OS X/Windows 7 help!

[akent215]

I need some immediate assistance.

I am in way over my head and am fearing the worst. I needed to use a Microsoft product for a school project and the only way to do so was to use bootcamp to install Windows7.

Therefore, I downloaded Windows7 to a 16Gb thumb drive and followed the steps in Bootcamp to make a 25GB partition. Then the Mac restarted and the Windows setup screen appeared. I selected the 25GB BOOTCAMP partition for installation but I had the error stating that that partition would not work because it had not been formatted as NTFS. I saw a format button and clicked it. I immediately realized that this was not the smartest thing I have ever done. Well, it proceeded to let me begin to install Windows7, but since I wasn't sure that I should have re-formatted the bootcamp disk, I cancelled the setup.

Now I am stuck at a black screen with a _ just blinking. I have no idea what to do and at this point I just want my OSX back. Can anyone help me here? I was foolish and didn't do a backup before hand and have my wife really nervous that I may have lost some valuable documents.

Please help if at all possible!

Thanks

 

[simsaladimbamba]

When powering up the Mac, hold down the OPTION/Alt key and select the Macintosh HD drive shown there to boot into Mac OS X.
In Mac OS X go to System Preferences > Startup Disk*

And just so you know, you did everything correct, the Boot Camp partition needs to be formatted with NTFS.

As for backing up, use either Time Machine, CarbonCopyCloner, SuperDuper! or Dropbox, depending on the size of your documents and how many external HDDs you have.

I have one 500 GB HDD for my photographs (digital and analog) libraries and editing documents, one 500 GB HDD with my personal video footage in an editing friendly format.
Both 500 GB HDDs get backed up to one 1 TB HDD via CarbonCopyCloner.
And that 1 TB HDD gets backed up to another 1 TB HDD via CarbonCopyCloner.
Therefore I have three copies of my important data.

 

[akent215]

Thanks for the response...

I have been trying to use the "alt" key but to no success. I am using a wireless microsoft keyboard and it just keeps going to the screen with blinking cursor without loading the anything. Not sure how to get this thing to respond.

----------

Ah ha! I just got it to load with the alt key finally! I read somewhere that the wireless keyboards sometimes need time to "wake up" and by hitting several keys during the initial startup the alt key was finally recognized.

Thanks again!

 

[simsaladimbamba]

Thanks for the response...

I have been trying to use the "alt" key but to no success. I am using a wireless microsoft keyboard and it just keeps going to the screen with blinking cursor without loading the anything. Not sure how to get this thing to respond.

Do you have any wired keyboards with USB? Or can you get one from a newighbour or friend?

 

[mmomega]

You were right to format the bootcamp partition, Windows 7 uses NTFS and BootCamp assistant formats the partition to a FAT partition.

So you tried Holding Option/Alt right as the Mac chime sounds?
Basically power up the machine, you hear the sound then press Alt before it ends?

I've had some systems that were "picky" when I pressed the button, some didn't work if I pressed it before the chime or waited after the chime but pressing during always worked.

If this doesn't work then the wireless keyboard most likely isn't being recognized immediately, a wired one like simsaladimbamba said should work.

Edit** I just noticed after I posted that you got it to work, grats

 

[Towhead]

Valuable documents?? Back them up!!! So stupid not to.