MBP Buyer To Be | Help Me Prepare :)

[milesdavis]

Hello,

I will be purchasing a MBP this month as I switch from my current PC.
I want to be as prepared as possible, so I've done alot of research. I do have a few questions.

1.) RAM - What would you recommend I do here? I know that getting 2GB installed is 2x1gb, and going with the crazy apple upgrade price on 4GB of Ram, it would be best for me to purchase the extra ram and upgrade myself.

That being said -- how does RAM pairing work in Mac? Would I need to get 2x2GB for 4gb, or could I get 1 4gb module and keep one 1gb module for a total of 5gb OR keep 1 1gb and add 1 2gb for a total of 3gb ram?

2.) HD Partitioning. I'm still at a bit of a loss trying to figure out how to handle all of my NTFS formatted external drives. I know Paragon makes a program for NTFS on Mac, but I don't know how tested it is. That being said, I'm completely at a loss as far as how to partition my HD for both operating systems (Leopard + XP) as well as being able to use a formating system that will allow me to access my files in both OSes as well as save video files over 3gb. Even on my PC I never partioned an area just for the OS as many do, so I'm a little clueless about how to juggle all of this. I just know I would like to have it set as soon as I start, rather than later when I have to move stuff.

3.) Anyone used the 'slipstream' disc method of turning a Windows XP SP1 Disc into a Windows XP SP2 disc for boot camp purposes?

Thanks All + Happy New Year, MD

 

[weblogik]

i bought 2x2gig sticks from new egg for a total of $39

 

[jayhawk11]

Hello,

I will be purchasing a MBP this month as I switch from my current PC.
I want to be as prepared as possible, so I've done alot of research. I do have a few questions.

1.) RAM - What would you recommend I do here? I know that getting 2GB installed is 2x1gb, and going with the crazy apple upgrade price on 4GB of Ram, it would be best for me to purchase the extra ram and upgrade myself.

That being said -- how does RAM pairing work in Mac? Would I need to get 2x2GB for 4gb, or could I get 1 4gb module and keep one 1gb module for a total of 5gb OR keep 1 1gb and add 1 2gb for a total of 3gb ram?

2.) HD Partitioning. I'm still at a bit of a loss trying to figure out how to handle all of my NTFS formatted external drives. I know Paragon makes a program for NTFS on Mac, but I don't know how tested it is. That being said, I'm completely at a loss as far as how to partition my HD for both operating systems (Leopard + XP) as well as being able to use a formating system that will allow me to access my files in both OSes as well as save video files over 3gb. Even on my PC I never partioned an area just for the OS as many do, so I'm a little clueless about how to juggle all of this. I just know I would like to have it set as soon as I start, rather than later when I have to move stuff.

3.) Anyone used the 'slipstream' disc method of turning a Windows XP SP1 Disc into a Windows XP SP2 disc for boot camp purposes?

Thanks All + Happy New Year, MD

I'l try to help:

1) Get 2x2GB, for a grand total of 4GB of RAM. No one makes a 4 gb stick right now, and if they did it would be ungodly expensive. On top of that, the Santa Rosa chipset that the MBP currently uses is limited to a max of 4GB (I'm sure someone will jump in at some point to say that it technically supports 8GB, which is true, but its pretty well locked down to 4GB....so get 2x2

2) If you're willing to reformat your external HD's to HFS+, you can use HFS Explorer on your Windows PC's to read HFS+ file systems. That seems to work better than loading a program on your new MBP that would allow it to read NTFS.
Otherwise, if you don't want to go that route, you can buy Paragon NTFS to allow your MBP to read and write to an external Hard Drive that is formatted in NTFS.


3) No....I haven't. And I'm not too sure if you're allowed to talk about altering install discs. Even if it is for Windoze




And while we're on the subject.....you probably know this already, but if not, you probably want to wait until Macworld San Francisco (January 15th) to buy anything from Apple. They announce new stuff all the time there, and all signs are pointing to a big revamp of their notebook line (MBP, MB...maybe an ultra-portable). Just something to keep in mind

 

[crzdmniac]

Slipstreaming SP2 into XP isn't all that hard, there's a guide here http://www.petri.co.il/windows_2000_xp_sp_slipstreaming.htm. Also in regards to partitioning, have you thought about using parallels/VMWare, or do you need RAW power for your XP partition? I'm a recent switcher, and quite honestly, I rarely find a need for windows.