I'm a Newbie. Does it mean I slice off part of my hard drive for windows so Mac can boot directly from it? Does it also mean that I can install specific windows application (i.e. MS Office, Video Games) directly on to that partition? Thanks for help and sorry for relatively lame question.

Ok, you are partly correct:

You give the amount/part of the hard drive you want to give to Windows so Windows can run on it, and Mac keeps the rest.

The whole partition thing works like this:

When you start up your computer, you press the alt+option button, and then you get to choose if you want to use Mac or Windows. Each has it's own environment so if you are using Windows, you cannot use Mac. If you are using Mac, you cannot use Windows. Until you restart and choose the OS you want to use, that is.

 

[hacksaw-C87]

OK cheers, I thought that was mainly what was going on. This is a bit off topic but I'd like to run the two OS together: what is better in your opinion, parallels or VMWare? I still have to partition my drive though, right?

 

[argos4000]

OK cheers, I thought that was mainly what was going on. This is a bit off topic but I'd like to run the two OS together: what is better in your opinion, parallels or VMWare? I still have to partition my drive though, right?

VMWare. And no you don't, if you just want to run them both together, then you don't need to partition, it just creates the file for you (VMWare. Not so sure about Parallels.)

But if you want to have both Bootcamp AND running both together, partition and install Bootcamp, then use VMWare on that Windows installation on Bootcamp.

 

[hacksaw-C87]

Very helpful, thanks very much.

 

[argos4000]

Very helpful, thanks very much.

You're welcome.