Partition help?

[Gm7Cadd9]

Hello everyone, I have posted a few times in here about this new boot camp, I have tried a few times and followed the directions religiously, only to format my entire HD and end up with no bootable systems (xp or os x).

So, this time I have redone my system up to 10.4.6 and restored everything, made a backup, then made a bootable external drive so I could restore my info should this happen again.

With that being said, I have run the boot camp utility, I created a 10GB partition for Windows. I insert the disc and restart, the XP disc does its little load then eventually prompts me where to install it.

Here is where I am confused. Only one partition shows up, it IS labled C which is why I THOUGHT everything was fine, but shouldn't 2 partitions show up? It says that there are 131,000 MB available on this partition, do I go ahead and format this? Why doesn't the other partition show up? I would HATE to have to redo my whole system again, any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Gm7Cadd9]

ok, so I grew impatient waiting so I found another XP disc in hopes that maybe that was the issue.

I opened up the boot camp utility and selected to pick up where I left off and the computer restarted using the XP disc. I got to the partition screen... same thing only 1 partition shows up, and the math doesn't seem to work... 131,071 MB is the size of the only available partition... this makes no sense to me, my drive is 149GB... the windows partition 10 gigs, why isn't it showing up???

So I get to the format screen and realize I SHOULD be more patient so I press F3 to quit and restart, help option and lo and behold 2 options I see a windows disc and a hard drive labeled windows... so once again I lost OS X and everything associated with it... please help I am on my backup computer typing this while my primary computer is restoring for a third time. Anyone?


thanks in advance,

-Roy

 

[MRU]

Don't know whats going on I'm afraid. Mine showed about 3-4 partitions, I just chose the one that matched the size I made it 60gb.....

 

[Gm7Cadd9]

In the walkthrough guide the picture shows 3-4 partitions as well all with a unique identifier and size... do you remember on yours if they had different letters?

On the walkthrough it says all that is REALLY important is NOT to create or delete any partitions and to be sure to select partition C. Partition C is the ONLY one I see, and so far al it has done is intialize my entire disk.

thanks again,
-Roy

 

[sedek]

Hello everyone, I have posted a few times in here about this new boot camp, I have tried a few times and followed the directions religiously, only to format my entire HD and end up with no bootable systems (xp or os x).

So, this time I have redone my system up to 10.4.6 and restored everything, made a backup, then made a bootable external drive so I could restore my info should this happen again.

With that being said, I have run the boot camp utility, I created a 10GB partition for Windows. I insert the disc and restart, the XP disc does its little load then eventually prompts me where to install it.

Here is where I am confused. Only one partition shows up, it IS labled C which is why I THOUGHT everything was fine, but shouldn't 2 partitions show up? It says that there are 131,000 MB available on this partition, do I go ahead and format this? Why doesn't the other partition show up? I would HATE to have to redo my whole system again, any help would be greatly appreciated.

I had exactly the same problem. See my post on the Boot camp bugs forum. EVERYBODY WHO SEES THIS, DO NOT GO AHEAD. YOU WILL NEED TO ERASE YOUR HARD DRIVE AND REINSTALL OS X !!!

 

[Electro Funk]

In the walkthrough guide the picture shows 3-4 partitions as well all with a unique identifier and size... do you remember on yours if they had different letters?

On the walkthrough it says all that is REALLY important is NOT to create or delete any partitions and to be sure to select partition C. Partition C is the ONLY one I see, and so far al it has done is intialize my entire disk.

thanks again,
-Roy

i had 3 partitions... and you are right... bootcamp must be installed on part c... Are you sure you partitioned with bootcamp properly and there were no errors? on my first bootcamp/partition attempt i had errors and got a message to run disk utility from install cd to repair hard drive... i did that and ran bootcamp again and partitioned correctly the second time... installed xp and everything is running smoothly...

 

[sedek]

i had 3 partitions... and you are right... bootcamp must be installed on part c... Are you sure you partitioned with bootcamp properly and there were no errors? on my first bootcamp/partition attempt i had errors and got a message to run disk utility from install cd to repair hard drive... i did that and ran bootcamp again and partitioned correctly the second time... installed xp and everything is running smoothly...

No warnings whatsoever. Boot Camp asked me to insert the Windows XP disk and then I only saw the C: partition in the Windows setup.

 

[sedek]

In the walkthrough guide the picture shows 3-4 partitions as well all with a unique identifier and size... do you remember on yours if they had different letters?

On the walkthrough it says all that is REALLY important is NOT to create or delete any partitions and to be sure to select partition C. Partition C is the ONLY one I see, and so far al it has done is intialize my entire disk.

thanks again,
-Roy

Roy, did you proceed? IF you did, you probably also lost your OS X files. If not, don't go ahead.

 

[Gm7Cadd9]

I am positive that the boot camp utility had no errors while partitioning. To check this I ran the boot camp utility, then restarted OS X and opened disk utility to check and make sure a partition was created, it was labeled something like disk030 or something, and it was greyed out shown as unmounted... from what I understand that means it worked.

As for going forward a fourth time... well I have not. I finally found a way to back everything up AND restore it. I am used to cloning computers and restoring them from a bootable external firewire drive. However I needed to format and partition a firewire drive to install an Intel bootable OS, I made a copy of my computers hard drive and put it on the extra partition of this drive, when my xp installation fails yet again all I do is boot from the external and restore the original with disk utility... so not all is lost, but it does take a while to restore all 45gigs of info back to my hard drive.


In another somewhat related note I managed to get Parallels solution to work in virtualization, I suppose that will have to do for now, but I really want a dual boot machine

thanks for your help

-Roy

 

[RoadKill]

500gb Hdd

I don't suppose you have a 500GB HDD do you?

I do and when I tried bootcamp today I created a 30GB partition and winXP setup reported a 130GB C:\ drive. No other partitions where listed.

I quit the installer and rebooted into OSX and checked with disk utility, sure enough a 30GB partition was there so I started up bootcamp again and removed it and recreated a default 5GB.

Same thing happened.

The only thing I'm doing which is not supported is using a SP0 disk as I don't have a pc anymore to create a slipstreamed one with SP2.

I'm currently installing XP via Parallels in order to create a SP2 slipstreamed disc and will try again and report back.

I'm wondering if BIOS is not reporting the correct disk geometry.

 

[RoadKill]

Slipstream your disc

I have made a SP2 disc using a program called nlite and now the XP installer sees my drive geometry correctly, currently 5GB default

Here are the steps I took:

Installed Parallels virtual machine beta4

Installed XP SP0 and then downloaded the full SP2

Next I downloaded nlite

nlite then complained about .net not being installed and took me to the correct download page to get it

I then restarted nlite with my XP CD in the drive, I told it where the source files where, where to save them to, where the SP2 installer file was and chose the "intergrate service pack" and "make bootable iso" options

Then it asked me where I wanted to save the .iso file. When it had completed I transfered the iso to my mac and burnt it using disk utility.

The setup is running at the moment and all looks ok so far

 

[Gm7Cadd9]

OK, so it's been a while but I am back with new information that has come to light.

No one was able to help me with my partition problems, it just sounded like I was an amatuer...I tried everything! I tried desperatly to isolate the problem and did every possible move.

NOW, to prove I am not totally incompetent I am using the SAME XP disc on boot camp on another machine. That's right, I got a mini (for work) and following the SAME EXACT STEPS as I did with my imac I was able to get boot cap and xp to work FLAWLESSLY.

So, is that it? Have I isolated the problem? Is my hardware messed up on my imac? Why is the BIOS only seeing 1 partition? On the Mini I saw 5 partitions... any help maybe?

-Roy

 

[RoadKill]

Are you sure your xp disc is a SP2 one?

I had exactly the same problem as you with my iMac until I made a slipstream disc using nlite.

 

[Gm7Cadd9]

positive, I used the same disc to install xp on the mini...very odd

 

[RoadKill]

it may have been the same disc but are you sure it is a disc that includes Service Pack 2?

I have had a discussion on apples site with someone else with the same problem. As soon as they slipstreamed a disc XP installed for them as well.

 

[Gm7Cadd9]

you know, I am would swear up and down this is an XP SP 2 disc because it is labeled... but it is labeled with a sharpie because the disc is a copy... now before I get flamed, everyone should know I am anti-piracy in all forms.

I am actually trying to do this at work. I work in IT at a school, thus I handle everything Mac related, the rest of the IT department handles admin stuff thus they only deal with PCs. So when it came time to install XP on a company mac to test it out I asked the IT staff for a LEGIT copy of XP... and lo and behold there isn't one to be found, all we have are stupid proprietary XP install discs that are dell or gateway only, they said the copy they gave me SHOULD work just fine and they blame the mac for it not working... I am am pretty sure if I had a real deal XP SP 2 disc this would work fine... I just really want to test it at work before I make the plunge at home, but from what I read I wont have an issue if I decide to go that route.

thanks for the help again!

 

[RoadKill]

all we have are stupid proprietary XP install discs that are dell or gateway only

herein lies your problem, you would not expect to install one of these onto a HP machine succesfully, stop tilting at windmills and go get yourself a copy of XP.

These proprietary copies, aside from being unlicensed for your machine, must include drivers that are conficting with your iMac.

Although I haven't read it, there is a thread on here about where to buy XP cheaply.

 

[Gm7Cadd9]

Hey now, I am far from tilting at windmills. First let me clarify.

We have a ton of HP and Dell only discs, HOWEVER these were not the discs I was trying to use. I was trying to use a non-proprietary disc, I only mentioned having a ton of dell/gateway discs because whenever I would ask for another copy they would give me one of those discs, which I KNEW would not work.

Secondly, this is for work first and pleasure second... my company has a contract with microsoft for licensing operating systems as well as office and we have plenty of legal seats still left... but for some reason this contract is out of my jurisdiction, I usually stay pretty self contained in my mac world, so when I start asking for XP the PC IT people are a little reluctant to want to help me out.

And lastly the disc that is giving me all these troubles worked just fine in my new mini... thus I am convinced it is not the disc at all.

If and when I do this for myself (at home) you can trust I will have a legit copy of XP

 

[RoadKill]

Have you tried with the latest firmware v1.0.1?

There has been mixed reports of people installing XP and then appling service pack two. This didn't work for me I had to make a slipstream disc using nlite, it's really easy.