Considering Bootcamp, terrified

Hi! Just for spec, I'm on a Pro 15", version 10.6.8, running in I believe Snow Leopard. Anyways, I'm considering bootcamping my laptop to be able to play games (Skryim, Mass Effect) and perhaps get paint tool Sai, but have an irrational fear of the prospect. Honestly, I cannot imagine having two operatings systems and NOT having it confuse my computer and make it blow up. You see, I still live in 1998, so I really want to hear the pros and cons of doing it, and if there is ANY RISK of losing information or breaking my poor computer. I've already been to the Apple Store ten times for this thing, so I don't want to go and have it be my fault...
Speaking of, if at any point it gets super complicated or requires any knowledge of computers to set up, it might not be for me. So if any awesome person can humor me, give me advice or first-hand knowledge of what happens to a bootcamped computer, I would really really really appreciate it just so much.
This is my first time visiting these forums, so I apologize if I commit any faux pas or anything like that. I'm just hoping to get some good info to help me make up my mind. Er, I'm also not sure what Category to put this in, so please don't get mad!

I have installed Boot Camp on a MacBook and two MacBook Pros having used Windows XP, Vista, and 7. I am also a first person action game lover which is why I installed Boot Camp in the first place.
I followed the directions explicitly and had no trouble at all. Many of the posters on this forum didn't read or follow the instructions which caused trouble.
Before you do anything be sure you have a bootable clone backup of your Mac on an external drive. I use both Carbon Copy Cloner (donationware) and SuperDuper ($27.95) which are equivalent in my experience. The reason for a bootable clone is to have an exact duplicate of the Mac in case of problems not easily solved by software utilities. You startup from the external cloned drive and use CCC or SD to clone back to the Mac.
Here are links to Boot Camp info from Apple which is a place to start your education. Also you can use the searchfunction in the upper right corner to bring up topics in these communities. And don't worry about asking questions as all we users started at zero at one time.
http://www.apple.com/support/bootcamp/
http://support.apple.com/manuals/#macos

Similar Messages

Upgrade to 10.6 plus run Parallels for Windows 7

I am running 10.5.8 on a MacBook Pro a 500 GB hard drive and 4 MB ram.
I would like to:
1. upgrade to MAC 10.6 Snow Leopard
2. Run Windows 7 using Parallels
I am fairly computer literate but I have no experience with virtual machines.
Can anyone recommend a good site where I can learn more about this?
Is there anything I need to do in order to prepare the hard drive to run dual operating systems?
What is the sequence of actions that should be taken to accomplish these two end results?
Thanks
Claire

Hello!
The first thing I would do is the Snow leopard Upgrade. You can purchase the 10.6 disk from the apple store. Make sure you backup your computer before doing this. You never know what surprises can come about.
Dowload the combo back update to 10.6.3 instead of using the update tool. That seemed to work much better for me. The combo updater can be found here:
http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1017
Make sure you are running the latest version of bootcamp. I loaded Windows 7 Pro 64 bit with no problems. It was a smooth installation.
Parallels is great for running the machine within mac. The latest version supports 7 and it works great. You may consider bootcamp if you want 100 % power to windows applications.

Hello everyone.. I just purchased a macbook air 13" Just have a question regarding gaming

i was wondering if my mac can handle running Rome total war gold edition ?

The MBA will run virtually any game (some on OS X and some on Windows). The question is how fast it will run. Try it and see. The HD 5000 graphics processor is impressive.
For Windows games the Parallels VM will slow down the execution of the game so you might consider Bootcamp for that. You want to dedicate all the resources to Windows while you run the game. That said, it will run under Parallels.
Be cognizant of heat and do what you can to keep the air flowing well. A laptop cooler may help. https://discussions.apple.com/message/2093137#2093137
Also check out CrossOver Games.

Blackberry, Exchange 2003 and Macbook - best solution

I am interested to hear how other people manage in a windows work environment while using a macbook and running a blackbery on a BES server. I have considered bootcamp with windows 7, parallels, fusion etc. Do most pople workin in osx and use parallels or similar to keep outlook open to enable blackbery synch etc, or do people just work exclusively in windows on bootcamp. Ideally, I wouldnt have windows at all, it is just that I cant find a way to have wireless synch of outlook and blackberry with BES server without doing this. I cant be fussed to sit and connect my blackberry to my computer (either by bluetooth or usb) to keep synching the blackberry and macbook. Any suggestions

It is in sync. All the time. Hence the BES Server.
The only thing you need to do is setup your macbook email app to access your MS Exchange account on the server.
Do you not have a desktop computer at work that allows you to view your email? Mimic the settings on your laptop. The sync happens at the email server level - not on local machines.
If you don't have a desktop computer at work, then you will need to contact your IT Admin and ask him to give you all the login settings and just plug them in to your macbook email application.
What you do on the laptop will be mirrored on your blackberry and vice versa.
As a technical note: Your blackberry is not the sync agent. The BES Server is. And BES doesn't maintain your email either. Its MS Exchange. BES only acts as a "middle-man" between your email server and the handhelds.
Message was edited by: sbkeith

Mackie Onyx 1640

I am tracking using an onyx firewire card. However, when I engage the audio tracks to record, I can only engage two at a time. If I go to engage a third audio track for recording, the one before automatically disengages, prohibiting me from recording more than two tracks at once. Obviously Logic supports multitrack recording, but how come my situation isn't working?
G5 2GHZ Mac OS X (10.2.x) 2.5 GB Ram

Hi and welcome to Discussions and the wonderful world of Mac,
according to the Mackie website you don't need to install specific Mackie drivers (there even aren't some).
Follow the steps in the manual of the Firewire card, especially the ones for the Audio- and MIDI-Setup and you should be ready.
Parallels is not capable at the moment for the use of FireWire, that's why it didn't work.
If you wnat/have to use Windows programs, you might consider BootCamp.
Have Fun
Stefan

Mackie Onyx 1640 and Mac problems...

hey everyone, so im brand new to the Mac world, been a PC user for ages, i just got a 24" iMac. I'm trying to install the driver for a Mackie Onyx 1640 Firewire card, and i can't seem to figure it out. initially i tried to do it on windows parallels, which im using for some programs, i couldnt get any luck out of that, so i tried to install on the OSX, but that isn't workin either. anyone know what im doing wrong?

Hi and welcome to Discussions and the wonderful world of Mac,
according to the Mackie website you don't need to install specific Mackie drivers (there even aren't some).
Follow the steps in the manual of the Firewire card, especially the ones for the Audio- and MIDI-Setup and you should be ready.
Parallels is not capable at the moment for the use of FireWire, that's why it didn't work.
If you wnat/have to use Windows programs, you might consider BootCamp.
Have Fun
Stefan

Sharing my mp3 folder between Mac and PC partitions

Hello,
I'm a Mac newbie considering Bootcamp on a new MacBook Pro. I'm wondering what's the best way to share a folder of mp3's (about 10 GB) between my Mac and Windows partitions. I read that Fat32 partitions can be shared but they are very wasteful of disk space. What's the alternative and is it reliable? Thanks in advance!

I use MacDrive to enable Windows to see the Mac partition. Then you can tell iTunes not to copy the songs when added. I think you can even copy the iTunes Music Library.xml from the mac side

Can I install Windows Server 2008 R2 using Bootcamp? I do not want to install native, but may consider if that is the only way....

I already have Win 7 on an internal Bootcamp drive. It so far has worked well, Bootcamp performance drag is minimal, if at all. Now I want to install Win Server 2008 R2 and load a bunch of virtuals using Hyper-V Manager. The virtuals are already created. This is to practice for a certification test....
Running Mountain Lion, 2010 MP 2 X 2.4 (8 core) 24 GB RAM, all HDD slots full.

Works like a charm. Apple Supports says you can have multiple instances of Bootcamp. Win Server 2008 R2 is up and running, drivers installed (except issues with Bluetooth) and accepting Windows Updates and Service Packs.

Install Windows 8.1 BootCamp drivers on old MacBook (Late 2008)

Here is how I installed BootCamp drivers for 8.1 on my old MakBook (Late 2008):
Download Boot Camp 4.0.4033 (Drivers for old MacBook is in this version)
Install Windows 7, then WIndows 8.1 (There are other threads on how to do that).
After Windows 8.1 installed, try to install Boot Camp 4.0.4033 again !!! (Reason: Only this version has the drivers for old Mac like mine)
Download and install InstEd on Windows 8: http://www.instedit.com/download.html. You need this to modify the BootCamp 4 MSI installer to allow you to run it
Run InstEd, click File > Open, browse to your <BootCamp_4.0.4033>\BootCamp\Drivers\Apple folder and choose BootCamp64.msi.
Click LaunchCondition on the left-hand list.
Select all the rows then right click Delete Rows. (Take a look, you will find thses are the messages you saw when you could not run the installer)
Save the file with a new name (I used bootcamp4.msi) and quit InstEd.
Now, you can install the BootCamp 4 drivers on your Mac, by click the Setup.exe (Yes, this will also instll TrackPad driver for old Mac)
The BootCamp 4 service application itself is not compatible with Windows 8.1, (not the drivers). So just download BootCamp 5.1.5621, and install it (Tip: InstEd).
After restart, click the BootCamp icon in the system tray. Set up TrackPad, Keyboad, etc. (How is this possible? Because the drivers were installed by BootCamp 4.0.4033.)
Unstall InstEd, if you want.
Enjoy!

And I used this method:
1. Install Windows 8.1
2. Download BootCamp 5 and unzip to folder BootCamp5 of a USB drive
3. Start CMD as Administrator
4. Install BootCamp 5 by entering the following commands
D: (Assuming the USB drive is assigned to letter D
CD BootCamp5\BootCamp\Drivers\Apple
BootCamp.msi
No need for InstEd might be considered by some as even more elegant as bezodziu's method

Install Windows 8.1 64bit on a Macbook Pro Late 2008 (using bootcamp 4.0.4033)

Hi everyone, I just tried to install windows 8.1 64bit (x64) on my MacBook Pro 15'' Late 2008 (Core 2 Duo 2.4Ghz - 4GB RAM - Nvidia 9600M GT 512Mo), running Mavericks (10.9.5), and successed it with bootcamp 4.0.4033.
I installed it from scratch (new partition, no update from windows 7), in less than 1h following these very simple steps :
Step "0" :
- You'll need an two-button usb mouse plugged
- Make sure your 64bit kernel is activated by typing this line of command in the terminal :
sudo systemsetup -setkernelbootarchitecture x86_64
If you need to cancel it, simply type this :
sudo systemsetup -setkernelbootarchitecture i386
I don't really know if this activation is necessary, but I did it 6 months ago for After Effects and maybe this activation has an effect on what happens next.
Step 1 : download the contents of bootcamp 4.0.4033 on a USB key, downloadable here : Boot Camp Support Software 4.0.4033
After the download, you'll need to unzip this file in your usb key.
NB : This bootcamp only works from XP to windows 7, but it will be enough for your old-timer laptop.
Step 2 : Create a new NTFS partition on your HDD (using the disk utility)
Windows 8.1 64 bit needs at least 20GB, so I recommend a 100GB partition as a minimum for a correct running OS (the "15%" rule).
NB : Windows 8.1 will run over a NTFS partition and nothing else.
Step 3 : Insert your bootable windows 64bit 8.1 (CD or USB key).
Step 4 : Reboot your laptop, and keep pressed the Alt key just after the boot bell sound.
The OS selection screen loads. Once appeared, you can release the Alt key.
Step 5 : If your bootable device is working, the OS selection screen will display a "Windows 8.1" HDD or CD icon. Click on it and presse "enter".
Maybe you'll see a "UFI Windows" or "UFI Boot" or "UFI something...", this doesn't work.
After pressing "enter", the windows 8.1 installation process will start.
Step 6 : During the installation process, you'll have to chose the destination partition for your OS.
Select the partition you've created earlier (step 2)
Following the windows 8.1 steps are very simple.
NB : Don't forget to press the Alt key when windows 8.1 tries to restart!
Step 7 : Eject your windows 8.1 CD/usb key, then reboot holding Alt key, and select your freshly installed windows OS in the selection screen
Step 8 : After windows 8.1 is loaded, insert your usb key with Bootcamp 4.0.4033, open the "bootcamp" folder, right-click on the bootcamp setup, and click on "properties".
Select the "compatibility" tab
Check the box "run this program in compatibility mode for"
In the list below this box, select "Windows 7"
Click "Apply" then "Ok"
Now launch this boot camp setup (press "enter" or double-click)
Step 9 : Complete the BootCamp installation process, then restart (like step 7)
Don't forget to hold the Alt key after the bell sound
Step 10 : Enjoy your freshly installed windows 8.1!
You can acces your bootcamp parameters from the task bar (click on the tiny booycamp icon to open the quick menu and then click on the parameters/configurater). Here you can set your keyboard preference, your trackpad preference (multi-touch works), etc.
Following this procedure, I can use the built-in Apple-maped keyboard of my MBP. Every function keys works (Volume, luminosity, etc.)
Coming from Windows XPSP3, I was very surprised by the speed of the windows 8.1 installation (using an external USB super drive), and more surprised by this OS running flawlessly on my undying MBP!
The only issue I have is that my ethernet port isn't recognized, but it's a minor problem and i'm gonna found it quickly. I think it's due to my installation which wasn't perfectly clean (I try to run manually bootcamp 5.0.1 first, so there is some crap drivers somewhere).
So in order to confirm this procedure, i'm gonna re-install windows 8.1 from scratch very soon, because it take less time to do it (from step 1 to step 10) than write this article!
Message was edited by: Lud@l

And I used this method:
1. Install Windows 8.1
2. Download BootCamp 5 and unzip to folder BootCamp5 of a USB drive
3. Start CMD as Administrator
4. Install BootCamp 5 by entering the following commands
D: (Assuming the USB drive is assigned to letter D
CD BootCamp5\BootCamp\Drivers\Apple
BootCamp.msi
No need for InstEd might be considered by some as even more elegant as bezodziu's method

Bootcamp 5 & Windows 7 install

Hello. I wanted to put this out there after getting terrible phone support from Apple over my bootcamp installation. After my harddrive died and was replaced by AppleCare, I had been attempting to install Windows 7 Home Premium on my iMac for over a week with no luck, and multiple phone calls of worthless advice from AppleCare on the problem and solution. My iMac: mid 2010, 21 inch running 10.8.3 with Bootcamp 5. When installing, I would have no troule partitioning the drive, and it would reboot to windows install disk only to get held up right after selecting Language / Keyboard with the message that a CD / DVD driver was missing and could not be found. I did create a USB drive with drivers from Bootcamp 5, but none of these would satisfy Windows 7.
AppleCare phone support insisted that Windows was NOT looking for a driver on the USB drive and the problem was from other issues: My first install used a DVD burned from an ISO file (obtained from microsoft and burned at slowest speed). They insisted that if I obtained an original instal disk of Windows 7, it would install correctly. So I purchased an OEM version of Windows 7 from Fry's for $99. Attempted install: same message about a missing driver. AppleCare claimed I needed a full version at $199. The AppleCare supervisor GAURANTEED this would be the problem. Fry's would not exchange my disc which was already opened, but informed me they'd be happy to install it, and it should not be a problem. After talking with the Fry's tech team, I attemped another install using the Bootcamp 4 drivers, downloaded from apple, and stored on a USB drive. Bam. Installed NO PROBLEM.
The problem was with Bootcamp 5 drivers (stored on a USB by Bootcamp) did not work on my system for the Windows 7 installation. This despite a number of assurances from Apple that the Bootcamp drivers were not the problem, THIS WAS THE PROBLEM. I wasted a week of my life trying to get Windows 7 reinstalled. Please apple, get your act together and fix this issue, or at least give your customers accurate advice. If nothing else, maybe my message here will save someone else the headache.

svenj wrote:
Thanks again for the reply CS. Now I do actually have a question or two. This install was a reinstall of windows 7 after getting my iMac's harddrive replaced for Smart errors. And yes, I found the inability (or perhaps just a lack of doing so?) to back up my previous installation of Windows and have it easily restored in Time Machine to be a major PITA. I have been considering getting Parallels, or something similar. If I do, I'm wondering two things:
1. am I able to use my OEM version (tied to one machine, the same one that it is installed in Bootcamp on)?
2. Does Windows 7 within Parallels then get backed up in Time Machine, making it easily restorable?
thank you!
1. Yes, but you will have to activate one of the two manually (phone call to MS)
2. Yes, a VM is just another file, can be copied / moved / backed up like any other file.
And even though there was no 3
3. Parallels would be my last choice of VM, it is the fastest but the least reliable in my experience. From preference I use VirtualBox, and not because it is free, I own Fusion but no longer use it. Try VBox before spending money on another.

Boot Windows AND FreeBSD from my MacBook Pro 8,3 using an external DVD drive. I'm considering to remove my DVD-ROM and replace it with an SSD drive. That doesn't seem to work. Why not?

As the title says, I'm attempting to boot off my favorite operating systems, Mac OS X, Windows 7 and FreeBSD from an external DVD drive. However, for some odd reasons, booting the Windows DVD and FreeBSD 9.1 install DVD from the external drive does not seem to work. I was able to create a bootable USB with the Windows installer, but whenever I attempt to do the same with FreeBSD, I only get an error message that says "No bootable device -- press any key to restart." Is this a limitation that Apple deliborately created? If so, why won't Apple let its customers do whatever they please with their computers, considering that customers who want to change the hardware and/or operating systems knows what he is doing, without having to worry about some silly Apple limitations?
If I sound rude, I apologize for that, as no impoliteness is intended from my side.
In advance, thanks. Have a wonderful day, everyone.

That is only partially correct at best.
When you are booting off Windows or any other operating systems that usually don't support EFI (including Windows), your Mac uses something called CSM-BIOS. And as long as that CSM-BIOS implementation on EFI-based Mac do not support booting off from USB (note that Mac OS X Installer works fine when booting from USB), not even a USB Apple SuperDrive which once was an internal drive, there mot definately is something for Apple to fix.
When attempting to install Windows via BootCamp, a somewhat hybrid GTP/MBR table is created. When you boot off the installer disc of the OS you intend to install (i.e. Windows 7, FreeBSD, etc), your Mac might not support the EFI boot option (at least my 2011 17-inch MacBook Pro doesn't support that), so the only way of booting that second OS installer is via the regular BIOS, which Apple's EFI based systems implement as CSM-BIOS.

How do I install windows 7 on a macbook pro mid 2009 using bootcamp and no optical drive?

How do I install windows 7 on a macbook pro mid 2009 using bootcamp and no optical drive?
My optical drive is non-functional and I want to dual boot with win7. The only problem is my macbook does not boot from USB at all, even when I hold th ALT key down when it is starting up.
-I have a flashdrive with win7 on it.
-I mounted the ISO of win7 with toast for bootcamp to do its thing.

Good luck.
Consider this a bump so that hopefully someone with better news spots your thread.
Allan

Problems after installing Bootcamp 3.1

Hello everyone.
I had installed Windows 7 64 bit Ultimate in a Bootcamp partition. I used the SL disk to install Bootcamp 3.0 which, with some audio related problems which were solved by changing the drivers, worked well. All sounds played, the graphics card behaved normally, etc.
Recently I got the alert of a Bootcamp update, 3.1, as we all know. After installing it without a hitch, small problems began to pop up.
First, no Windows startup sound played anymore, and there has been no way for me to make it work again. I've gone to countless forums and gone through an endless barrage of suggestions, including a complete formatting, but it always leads back to the same, isolated problem: Startup sound plays in BT 3.0, doesn't play anymore in BT 3.1.
But more importantly, after pretty much giving up with the startup sound issue (it's only that particular sound, in the login screen, so I decided to ignore it's absence), more problems appeared. Initially, all system tray icons appeared swiftly. Now the main ones, Sound, Wireless Connection and Battery appear fast, but the rest take at least 5 minutes to appear. This is again something that wasn't present in Bootcamp 3.0.
Yet another problem, this one I consider is the most important, and the real reason for this post of mine, is that Bootcamp 3.1 brought a serious driver problem with my Macbook Pro's 9400M video card. Doing the most stupid of tasks such as opening the video card's control panel from the Desktop gives me the following error:
"The NVIDIA Display Panel extension cannot be created.
Possible reasons include:
Version mismatch. Reinstalling the drivers may solve this problem."
Now, the Device Manager shows no errors in hardware-driver smoothness in any aspect, yet it's clear that the driver that BT 3.1 installs for the video card was either faulty or old, or for another OS. I went to NVIDIA's site to manually get the driver, but it turns out that they offer no NVIDIA GeForce 9400M drivers for Windows 7 64 bit. So I wonder, how come it worked before? Because in Bootcamp 3.0 the Control Panel would open flawlessly.
So this is serious. Gaming has also turned into a nightmare, since the problem with the video card negatively affects the smoothness of the gameplay. Apple, things weren't working 100% with BT 3.0, but BT 3.1 far from making things better just got everything worse.
I ask everyone here if there is a known solution. Should I install the NVIDIA GeForce 9400M drivers for Windows 7 32 bit? Why doesn't the driver installed by BT 3.1 function as it should when it's supposed to be covering Windows 7 compatibility? Why are the barrage of audio errors present in BT 3.1 and not in BT 3.0? What happened with my startup sound?
Apple, you're offering the possibility for your users to user Windows for compatibility and gaming. You market your Macs are fully compatible and flawless even running Windows. Don't come about saying this is not your problem, it is. It's your drivers, you develop them, you give them to us. If they don't work, you must do something about it. If not, then stop offering the Bootcamp service completely. If you're gonna do something, do it well.

http://www.nvidia.com/object/notebookwinvista_win7_x64_195.62whql.html

Bootcamp, running into multiple issues....

As a little bit of backstory, I bought a MacBook (late 2009 edition with Snow Leopard) because I was having issues with my old Windows XP PC desktop, which was invaded with trojans and viruses. I had to delete everything, start up from scratch and wipe the disc clean. Not pleasant.
In the summer of 2010 I was convinced to buy a Macbook because it didn't need to be checked quite as often as a PC computer. I was astounded by the speed in which it booted up since I never had a custom built PC that contained optimized performance. Mostly however I had only used the Macbook as a means of searching the web and to use it to complete college assignments.
It wasn't until last year that I decided I wanted to get Windows onto my Mac, but being unemployed and with no job, it was simply not an option, because I needed to get bills done on time. Fast forward to this year, and after months of frantic job searching I finally landed a job. Now with a steady income coming in I felt it was time to get Windows onto my Mac.
Sadly it's easier said than done. I wasn't even aware of Mountain Lion and Mavericks until later this year, but I realized that upgrading to those systems required more than a simple DVD disk. Since then it's been a obstacle course, and while I've done a lot of research on bootcamp files for the various Mac versions, there is still lots I don't know about. Which leads me to this problem.
Since my Macintosh HD drive only holds 250 GB, I felt it was needed to get rid of some used space. After deleting various games that were left untouched the last couple of years, I have 150 GB of free space. Problem is, I cannot partition. Why? Because some OS X files cannot be moved.
So I bought a Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit disk off of Amazon, and when I realized I needed a Snow Leopard installation disk, I bought that too. I now just spend between $140-150 in software, which isn't too bad I guess. Turns out that the Macintosh HD drive was corrupt, so I restarted the Macbook using the Mac OS X installation disc to access Disk Utility. After verifying and repairing disk (I got the confirmation from the green text), I assumed I can partition. Nope. Same issue pops up. So I realized I needed to get rid of free space, so I run Disk Utility off of the operation system and used the delete free space (zero) option. After a hour it's finished. Make another attempt at partitioning. Failed.
Now I don't know what to do. The steps involved require an external drive and an internal drive, along with a program named Carbon Copy Cleaner (CCC). So what am I supposed to do? There are options to unmount and make new disc images on Disk Utility, do I just run that and go from there? I'm very confused at the moment.

This would of been nice if I had known all of this before I even attempted to make a partition, so now I need an external hard drive to get past the problem of the Mac OS X files not moving. I thought I only needed a Mac installation disc and the Windows 7 install disc but it turns out I was wrong.
As for external hard drives, Seagate Backup Plus (1 TB) looks pretty good, that's more than enough to make a backup. I spent the past few days doing a lot of research on bootcamp. Since the Mac installation disc is actually 10.6.3, I may still have to have the bootcamp drivers (versions 3.1-3.3) to install onto the Windows partition, along with Apple Software update so the features actually work with Windows.
Very frustrating, costing me over $210 just to try to partition, if this doesn't work then I know it's a bad hard drive. Probably will have to take the Macbook in to an Apple store and have them look at it. The external hard drive itself will be good purely for backup. I have to wonder if all this is simply worth the trouble, considering I've toyed with emulators in the past, which tend to fail on occasion.
Repaired disc, erased free space in disc utility, etc. So I guess I have to wait.

Considering Bootcamp, terrified

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