No startup disk

I was trying to install windows xp on my MacBook Pro using Bootcamp, and somehow the Macintosh HD disk was deleted. Now there are 2 disks that show up when choosing where to install snow leopard and they are "UNTITLED" (which i created in Disk Utility), and "BOOTCAMP", but both say "Mac OS X can't be installed on a disk with the MS-DOS (FAT32) format". How can I change the format of these disks to install snow leopard. I am not worried about losing my documents because i probably already did.

Hello Jay... Did you find the answer you needed? I find in system pref's two places where start up items are... the start up disk like Mike mentioned, and then too if you open Accounts>startup items... I read somewhere a while back that too many things in there can slow the start up.... I have no idea what iCal alarm scheduler is.. I take it out, and it reappears by itself, even though I lock repeatedly my system pref's (is unlocked each time I awake from sleep!!! (#%@*^$@$*(@)!!! hahahahaha
But, winnow it down and see what happens...
Now back to what you said.. When I open my system pref's > start up disk,
I see it says "select the system you want to use to start up your computer"
And there is a picture of a folder with an X n it and below it says Mac OS X, 10.3.9 on macintosh HD... and then the thing with a question mark and under that it says network start up.
I am figuring the network start up is something that must be put it, but isn't yet on mine...
Had you by now already figured it out, or what?

Similar Messages

XP no longer shows up as a startup disk

After upgrading to leopard today, my XP partition no longer shows up as a startup disk.
I had/have my windows partition on it's own drive that was NOT created with bootcamp. I pulled my osx disk from the my mac pro and installed windows on the disk i had in bay 2 using 100% of the disk (ntfs). after installing the bootcamp windows drivers, i reinserted the osx disk and all has been well for the last 4 months,... until the upgrade today that is.
Now, when i go to the 'Startup Disk' preference Windows is no longer an option. the disk still shows up in Finder and I can navigate around the file system.
Anyone have any ideas on how I can get it to show up again? I'd really rather not have to reinstall if i can avoid it.
thx.

I have exactly the same problem (well, maybe).
I have installed MacFUSE and ntfs-3g. I don't know if this is of any relevance, because I don't know if it was working directly before I installed them.
I have my OS X and NTFS volumes on the same physical disk. I also had to install Windows twice because I buggered it up the first time (formatted the partition as FAT32 and ran into a bunch of disk errors).
I also notice that in WinClone I have 2 Untitled Volumes at /dev/disk0s3 and /dev/disk1s1. /dev/disk0s3 seems to be the legit Windows NTFS partition, but I have no idea what /dev/disk1s1 is about. I don't know if it's been there all along or not but perhaps it is confusing matters and stopping the legit Windows volume/installation from being detected...? Should that second volume exist at all? It doesn't exist according to the Disk util.
edit: I used fdisk just to have a look at the two untitled partitions.
Jacbook:dev jacteh$ sudo fdisk /dev/disk0s3
Disk: /dev/disk0s3 geometry: 10651/255/63 [171117408 sectors]
Signature: 0xAA55
Starting Ending
#: id cyl hd sec - cyl hd sec [ start - size]
1: 72 368 111 45 - 371 101 51 [ 218129509 - 1701990410] <Unknown ID>
2: 74 67 115 32 - 299 114 44 [ 729050177 - 543974724] <Unknown ID>
3: 65 114 111 32 - 353 115 52 [ 168653938 - 0] Netware 3.xx
4: 00 0 0 0 - 0 0 0 [ 0 - 0] unused
Jacbook:dev jacteh$ sudo fdisk /dev/disk1s1
Disk: /dev/disk1s1 geometry: 0/4/63 [63 sectors]
Signature: 0x0
Starting Ending
#: id cyl hd sec - cyl hd sec [ start - size]
1: 00 0 0 0 - 0 0 0 [ 0 - 0] unused
2: 00 0 0 0 - 0 0 0 [ 0 - 0] unused
3: 00 0 0 0 - 0 0 0 [ 0 - 0] unused
4: 00 0 0 0 - 0 0 0 [ 0 - 0] unused
I can hold the option key upon startup and manually enter Windows like that, but I'd prefer to be able to restart and boot Windows without having to hold a key.
Apart from not seeing the Windows boot volume in the system prefs pane, Boot Camp (and the rest of Leopard) has been excellent. I am impressed at the level of apple hardware support for windows. It seems to be much better than most native PC hardware.
I am dying for an answer. It's a fairly minor problem in the grand scheme of things, but **** it's frustrating.
Message was edited by: jacteh

How do I get more space on my startup disk

How do I get more space on my startup disk?

Freeing Up Space on The Hard Drive
1. See Lion's Storage Display.
2. You can remove data from your Home folder except for the /Home/Library/ folder.
3. Visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQ on freeing up space on your hard drive.
4. Also see Freeing space on your Mac OS X startup disk.
5. See Where did my Disk Space go?.
6. See The Storage Display.
You must Empty the Trash in order to recover the space they occupied on the hard drive.
You should consider replacing the drive with a larger one. Check out OWC for drives, tutorials, and toolkits.
Try using OmniDiskSweeper 1.8 or GrandPerspective to search your drive for large files and where they are located.

How to install an OS on a Mac Pro without using a startup disk

Good Evening... I have purchased an Mac Pro 4,1 without any HDD attached to it and I have no startup disk for the installation an OS... When I do power on the Mac Pro, I get a flashing folder with a question mark in it! How can I be able to add an OS for two HDDs that I would like to install?

No. Boot the MP using the external drive. If you need to prep the drives, then:
Drive Partition and Format
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
2. After DU loads select the hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the drive in DU's status area. If it does not say "Verified" then the drive is failing or has failed and will need replacing. SMART info will not be reported on external drives. Otherwise, click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Apply button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Security button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.
Once the drive has been prepped just clone your external drive to the internal drive:
Clone using Restore Option of Disk Utility
1. Select the destination volume from the left side list.
2. Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
3. Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag
it to the Destination entry field.
4. Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to
the Source entry field.
5. Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
Destination means the Internal drive. Source means the External startup drive.

Delete files from startup disk?

Under system preferences I see the StartUp Disk, but where do I delete files from that in order to clear up some space?
I have MacBook Air OS 10.6.8. Is it just under my User? everything like applications and documents, etc?

Open Finder and look on the sidebar for the House Icon:
Click on it and you should see a list similar to this:
You should be able to delete any items in those folders to create the required space.
You may also delete any third party applications from your Applications folder.
Ciao.

Unable to delete files from my startup disk; can move to trash and delete them there, but cannot delete from startup disk?

I constantly get a warning message that my startup disk is full and I need to remove/back up files from it. I have already backed up the files from my "All Documents" folder, which is on the left side of the menu in my startup disk. The problem is, I cannot delete those same files from the "All Documents" folder on my startup disk. It will let me move them to the trash, which I can empty, but they still do not delete from the "All Documents" folder. Does anyone know why?

Drag the files you want to delete (this applies to applications too) from their current location to the Trashcan icon in the dock. The trash will appear full. Hold down the control key and click on the Trashcan and select "Empty Trash" from the pop-up menu.
Alternatives to the control-click method: double-click on the Trashcan and click the "Empty" button in the upper right corner of the window that comes up; right-click on the Trashcan (only works if you have right-click enabled); press shift-command-delete; select "Emtpy trash..." from the Finder menu.

Brand new to the Mac World and NEED SOME HELP with startup disk issues

Hello everyone. I am a new Mac user and I purchased my mac on ebay. It's an iMac that came with tiger 10.4.11. I wanted to get a fresh start on the computer, since the person who had it before me did not erase all of his stuff. I didn't know what to do so I got a startup disk/install disk off ebay also. When I go to install it says "software cannot be installed on this computer." Before I bought the software, I had called the apple store and they said it should be fine to buy any install software to put on the computer. If I could get any help it would be appreciated. I had read previous threads that I should hold down c when I start up (didn't work) or that I should select archive or erase and install (I never got these options when I went to install).

A warm welcome to the Discussions!
What iMac is it? I only ask as the Retail Tiger CD/DVDs don't work on IntelMacs, only PPC, (G3, G4, G5 Macs).
Sorry what you were told by the Apple Store, but if it's a Gray CD/DVD then it is Machine specific as Neil stated.
Sooo, what exact iMac is it, and what does it say on the CD/DVD?

I am having problems trying to boot from my Windows XP startup disk.

PLEASE HELP ASAP! I upgraded my MacBook Pro 17inch laptop for a larger hard drive. I had my MAC and Windows XP partitions re-installed but I am not able to boot from Windows XP partition. I can see both operation systems in the system preferences of the STARTUP DISK section but when I shutdown my computer and hold down the OPTION key there is no WINDOWS XP icon. I keep getting the error message: NO BOOTABLE DEVICE. INSERT BOOT DISK AND PRESS ANY KEY.
I have a very important project to complete this Friday and all of my files are on my PC partition. Could someone please help me to figure out how to get my PC drive to start rebooting? I would sincerely appreciate it. Thanks!

courtesy of the following site:
http://www.builtfromsource.com/2008/04/05/a-match-made-in-****-windows-xp-boot-c amp-20-and-ntfs/
Feel like wasting several hours? Try installing Windows XP with Boot Camp 2.0 (the version released as part of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard) using NTFS, the file system required for partitions larger than 32 GB. Then watch as it fails miserably, again and again.
Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:
<Windows root>\system32\hal.dll.
Please re-install a copy of the above file.
Sound familiar? You didn’t do anything wrong—this is actually Apple’s fault. Hal.dll, the “hardware abstraction layer”, doesn’t have any particular significance; it just happens to be the first file that Windows looks for as it’s loading. Attempting to replace this file with the copy on disk won’t work, and your boot.ini is probably fine.
So how do you fix it, then? The solution is a bit involved, but not too bad all things considered. Here are the steps:
If you haven’t already removed the bad installation, you’ll need to do so. In OS X, open Boot Camp, click Continue, select “Create or remove a Windows partition”, click Continue, and then click Restore.
Create a new partition as you did before, and start the installation.
After the computer has rebooted and it’s booted from the CD, type “R” to go to the console. You should be dumped to the C:\ prompt.
We’re going to reformat the drive as NTFS ourselves instead of letting the Windows installer do it. Type the following and hit Return:
format c: /q /fs:ntfs
Then type this to reboot the computer:
exit
Hold Option after it restarts, then boot to the Windows installation CD again (I believe it boots to the CD by default at this point, but this is just to be sure).
Install to C: (be careful not to select your OS X volume!), but—and this is important—choose NOT to reformat. Leave the file system as is.
Continue the installation process as you would normally.
That’s it! If things went well, the lovely 256-color Windows logo should load and you’ll be looking at Napa Valley in no time.

Startup Disk issue in new Mac Air. Replaced with another new mac, then again. MS Excel culprit?

Hey guys, I bought a macbook Air 11’ 4GB 128GB (Mid-2011(after selling my 13” macbook pro) and the problems seem to be never ending.
My primary work involves using MS Excel so I installed a licensed version of Office for Mac 2011 and started using excel on my new mac machine. Within few minutes I got a message pop-up on screen “YOUR MAC OS STARTUP DISK HAS NO MORE SPACE AVAILABLE FOR APPLICATION MEMORY”.
I checked the size of storage and there was just 5 GBs worth space left despite the fact that there was not a single photo, music, video on the new mac apart from a few MBs of excel files. I took it to the vendor (APPLE PREMIUM RESELLER) who after re-installing lion returned it to me and the same issue again popped up. Finally, they diagnosed an SSD problem and after a week of waiting, I was given a brand new shiny macbook air MC969 (same model).
I used the new one and again while using excel, the same issue has come up. I’m really fed up of this stupid error bcoz I was using the same OFFICE FOR MAC suite on my macbook pro and never suffered any such problem. I have also twice thrice completed all the steps I was told to do (like repair disk perm. Emptying the cache etc. )
Since India doesn’t have any Apple owned stores but only Premium Resellers whose replacement etc policies are not governed by Apple.
They do not even refund the money but have given an option of diagnosing the machine and replacing the problematic part.
I googled the web and found no such issued with EXCEL. Strangely, other apps in the office suite seem to work well without any issues.
I have attached the screenshots that how while using excel, within a couple of minutes, mac starts to heat up, then storage decreases and finally the error where mac becomes dead slow.
Please help me to determine where the cause lies.

The Excel files size range between 29KB to 60KB.
That's it.
I called up the reseller and he said that the replacement period is now over and mac would only be repaired.
I dont want my Mac to get unscrewed

Why is my Macbook pro with OS lion prompting me my startup disk almost full when i have deleted many files, photos and videos? Even thrashing them doesn't help. There seems to be an automatic space usage in the background

I have deleted many unwanted files and apps and yet the available space keeps depleting every time i am using my Macbook Pro. I believe under the OS 10.7.4 one of the features is it backups or has backgrounding features which uses memory. Sometimes even when i hv 8GB space after using my Macbook Pro for say 2hrs surfing internet and using Pages which has a "Save Version" feature suddenly my 8GB goes down to 300+MB only and it starts prompting me "My Startup Disk is almost full" once it reaches 1GB space left. How can i get more space.... Please someone can help me? Do i need to re-format my hardisk??!! Any help out there is greatly appreciated.
My original HD is 320GB. And i don't hv too many Apps installed. I do have abt 50-70apps. I do have many photos and videos stored in iPhoto's Library though.

One thing I've noticed is that a shared tab pops up when I open the finder under "favorites" with a random connection. It's called hp68b... None of my friends that I live with have this and we all use the same internet. Two days ago when I would click it and click get info, it said it was a pc. When I checked it today it said it is a "sharepoint" and looks like a harddrive.
I took it too the store after i spilt water on it but when I got it back it ran perfectly fine. I don't know a lot about computer so if somebody could help me. It says I'm connected to it and I can't disconnect or delete it. I don't know if the guy at the computer store put something in my computer and is sharing all my files.

Trying to get rid of error "The startup disk cannot be partitioned or restored to a single partition". Recovery HD visible.

Hello,
I've been stuck for some hours now trying different things to install Windows 7 on my Macbook Air, and I think now is the time to call for some custom help.
I'm using OS X 10.9.5 Mavericks.
So some months ago I just wanted to run Linux on my laptop so I installed rEFInd, shrunk the Macintosh HD partition by 25GB and booted on a linux live USB flash I burned using dd.
Then I used gparted to create my linux partitions.
It worked just fine, even though disk utility from OS X seemed quite unhappy about this (it seemed to have incorrect informations about the filesystem on these partitions, seeing them as journaled Mac OS while they were clearly not). At this point already, the Recovery HD from mac showed up in disk utility, which I found weird but didn't bother me.
But recently I needed windows on my Mac. So after a few tries for the triple boot, I managed to create a bootable USB stick with boot camp, which already showed me the message "The startup disk cannot be partitioned or restored to a single partition" and hence refused to partition/install himself.
So I thought "OK, that's no big issue, I can just partition with disk utility and then boot on the USB stick and everything will work fine". But when EFI booting on the USB flash drive I got stuck at the beginning of Windows installer with no keyboard or mouse support.
After some hours spent googling, I was unable to find a working fix for that, and as there was no support for my case (where I used bootcamp to create the bootable flash but NOT to partition/reboot) I decided to give bootcamp a try.
So I erased my linux partitions, and cleaned up everything I could on the HD with disk utility. That means I now have two partitions showing in disk utility : Macintosh HD and Recovery HD.
When using disk utility from terminal, the list is :
/dev/disk0
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *121.3 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD            80.0 GB    disk0s2
   3:                  Apple_HFS Recovery HD             650.1 MB   disk0s3
But boot camp still isn't happy, and the message "The startup disk cannot be partitioned or restored to a single partition" keeps popping after the intro and I can't partition/boot from bootcamp.
So, as I don't understand what is wrong here anymore, any help would be greatly appreciated!
I will be watching the thread a lot because I really would like this resolved (or windows installed one way or another) this weekend; so any questions on my past manipulations or config just ask!
Thank you.

keyboard issues are also something of a common issue.
I wish the best threads were voted to the top of forums, something! Me, I literally burned out here, but after installing 10 Preview, wanted to "see what was going on" after hiatus of a couple years and see if anything had changed (no, not really!)
Also, these new Communities are not putting "more like this" and failing to help too.
I think rewriting Boot Camp Assistant's built in help and pdf would help a lot, and needs to be clearer and go into details. And Yosemite was not it seems tested against Boot Camp, and drivers for new Macs + new OS also lag behind. Again, common and no sign of improvement or change.
One of the tricks to the "can't partition" is rather simple - of course backup is step #1 and is spelled out - SHRINK the main HFS+ partition! then stretch it back to full length. Sometimes a reboot is needed, and sometimes even do a Safe Boot - not sure what but Recovry Mode might be a good option too. That does seem to consolidate free space, move files that are locked and cannot be moved otherwise, and allow BCA to partition, jusst be sure to have enough space left and large enough for a proper Windows install (and fudge factor).

Safari crashes or hangs requiring unplugging power to my iMac desktop running OS 10.8.2. This doesn't happen with FireFox. Also while trying to recover my old files using Carbonite I get messages saying there is no space on my startup disk 1 TB?

After replacing my burnt out original hard drive in my iMac 24 inch desk top computer with 1 TB hard drive I've had repeated problems with Safari hanging/not responding. This has frozen my computer and required me to unplug the power cord and restart. It doesn't happen with FireFox. In addition, while trying to restore from Carbonite I've had it hang five or six times never completing the restore. When the technician replaced the hard drive he installed OC 10.8.2. When restoring I get repeated messages that there isn't enough room on my startup disk to continue the restore. This obviously isn't the case because I have far more storage space with a 1 TB hard drive. Any ideas what is going on and how I can prevent these two problems from continuing? Thanks.

You've got an incompatible Logitech driver and java was incompletely uninstalled.
You may have a problem with the Wacom driver.
I don't know if fixing those things will help.
There also a few window server errors, but I don't know if they are causal.
If you can note the time of the hangs, that might help narrow it down in the logs.

Can a 10.5.8 bootable clone be used as a startup disk in 10.6.8

For the very experienced users and experts.
We have a mbp bootable clone with 10.5.8 and want to use this as a backup startup disk on a mba with 10.6.8. We understand that it is generally not possible to startup a bootable clone that has a different os than what you are currently running.
In the reverse, if we tried to use a mba bootable clone with 10.6.8 as a startup disk on a mbp with 10.5.8 would this work or also crash? Would this be possible or would be expect kernel panics due to missing sandy bridge drivers? We understand that we would get 3 beeps and the grey screen if we tried.
In system preferences it temptingly shows that the different os bootable clone as being useable as a startup disk so it gives the impression this is an option that works. However we understand that if we do indeed try to boot, we will freeze due to a bunch of permissions problems and such. We're hoping to avoid our computer from freezing mid-stream in a startup disk switch and create a whole bunch of other problems.
We have no real desire to upgrade the 10.5.8 mbp to 10.6.8. We did notice that an old iphoto library had to be upgraded for 10.6.8 when the 10.5.8 library was first opened in 10.6.8 and we understand this will now be unopenable in 10.5.8.
Many thanks for any responses to our questions. Cheers.

E27 wrote:
We have a mbp bootable clone with 10.5.8 and want to use this as a backup startup disk on a mba with 10.6.8. We understand that it is generally not possible to startup a bootable clone that has a different os than what you are currently running.
You should as long as the MP had booted off the 10.5.8 clone previously.
However I, and others also, found out that we can no longer boot off the 10.5 disks in a later 10.6+ Software Update, it might be the firmware was changed to disallow 10.5 from booting once on 10.6.+ sometime.
Apple might have done this because they don't want people using the 10.5 disk to repair their 10.6 altered drive.
Got the written kp hard boot screen and had to unplug the clone while frozen but there appears to be no permanent damage to any of the drives. We suspected this may happen.
There is your answer and no, no pernament damage was done, it's all a read operation and the machine/firmware couldn't use the 10.5.8 drivers.
You'll have to find a Mac that is of the same model and runs 10.5 to boot off that 10.5.8 clone.

Open firmware startup disk by default

I have an iMac which by default always goes to the open firmware startup disk screen. How do I get rid of this? I have tried zapping the PRAM, reinstalling the OS and a different hard drive. There are no problems w/ the functionality of the computer or the software and there are no symptoms to say that there is anything wrong w/ the computer. Just want to get rid of having to hit enter at the firmware startup disk screen every time I turn it on. Any suggestions please.

Mark, it appears that the defauly startup mode has been changed on your Mac.
Probably the easiest way to get back to normal is using a utility. I use the free utility OnyX. In OnyX go to Parameters>Login and at the bottom of the pane you can change your Mac's default startup mode.

Boot Camp partition not showing in startup disk or when holding alt key

I've read countless discussions about similar questions to this one, however, I still haven't been able to find any solution.
I have an old 2006 MacBook that has just been fully updated and reformatted. I'm running OSX 10.7.5 and Boot Camp 4.
I went through the Boot Camp installation from an Windows ISO image in my usb drive, where it succesfully downloaded all files needed, and prompted me to make the partition, after which it restarted and was supposed to take me to the installation manager in the Windows partition. I first got the "No bootable driver" error, to which I read I was supposed to restart the computer, hold the alt key, and choose the boot camp partition. However, it does not show up. I only get Mac and Recover drivers.
I went into the Mac's startup disk, and only the Mac driver is showing, no Boot Camp driver, however, when I go into Disk Utilities, I can see that the BootCamp driver there.
I read somewhere that I should zap pram and reset SMC, which I did with their instructions. It didn't change anything, I still only get the Mac driver and Recovery when hitting the alt key.
Does it have something to do with my MacBook being older? That's the only reason I can think that would not allow me to do this.
Let me know what other info I can give you so that you can please help me!! Thanks in advance!

In last resort I solved my missing BOOTCAMP partition problem using a program called: iPartition from coriolis systems located in the United Kingdom http://www.coriolis-systems.com/iPartition.php it took me a coupleof days to figure out the credit card system they have Hint: use your 9 digit zip code to find your credit card address and call your bank if you have an overseas hold on the card!!!! The program found my missing BOOTCAMP partition and restored it. It did take a couple of e-mails to learn to use their program. Let me know how you turn out!

My MacBook Pro Won't Start-The Startup disk is full and I get a white screen

When I turn it on the log in screen appears and also a message saying "Startup disk full,please delete some files" , so I log in and it just takes me to a white screen,I've tried going to the disk utility by doing Command+R when turing it on ,and I repaired Macintish HD and after that it said "Macintish HD volume is OK".Thanks for the help

1. Start up in Safe Mode.
    http://support.apple.com/kb/PH11212
2. Empty Trash.
    http://support.apple.com/kb/PH10677
3. Delete "Recovered Messages", if any.
    Hold the option key down and click "Go" menu in the Finder menu bar.
    Select "Library" from the dropdown.
    Library > Mail > V2 > Mailboxes
    Delete "Recovered Messages", if any.
    Empty Trash. Restart.
4. Delete old iOS Devices Backup.
    iTunes > Preferences > Devices
    Highlight the old Backups , press “Delete Backup” and then “OK”.
    http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4946?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US
5. Re-index Macintosh HD
   System Preferences > Spotlight > Privacy
   http://support.apple.com/kb/ht2409

No startup disk

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