External HD causing imac to boot into windows.

I recently connected my external HD to my Imac. I have windows 7 installed with bootcamp on the imac not the external HD. For some reason now when I restart the computer it defaults to boot up in windows instead of OSX. Before I connected the HD it worked fine. What can be causing this?

Before you connect the external hard drive, select Apple menu -> System Preferences -> Startup Disk and select the Mac OS X system folder. Then do it again once you connect the external hard drive.
Then restart. If it doesn't solve the issue, is the machine over 4 years old?

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Imac auto boots into windows bootcamp

I just installed windows 8 using bootcamp. Installed it without issue (magic mouse wouldn't work though), now i can't boot into mac. it won't even send me to the boot options. I turn on holding option, like apple says I should. But i get a blinking underscore for a second, then boots into windows 8. My magic mouse still doesn't have drivers to work. I'm not sure what to do. I have also tried holding down cmd + r, but nothing happens as well. my keyboard does work, just not my magic mouse.
Thanks for the help!

Yes, when you were in Boot Camp getting ready to install Windows you missed step 1
Downloading the Windows Support Software, go back and do it now.

IMac with bootcamp and parallel boots into windows 7 but won't boot intoxc lion.

IMac with bootcamp and parallel boots into windows 7 but won't boot into Mac OS lion?

Hi,
Thanks for your suggestion. Actually that was not the problem, because I had the Mcintosh drive set as my boot drive. The answer was that my Lion Os got somehow corrupted and I had to reinstalll Lion. This was all after I discussed the situation with the Apple Support people.

Can't get past gray screen for OS X but will boot into Windows partition.

Hi- I am really desperate for help here.
Restarted my computer this evening when Front Row wasn't able to find the files on my external HD. When it booted it went directly in to my Windows Boot Camp partition. So I restarted, held down 'option', choose my OS X disk and just got the spinning sun icon on the gray screen for several minutes. It then booted into Windows again. If I hold down 'option' again I can cut it off before it gets to Windows.
I've tried booting into a cloned HD via FireWire and same results.
I've tried booting with the install disk (c key held down) and it won't recognize it.
I've tried Safe Mode (shift key) - same.
I've booted into Single User and done fsck and and it says everything is ok.
- BUT I did notice it says further up- "BSD: rootdisk0s2, major 14, minor 2". Are these errors? If so why didn't fsck find and fix them.
I've tried resetting PRAM and SMC.
The only thing I have done out of the ordinary was an hour before I was trying to get some of my files on my wife's laptop and went into permissions on my HD and changed "Everyone" Priviledges to Read (or maybe it was Read and Write) then chose "apply to enclosed items". This change took about 20 minutes.
The computer is, of course, just over a year old and has worked perfectly up until now.
Someone-Please!!!

Tried that and it just doesn't read the disk. I've booted it with the disc already in and held Shift and also tried it with "C". The same for putting the disc in just as it boots up.
I went into Single User mode again and compared the text against what shows up on the laptop. Their are a few differences. At the very beginning of the iMac text there is:
npvhash=4095
hi mem tramps at 0xffe00000
PAE Enabled
64 bit mode enabled
-then-
Extension "com.apple.driver.AppleACPIPlatform" has immediate dependencies on both com.apple.kernel and com.apple.kpicomponents; use only one style.
Extension "com.apple.driver.AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement" has immediate dependencies on both com.apple.kernel and com.apple.kpicomponents; use only one style.
-then- after "MAC Framework successfully initialized" comes this three times...
Extension "com.apple.driver.AppleACPIPlatform" has immediate dependencies on both com.apple.kernel and com.apple.kpicomponents; use only one style.
These are really the only major differences that I can see in the Single Mode screen.
I also have tried booting from the Firewire drive clone on the laptop but it is not an available option for booting. The disk partitions mount but have a lock in the corner and say they cannot be opened because I have insufficient access privileges.

Can only boot into Windows 7. Can't even boot from Snow Leopard DVD.

I have no idea what prompted this. I don't recall installing any OS updates recently, other than some Windows Live apps in Windows 7.
I have an early 2009 Mac Mini with Snow Leopard, and have Windows 7 64-bit installed in a Boot Camp partition. When I installed Windows 7, I couldn't get the Boot Camp utility to install within Windows (I guess because it's 64-bit) so to switch back and forth between OSes, I just shut down the Mac and restart it with the Option key pressed, and select Mac OS X when I want to return to Mac. This has worked for about a month and a half now (ever since I got Windows 7). Suddenly I have problems.
I first had problems booting into Windows or Mac. I got to the grey screen with the Apple logo, with that spinning "progress" thing going for a while, then it would freeze up and get stuck on the grey screen with the Apple logo. I zapped the PRAM. No help. Then, after disconnecting all external drives (I have several) and extra USB devices, I was able to boot from the DVD install disk and reinstall Snow Leopard on my internal drive. Joy, or so I thought. Then I booted into Windows 7, and after some weirdness getting it to start, it did successfully start and ran just peachy.
Then I turned off the Mac and held down the option key (as usual) to return to Mac OS. But now all that happens is that I get a grey screen for a few seconds, then the Mac boots back into Windows 7, which seems to work fine. (I'm in Windows 7 right now.) I turned on one my external drives (Snow Leopard installed, connected via Firewire 800) in hopes that the Mac would boot into that, but same thing. Ignored and back to Windows 7.
Then I thought I'd boot from the install DVD again by putting it in the drive and holding down the C key as I restart, but the same thing--a grey screen for a few seconds, and then booting right into Windows 7. I can't seem to escape Windows 7! It's a bit disturbing when it won't even recognize the install DVD.
I tried to call Apple Care since I'm within my 90 day support window, but of course they are closed. I'm figuring that I'm going to have to take this into an Apple Store, but thought I'd see if anyone has any ideas. Any advice will be appreciated. Thanks.

According to Apple, Win 7 64bit is supported with Bootcamp 3.0. If bootcamp 3.0 is available; I could not find it anywhere on Apple's website. It appears the most recent version is 2.2. The only place I could find 3.0 is not on Apples website and it's a questionable source so I won't post it here.
It may just be a matter of time before Apple makes it available. I'm not suggesting you wait, however if the install disk can't be used, I'm not too sure where u could go from there. Calling Applecare might work.
If you do a simple google search using the terms 'download bootcamp drivers windows 7' u will see what I was referring too.
Here's what I found from Apple (It doesn't specifically mention 64bit however just win7): http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3920
This is not from Apple, but specifically addresses whether they support win7 64bit: http://www.macnn.com/articles/09/08/31/boot.camp.win.7.64.support/
Here is more info about bootcamp 3.0 and win7: http://www.apple.com/support/bootcamp/

Black screen when trying to boot into Windows 7

Hello everyone.
Today we've encountered an issue with one of our MacBook Pros with Windows 7 installed. The computer was booted into Windows 7 (it's strictly used as a Windows machine by this particular user) and after a time of inactivity it went to sleep. It wouldn't wake up from it's sleep so we tried a hard boot. At that point we would get the grey screen, the Apple tone wouldn't sound off and it would just go to a black screen (by default we have it booting to windows). So then we reset the PRAM. Now, we get the apple tone and we can boot into the Mac side. But when we try and boot into Windows, we get a blank screen.
What's even more interesting, if I try and boot into a Windows install disk to do a boot repair, it gives me a black screen. If I even try to boot from a live Linux cd, I get a blank screen! When important thing I then noticed was that the cd spinned for a couple minutes, then stopped. So I began to wonder if it was still loading the OS like expected, but just wasn't displaying it.
So I booted into Windows, got the blank black screen. Then I went into another computer, fired up remote desktop and voila! I'm in the machine!
So the problem is this: When booting into ANYTHING other than OS X, the display turns off.
What can we do?

Hello there,
I have a similar problem! Windows 7 shutdown unexpectedly and since that I can not reboot in windows anymore only with safe mode where everything is a mess.
Also when it's trying to reboot in windows a blue window appears,says something about drivers and it is counting something (79.78...till100)but I m not able to read it cause it disappears immidiately and then black screen and then it turns to reboot in mac which works fine.
I m sorry if I confused you with my english...
If anyone knows please help!
Thanks

Cannot boot into Windows XP, should I replace hard drive?

THE PROBLEM: I have not been able to boot into or use Windows XP (SP2) for almost 3 years. I have been using Linux instead for 3 years and am using it now. The Windows Recovery process only half works, it works up until you have to boot up the computer from the hard drive. Then it no longer works. The computer will load the files from the TOSHIBA Recovery and Applications/Drivers DVD that came new with the computer onto the hard drive. But when you get to the point of booting off the hard drive, with newly added Windows & Toshiba files, nothing happens. It does not boot up into Windows XP. In fact I can see the newly added Windows & Toshiba fileson the hard drive when I boot into Linux (Live) off the hard drive.
THE HARD DRIVE (Specs below): I ran a SMART Data check using a Linux (Ubuntu) Disk utility on the hard drive and it passed everything except for Reallocated Sector Count. There are 20 bad sectors. I called the Toshiba 800 # on the DVD and they told me that the problem may be the hard drive. A new TOSHIBA Recovery and Applications/Drivers DVD costs $40. Toshiba also said there is no Windows XP Recovery Console on the DVD.
CAUSE OF THE PROBLEM: I think, and TOSHIBA agreed it is either the hard drive or corrupteD files on the TOSHIBA Recovery and Applications/Drivers DVD
POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS: I have found a couple of sites that seem to have instructions for making a Windows XP Recovery Console CD. And I have thought I might try to run some Windows XP Recovery Console commands from such a CD, such as fixboot, fixmbr, etc. The try to see if I can boot into Windows XP from the hard drive. If I can, then that might suggest he problem is corrupted files on the TOSHIBA Recovery and Applications/Drivers DVD. If I still cannot boot into Windows, then maybe I should replace the hard drive. This should be very easy to do.
QUESTION(S): Does anybody have any comments or suggestions? Does my approach sound good? Do you have any other suggestions?
I have a TOSHIBA Satellite L25 S1216 that I bought new in early 2006. It has a 40 GB (5400 RPM) Enhanced IDE (ATA-6) 9.5 mm height hard disk drive in it. User removable, i.e., it is easy to replace.
Thank you,
Bob
Solved!
Go to Solution.

My plan is to try to use the TOSHIBA Recovery and Applications/Drivers DVD to load the WIndows XP files onto the hard drive, then use the Windows XP Recovery console CD I downloaded from here
http://www.proposedsolution.com/downloads/download-windows-recovery-console/
by using commmands such as fxmbr, fixboot, etc to see if I can get the computer to boot up into Windows XP.
Good plan, Bob!
Description of the Windows XP Recovery Console for advanced users
A backup plan would be to obtain a Windows XP installation CD from eBay or wherever. They are super cheap now. Then you could install Windows clean and add the drivers and utilities from the website here. Or you could use it to repair-install Windows.
How to Perform a Windows XP Repair Install
You are entitled to activate Home Edition for free. I understand that even after Microsoft no longer supports Windows XP (in April), they will honor activation attempts.
I wouldn't mess with SSDs. And stick with IDE PATA drives. You won't need to worry about advanced-format technology since that didn't come along until the very recent SATA drives. Your BIOS should support 120GB (KB303013). Some here.
-Jerry

If I want to run OSX Server and also want to run Windows 8 on Boot Camp, will server still run when I boot into windows?

I want to set up OSX Server on my iMAC running Mavericks and also install Windows 8 on Boot Camp. If I do this and boot into Windows, will that prevent server from running while I'm in Windows?

No. Bootcamp, as you've described, requires rebooting into your chosen operating system. If you want to run both OS X and Windows at the same time from your hardware, look at virtualization tools like Parrallels or VMWare.
R-
Apple Consultants Network
Apple Professional Services
Author "Mavericks Server – Foundation Services" :: Exclusively available in Apple's iBooks Store

MAX shows PXI card when booted into Windows but not in Hypervisor mode

Hello again all you helpful forum-goers!
I'm having some difficulties with a Hypervisor system seeing the two Pickering 6 channel programmable resistor cards that are loaded into the PXI chassis. When I boot into Windows mode, MAX sees them under the My System just fine. When I then run the Hypervisor configuration software, I see them both listed, and have them assigned to the Real-Time OS. However, when I then boot into Hypervisor mode, MAX does not see them under the Remote Systems -> Hypervisor Target -> Chassis (or anywhere else), and the drivers report not seeing any modules either when I debug my code running on the real-time system.
Does anyone have any idea what setting or configuration I might have incorrect? Is there any other information I can provide that would be relevant or useful to answer this question? I'm not the main hardware guy, he just got married and so isn't available, so I'm out of my comfort zone. ;-) I write the software that runs on the system, though, so I'm not completely clueless. I know we just replaced the controller in the main chassis with a faster one (unfortunately I don't have the number on hand, the simulator is down in the lab), but I also know we are using that same controller and Pickering card on a different simulator and it is working just fine.
Any ideas? I very much appreciate your time!
-Joe
Solved!
Go to Solution.

Nevermind, the answer turned out to be that I did not have the drivers fully installed on the real-time system. Apparently that caused it to not recognize the cards. I never did figure out / remember exactly how to install the Pickering drivers on the real-time side, but fortunately I was able to just copy all the files that had "Pickering" in their name from the C:\ni-rt\system folder of the real-time file directory from another simulator to this one. ;-)
Cheers!

Hi, can anyone help with the problem I am having with pro book 4440s? I can't boot into windows 7.

Hi, can anyone help with the problem I am having with pro book 4440s? I can't boot into windows 7, nor can I enter the bios cause i fogot the password. the error I am getting says "windows failed to start. a recenr hardware or software change might be the cause. it then gives me options to boot from a disc but I can't do that cause I am unable to get into the bios to change it to boot from a disc.
The error message goes on :
File: \Boot\BCD
Status: oxcoooooof
info: An error occurred while attempting to read the boot configuration.
the only two options on the screen are enter=continue and ECS=exit
I just can't get pass this screen.
Please help.
Thanks

Hi,
If you don't already have one, use another PC to create a Windows 7 Rescue CD. Download the relevant ISO from the links below.
Windows 7 32bit
Windows 7 64bit
You should use an application such as ImgBurn to burn the ISO to a CD - a guide on using ImgBurn to write an ISO to a disc is Here. Once created, or if you already have this, tap away at the esc key as you start the notebook to enter the Start-up Menu. Insert the Rescue CD. Select Boot options ( usually f9 ), use the arrow keys to select the CD/DVD drive and hit enter. You may also get a prompt to 'Press any key to continue' - do this if asked.
When loaded, select Repair Your Computer and choose the Command Prompt. When this loads, enter the following commands and hit enter after each one - include spaces as shown.
Bootrec.exe
bcdedit /export C:\BCD_Backup
c:
cd boot
attrib bcd -s -h -r
ren c:\boot\bcd bcd.old
bootrec /RebuildBcd
bootrec /fixmbr
bootrec /fixboot
Remove the Rescue CD and try rebooting the notebook.
Regards,
DP-K
****Click the White thumb to say thanks****
****Please mark Accept As Solution if it solves your problem****
****I don't work for HP****
Microsoft MVP - Windows Experience

Satellite L300-135 not booting into windows!

bought it about 2 years ago everything worked perfectly until today where it's even unable to boot into windows vista...I just turn it on when the windows loading bar is loading then it shows blue screen for 0.1 sec and it resets itself... even the safe mode wouldn't start and restore mode (last good known config) couldn't help it to start...i tried using an ubuntu linux live cd to save my datas but couldn't boot either, gave an error stating something as abnormal.
so where's the problem ?
Windows boot manager tried to find the problem and is telling me this:
status: 0xc00000e9
info: An unexpected I/O error has occured.

> so where's the problem ?
Who knows??? Do you think its so easy to say whats exactly wrong without running any tests???
Maybe its just a software issue but a hardware issue (RAM, motherboard, etc..) can be possible too.
As I understood your message, you want to access the data and to backup the necessary files
Well, the Toshiba recovery disk would format the whole HDD therefore you should backup the data before usage of recovery disk.
You could remove the HDD from the notebook and could connect it to another computer using an external USB HDD case.
After backup, you could use the recovery disk to reinstall the Windows.

HP g6-1202sa Notebook pc does not boot into Windows

I have a HP pavilion G6 that hangs when it gets past the Windows logo and ends up with a black screen and a live arrow cursor but nothing else happens. I have gone round and round looking at various ways of dealing with it but without success. These include various rescue/boot discs, then going into command prompt to carry out various system commands. These are best described in the article and related threads at the links below:- Re: HP G72-b66US Notebook PC Dosn't Boot into Windowshttp://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-Lockups-Freezes-Hangs/HP-G72-b66US-Notebook-PC-Dosn-t-Boot-into-Windows/m-p/1336579#M22150 AndHow to Recover from an Infinitely Looping Startup Repair Loop without Reinstalling Windowshttp://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/139576-startup-repair-infinite-loop-recovery.html Operations used include:-- use of Regback on DEFAULT, SAM, SECURITY, SOFTWARE and SYSTEM files- Bootrec.exebcdedit /export C:\BCD_Backupc:cd bootattrib bcd -s -h -rren c:\boot\bcd bcd.oldbootrec /RebuildBcdd
bootrec /fixmbrbootrec /fixboot Some other bits of information: - During the above operations I get the message 'Total identified Windows installations: 0'- I have copied most of the HDD to an external HDD using a SATA link and Testdisk I feel that the fault is probably a very simple fix (in the Boot directory?) but I have not found it yet.I would be grateful of your help please.Dave

my guess it's the hard drive did you ran the hard drive test as well?

Drivers don't load on every boot into Windows.

I have Windows 7 installed on my Mac Pro via Boot Camp, and for the most part everything works wonderfully.
However, 50% of the time when I boot into Windows, the Apple drivers don't work, rending my keyboard volume, brightness, eject buttons, etc. all useless.
The other 50% of the time they boot up and everything works perfectly.
Both scenarios happen from both cold boots and restarts, and I can't figure out what would cause the drivers to fail to load, any ideas?
Thanks for any help!

Nevermind, it seems I had forgotten to install the application for that purpose (Volume Control Panel) upon the installation of the driver with the CD...

Unable to boot into Windows 7

Hello, today I was playing some video games inside of Windows 7, upon noticing that whenever the computer had an area that text could be entered, it would spam the space bar into that area. Ex. when i would hit the start menu, in the little text box that is for searching, the courser would move continuously across it, as if the space bar was being pressed. So I restarted. As normal when I heard the startup chime i pressed and held the option key to bring up the OS selection tab. But instead of bringing up the menu, it booted straight to OSX. (i tried this a few times with the same results). So I went into the bootcamp menu in settings on osx and selected windows as the startup OS. I then restarted. When the computer started up I was prompted to select Windows 7 to continue the boot process, so I did. It then went to the starting windows screen where it became stuck. I force shut down and tried again, but this time i tried to repair the disk in windows. The first time it failed to repair, then i did a memory test and when it restarted it worked. In windows i told bootcamp to use OSX as the startup disk and tried holding down option to go back to windows again, nothing, it went to osx. So in osx i went into the bootcamp menu in settings again, and selected windows and restarted. It got stuck on the selection screen in windows and i force shut down and tried again, but this time with with repair again. This time the repair was successful and it went to windows normally. So now it appears that i can only boot into windows by telling bootcamp that i want to boot into windows automatically. Holding down the option key does not seem to bring up the disk selector. I can verify that the option key does work because i tried 'command+option+esc" and it worked. any ideas on what the frik is going on?

Update! So apparently I believe the problem is coming from a few windows updates that are out. Whenever I repaired the disk it always uninstalled those updates. I repaired the disk again because it got stuck on bootup and when i logged back on it asked me to re install those updates. without them installed the option key thing worked again. So i guess i wont be updating this thing anymore...

Cannot boot into Windows

You have probably heardd this a thousand times, but...............
I have installed Solaris 10 on a hard drive with Windows XP Pro & Windows XP Pro 64 bit on other partitions.
Although the GRUB option to boot into Windows is there, chosing it results in the system hanging (ie black screen with just a flashing cursor).
Attempting a repair with XP 64 bit results in an error message to the effect that a "valid partition etc etc" does not exist.
Both the XP and XP 64bit paritions are still there and I can access everything on them from Windows on a second disk.
I therefore take it that the MBR has been changed.
So, you know the next silly question - how do I fix it so I can boot into my Windows XP Pro & Windows XP Pro 64 bit ?
Mike

It is advisable to be a bit more conservative and to perform backup of MBR before starting installation in quite complex environment. Appropriate command may have the form:
dd if=/dev/hda of=mbr.bin bs=512 count=1
Restoring:
dd if=mbr.bin of=/dev/hda bs=512 count=1
Here hda is a plug-in, sda may be necessary on other hardware platform.
But at present the milk has been spilled, so this tip is for future use. At first You should check the contents of grub.conf file in Your Solaris boot catalog. I assume that You can start Solaris. Are the partitions with Windows correctly enumerated? Remember that grub numbering starts with 0 (zero). If all is OK, You can try (without any warranty) following grub reinstallation procedure:
1) Boot from installation DVD and start single user shell.
2) Next issue a command:
/a/sbin/installgrub -m /a/boot/grub/stage1 /a/boot/grub/stage2 /dev/rdsk/c0d1s0
3) Check grub.conf contents - it should perform loading from the first disk. The value c0d1s0 depends on details of Your installation.
Additionaly I assume that You have installed Windows operating system on separate partition. All Windows data, i. e. Your user data are on another partition. In such a case You may try as a last resort reinstallation of Windows followed by new Solaris installation (+ previous MBR backup).
Good luck!
Mark

External HD causing imac to boot into windows.

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