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Boot Camp Flaw Leaves Some Users Fuming 391

Posted by Zonk from the oh-teh-irony dept.
Karl Cocknozzle writes "Some users who chose to install Apple's recent beta-offering of Boot Camp without basic precautions (like a full backup) have found themselves unable to boot their Macs to OS X. In a discussion thread on Apple's technical support Web site, more than a dozen users reported that Boot Camp successfully partitioned their hard drive and allowed them to install a working version of Windows, but then would no longer allow them to switch back. The download-agreement page for Boot Camp contains the explicit warning that Boot Camp is still 'Beta' software, and would not be supported if problems arose. On the whole, it sounds like the number of affected users is quite small, but may reflect a common lack of knowledge of what a 'beta' release really is: Not ready for prime-time."
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Boot Camp Flaw Leaves Some Users Fuming More

Boot Camp Flaw Leaves Some Users Fuming

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  • And this make the news? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by WebHostingGuy ( 825421 ) * on Thursday April 13, 2006 @03:13PM (#15123535) Homepage Journal
    While it is interesting . . . but if you have ever tried dual booting with Windows the first couple of times you always find out that Windows will boot and the other operating system is screwed up. I mean seriously - when has dual booting with Windows "ever" worked out of the box? It seeks always to dominate and does not ever like to share.

    And people, people, please figure out what a beta is... sheesh.
    • And people, people, please figure out what a beta is... sheesh.

      You mean this isn't like Google beta?

      • I would say it does. I use the calendar beta right now (definately not for production use) and have several problems: calendars don't appear in the list or on the calendar but are there, events do not always appear after entering them (maybe a 20 minute delay--this is probably a server problem not code), drag and drop not dragging, etc.

    • Re:And this make the news? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Cthefuture ( 665326 ) on Thursday April 13, 2006 @03:27PM (#15123726)
      I find that generally if you install Windows first, then it works out of the box. It's Windows that is the unfriendly one about overwriting boot sectors changing partitions and screwing around with things it shouldn't (although this probably makes it easier if all you want to run is Windows).

      I also never put my (multi)bootloader on the master boot record because Windows kills that any time you do an install. It's better to put it on another partition and then set that partition to be bootable.

      KNOPPIX CD's and similar are a great help for fixing a dorked up install.

    • Re:And this make the news? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by mikeal ( 968191 ) on Thursday April 13, 2006 @03:30PM (#15123765)
      There is a big difference though. The issue with dual booting is usually either:

      a)Windows overwrote the MBR and doesn't know how to boot any other OS
      b)Linux or other bootmanager overwrote MBR and doesn't know how to boot windows (this is far less common nowadays but we all remember when it was huge problem)
      or
      c)You chose to install the linux boot manager NOT in the MBR, and the windows boot manager in the MBR takes precedent, so you reboot and go right in to windows.

      With Boot Camp this is different, apple is emulating BIOS inside their own EFI boot manager, so the windows bootloader has no chance of ever affecting the OS X install. This is a bug in apples boot software that is affecting apples OS, not some other OS's software affecting another OS.
    • I've never had any trouble dual booting windows, provided that you install windows before any other OS you're going to install. Windows will do whatever it damn well pleases with your disk's MBR whereas any installer I've ever used for Linux, FreeBSD or anything else has tread a little more lightly.

    • While it is interesting . . . but if you have ever tried dual booting with Windows the first couple of times you always find out that Windows will boot and the other operating system is screwed up. I mean seriously - when has dual booting with Windows "ever" worked out of the box?

      Quite well when you ran Windows in a Desqview window.

      Ffrom TFAS:

      On the whole, it sounds like the number of affected users is quite small, but may reflect a common lack of knowledge of what a 'beta' release really is: Not ready f

    • but if you have ever tried dual booting with Windows the first couple of times you always find out that Windows will boot and the other operating system is screwed up.

      Well, you'd think that this is the point when Boot Camp come into play.
      If Windows XP is just supposed to screw up OS X, why are they releasing it in the first place?

      Nah, this is an unintented bug in Boot Camp, nothing more.
    • Where's the dude who always bitches that Ubuntu is a horrible, horrible distro because it "made his machine inaccessable"--that is, he was a dumbass and didn't backup, plus he was beligerant toward those in the community who tried to help, plus he lacks the basic knowledge to install ANY OS, let alone try a dual-boot Linux/Windows installation.

      Maybe if he reads this, he'll realize that things can ALWAYS go wrong when installing a second OS, even on the reputedly uber-stable and very homogenous Mac platform.
  • What a way to welcome users to Windows, with an introduction to our friend, Fdisk, as in now your disk is 'f'ed!

    Anyhow, it is unfortunate, and hopefully it will be fixed shortly.

  • I wonder... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by dev_sda ( 533180 ) <(nathan) (at) (unit03.net)> on Thursday April 13, 2006 @03:14PM (#15123550) Homepage Journal
    I wonder how many of them simply didn't read the instructions that say "Hold Option/Alt down during boot up to switch". I know my boot camp defaults to windows. Minor problem easily overcome.

    • Not that simple (Score:5, Informative)

      by Ohreally_factor ( 593551 ) on Thursday April 13, 2006 @03:32PM (#15123791) Journal
      I wonder how many of them simply didn't read the instructions that say "Hold Option/Alt down during boot up to switch". I know my boot camp defaults to windows. Minor problem easily overcome.

      From reading the posts at the Apple discussion forums [apple.com], it looks like the problem has something to do with the partitioning and/or a corrupted swapfile.

      OK, I'll grant that some mac users are as dumb as you are implying, but if you read the thread I posted above, you'll see that not all of the people with this problem are complete idiots.

    • Re:I wonder... (Score:4, Informative)

      by voisine ( 153062 ) on Thursday April 13, 2006 @04:35PM (#15124538)
      I started the apple discussion thread that article links to. The problem is not with the boot loader, it's repartition-your-drive-on-the-fly tool that's causing the problem. It seems to introduce random errors into the filesystem to the point that fsck doesn't even work in most cases. It causes a kernel panic on boot up. It's pretty henious. The only solution is a reformat and reinstall of the os x partition.
  • Film at 11. Honestly how could people not anticipate these sorts of things based on the long-established pattern of problems with being among the first adopters of a new hardware/software system?
    • It's a Mac. It's Apple software. That combination is supposed to "just work".
      I think among the average user these days the term beta has lost it's original meaning. The days when "backup before installing beta software" was common sense are apparently long gone.
    • You should modify your statement to specify "DUMB early adopters." My bet is that 1) They over-wrote the Mac partition during winxp install, and 2) they don't know how to use the Startup Disk preference pane in either Win or OSX, both of which are a result of the user not R'ingTFM (or in this case, documentation) like they should.

  • being only able to boot into windows (Score:5, Funny)

    by moosesocks ( 264553 ) on Thursday April 13, 2006 @03:15PM (#15123564) Homepage
    This is easily every mac user's worst nightmare.

    Turning on your shiny new iMac to see it boot into windows no matter what you do.... the horror!

  • Fuming? (Score:4, Funny)

    by jdwest ( 760759 ) on Thursday April 13, 2006 @03:15PM (#15123565)
    Caveat freakin' emptor.

  • Boot Camp vs. XOM (Score:3, Informative)

    by mrchaotica ( 681592 ) on Thursday April 13, 2006 @03:15PM (#15123567)
    I've got an Intel Mac, and I've been trying to decide between using Boot Camp or XOM. I'd prefer XOM just because it's Free Software, but it seems like Boot Camp has more momentum among users. Does anyone know what the particular differences between the two are, and which one is better? In particular (to stay on-topic), is XOM likely to cause the same problem mentioned in the article?
    • One is brain dead simple to use and works, the other is a pain in the ass and may not work. One will be supported by Apple (the software that allows Windows on Mac not Windows support), the other isn't. One will be part of the standard operating system (in the not so distance future), the other isn't.

      XOM is likely to cause more problems then Boot Camp.

  • It Just Works (Score:3, Funny)

    by Scoria ( 264473 ) <{slashmail} {at} {initialized.org}> on Thursday April 13, 2006 @03:16PM (#15123572) Homepage
    Boot Camp is a highly educational product from the sadistic^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H mind of Steve Jobs. Those users came looking for an authentic Windows experience, and Apple delivered!

  • Beta software is buggy? (Score:5, Funny)

    by morgan_greywolf ( 835522 ) on Thursday April 13, 2006 @03:16PM (#15123574) Homepage Journal
    Wow! I am like TOTALLY SHOCKED that something that Apple says is *beta* and that they refuse to, at this time, provide technical support for, is buggy!

    After reading this thread, I was totally amazed at how many of the people didn't bother to back up their disk before installing something that alters your system's hard disk partitions. Duh. What do you expect?
    • Oh people just like to complain. There are VERY FEW Apple/intel machines out there in the first place. Most are bleeding edge users to begin with. As the Apple/Intel machines are pretty much new, few people have any data to worry about, so most probably didn't make a backup. A few people rushed the job didn't read the instructions. And now realize their grocery list they made last week is gone.

  • Please read before you install.. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by kupekhaize ( 220804 ) on Thursday April 13, 2006 @03:17PM (#15123589)
    For the rest of the people that did not bother reading the fine print, it is also recommended that you make a firmware restoration cd [apple.com] before you install the firmware update that makes boot camp work. Otherwise, you could leave your computer in an unbootable state.

    At least with these guys they have the option of doing an erase and install to restore their software to the way it was before. Some people are not able to boot their computers any more without using the firmware restore CD.

    Please, please, please, before trying this type of stuff, RTFM...


    • Although this does seem like a PITA, it does entirely seem recoverable without too much hassle. Macs come with bootable CDs, so reboot, hold down the c key, use disk utitility to create a dmg of your existing OS X data. Reinstall OS X, DND your old junk, click OK on overwriting files, you should be OK to where you started in a while. Optionally resize your partition with Disk Utility if you don't want a partitioned drive.

      I remember doing things like that with fips, lilo, and company long ago. It took m
    • RTFM? Are you kiding me??? These are MAC people!! It's supposed to JUST WORK!

      Seriously, though - this is what happens when a highly-publicized beta falls into the hands of people that probably shouldn't have access to it - one of the comments from the article illustrates the point nicely, I think:

      "I don't want solutions that entail using the command line. I would like something from Apple saying that they recognize the problem and are working on it." (emphasis mine)

      WTF?
  • > more than a dozen users reported that Boot Camp successfully partitioned their hard drive and allowed them to install a working version of Windows, but then would no longer allow them to switch back.

    It overwrote my MBR. It was a really good MBR.

    Switch [robotcombat.com].

  • Google's Fault (Score:4, Insightful)

    by chunews ( 924590 ) on Thursday April 13, 2006 @03:17PM (#15123598)
    Really, this is Google's fault for releasing a series of very well understood, usable, secure, nearly flawless applications all under the "Beta" name!
    • Or even blaming Apple, but for a slightly different reason: Blame Apple for consistently delivering products that don't require much thought to get going.

      Perhaps we shouldn't be too surprised that users who are accustomed to drag and drop software installs might not be able to handle wrangling beta software that works at such a low level.

  • Google Beta? (Score:5, Funny)

    by MasterC ( 70492 ) <cmlburnett@gm[ ].com ['ail' in gap]> on Thursday April 13, 2006 @03:19PM (#15123633) Homepage
    Karl Cocknozzle writes: ...common lack of knowledge of what a 'beta' release really is: Not ready for prime-time.

    I take it Karl doesn't [gmail.com] work [froogle.com] for [google.com] google [google.com]?
  • Who uses a beta product to repartition their hard drive and change their boot records without any sort of backup?

    Please tell me that Boot Camp at least *suggested* doing a backup before beginning.
    • Heck, who uses a *full-release* version of a partitioning tool without backing up their data first? (Don't tell me - I don't really want to know.)

      I guess this just demonstrates how much (blind) faith some people place in Apple.
  • That's such a minor number among how many likely tried it...plus yes, it is Beta software, still does that idemnify Apple for messing up folks hardware? But on the other hand, they knew they were flashing the firmware, and that's always a great way to scramble your system if there's an interuption.

    Couldn't they just replace some chip, or would the whole motherboard (logic board in Apple speak) have to be replaced?

    (Now using Google Calendar BETA - hope it doesn't ruin my work laptop ;))

  • Partitioning (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Universal Indicator ( 626874 ) on Thursday April 13, 2006 @03:21PM (#15123660)
    I just got my Intel iMac yesterday, and I installed Boot Camp and Windows on it. I am willing to be that what happened was these users didn't know what they were doing. When you use Boot Camp to install XP, Windows exposes the entire partition table when you are installing, which includes a couple of small system partitions. Chances are these users didn't understand that those partitions were necessary and they deleted them while they were installing Windows. It's not Windows' fault, it's ID10T error.

    • Re:Partitioning (Score:3, Insightful)

      by sco08y ( 615665 )
      It's not Windows' fault, it's ID10T error.

      You're blaming the user for file system designers not including the capacity to label partitions so users know what they are.

      Of course, if we started asking ourselves why users are always getting confused by filesystems, we might start thinking that the standard hierarchical filesystem is utter crap...
      • My Linux labels partitions just fine, and I'm sure OS X does too. It's probably that Windows doesn't label them as OS X partitions.

        So, if you can't bring yourself to blame the users, blame MS, not Apple. It's not a Boot Camp bug, as it's not something that Boot camp could ever fix on its own.

  • Heh... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by rAiNsT0rm ( 877553 ) on Thursday April 13, 2006 @03:22PM (#15123671) Homepage
    It is funny on a couple levels, but in reality it is BETA software and has never been made out to be any different. News outlets and the media in many places did make it out to be a final product and I can see where a lot of people could have been led to believe so... but in the end it is what it is.

    I just like the fact that it gets stuck in Windows... I mean if you're going to have a bug at least make sure your users aren't stuck in the competitions OS!
  • Elsewhere [com.com] it was conjectured that these people had actually installed Windows XP over OS X.

  • Ok... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by thefirelane ( 586885 ) on Thursday April 13, 2006 @03:23PM (#15123687)
    Ok, So obviously, if you install beta software which repartitions your drive, without backing up... your fault.

    We're obviously going to hear a lot of that

    A more interesting question: Is Google to blame?

    Before everyone jumps on me, I mean this: Most people don't know the history of the term 'beta'... so their first exposure to it is through Google (where it is primarily used as a marketing term). To most people, in its context, it is just interpreted as 'new'.

    To most people, does beta now just mean 'new'?

    • I actually blame... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by vhold ( 175219 )
      Apple's slick boot camp website [apple.com]

      This is not the layout or speak of a piece of beta software. It is a marketting page.

      The top titles are:

      "Macs do Windows, too"
      "As elegant as it gets"
      "Included Amenities"

      • Re:I actually blame... (Score:5, Informative)

        by k12linux ( 627320 ) on Thursday April 13, 2006 @04:32PM (#15124508)
        This is not the layout or speak of a piece of beta software.

        You mean like the big heading "Boot Camp Public Beta" at the top of the page?

        Or are you talking about the first paragraph in the install guide which is highlighted and says:
        Warning: Boot Camp Beta is preview software licensed for use on a trial basis for a limited time. Do not use Boot Camp Beta in a commercial operating environment or with important data. You should back up all of your data before installing this software and regularly back up data while using the software. Your rights to use Boot Camp Beta are subject to acceptance of the terms of the software license agreement that accompanies the software.

        Bold mine except the word "Warning" which was both bold, a different color and italicized.

  • priceless quotes (Score:5, Funny)

    by Ohreally_factor ( 593551 ) on Thursday April 13, 2006 @03:23PM (#15123692) Journal
    Some of the posts on the relevant thread [apple.com] at the Apple site contain some priceless quotes from various disgruntled beta testers:

    Apple should consider taking Boot Cramp off distribution immediately ! I am going to keep putting posts in here just to keep this one at the top of the list.... someone from Apple NEEDS to see it and NEEDS to respond.

    Add my name to the growing list. Same problem as reported here by others. Would like to see a response from Apple.

    Apple? This isn't a minor glitch, but a major problem. Barring erasing my drive and reinstalling OS X, I am stuck with an Apple laptop that only runs Windows. Any feedback? I don't want solutions that entail using the command line. I would like something from Apple saying that they recognise the problem and are working on it.

    I am speaking as a career software developer and lifelong Apple devotee. But i'm not touching boot camp again while in Beta and will still be wary beyond that. Apple should have held onto their cards a little longer.

    • Re:priceless quotes (Score:5, Funny)

      by tktk ( 540564 ) on Thursday April 13, 2006 @03:35PM (#15123837)
      I am speaking as a career software developer...

      Anyone know the company he works for? I'd like to know what company to avoid.

    • Re:priceless quotes (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Babbster ( 107076 ) <aaronbabb&gmail,com> on Thursday April 13, 2006 @03:44PM (#15123937) Homepage
      My favorite part: "I am speaking as a career software developer and lifelong Apple devotee. But i'm not touching boot camp again while in Beta and will still be wary beyond that."

      Hi, career software developer! Nice job screwing up something that most non-software developers seem to have had no trouble with! And the fact that you knew it was in beta and are still whining like a little bitch? Priceless!

      Seriously, though, I have to say that I think Apple did exactly the right thing in releasing this software, even if it is imperfect. There were too many people determined to dual-boot Windows, and who were willing to do so in "hack" fashion, for Apple to ignore and leave out in the cold. While I'm sure they're still having to deal with support calls on this, I think it would have been much worse had they waited six months while user after user used completely unsupported third-party solutions to get the job done. And, if folks are wary of Boot Camp still being beta, they benefit from the early release as well, in the sense that they now know that Apple is working on a solution that will be available in the next big OSX release. Considering Apple usually keeps their info top secret until actual release, that seems uncharacteristically open of them.

    • Re:priceless quotes (Score:5, Funny)

      by MasterC ( 70492 ) <cmlburnett@gm[ ].com ['ail' in gap]> on Thursday April 13, 2006 @03:57PM (#15124095) Homepage
      I am speaking as a career software developer and lifelong Apple devotee. But i'm not touching boot camp again while in Beta and will still be wary beyond that. Apple should have held onto their cards a little longer.

      Hell's weather man:
      Yes, ladies and gentlemen, just like in The Day After Tomorrow [wikipedia.org] , this storm just snuck up on us and we totally did not see it coming. This major bigger-than-hurricane-sized storm has literally frozen Hell...

      This just in: yes...yes, I see, yes...it has been confirmed that a Mac fanboy is...stuck in Windows world on his Apple laptop. We advise everyone to seek shelter immediately as we predict a rapid population influx from these disgruntled Mac fanboys.

    • Re:priceless quotes (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Paul Rose ( 771894 ) on Thursday April 13, 2006 @05:33PM (#15125107)
      It's like Apple produces a talking dog and this guy complains about its grammar.

      Firmware Update, check

      Dynamic Repartitioning, check

      Dual Boot Windows, check

        BETA, check

      and he expects it to be impossible to shoot himself in the foot somewhere along the way. Good grief.

      Probably selected wong partition in the Windows (ignoring the "big bold print" in the Apple doc), which Apple simply can't prevent without modifying the Windows installer.

  • Didn't Follow Directions ... ? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by MidKnight ( 19766 ) on Thursday April 13, 2006 @03:24PM (#15123700)
    I heard that many of the "fuming" early adopters (which in itself is pretty silly) simply didn't follow the instructions closely enough, and ended up repartitioning their entire drive... including the existing partition that had OS X installed on it.

    Apparently the world-will-make-a-better-idiot maxim has been proven right yet again. This sort of a mistake typically isn't even possible on non-beta Apple-provided software; I bet that idiot-proofing is somewhere on the post-beta software development schedule

    I wonder if anyone who actually followed the directions closely have this problem.
    • That was my initial thought, too. Then I went to the Apple forum linked in the PC World article and the first post indicates that this is not the case. The guy is able to begin the boot process in verbose mode and is able to get into single user mode, which indicates that he still has his hfs+ partition. It's a partition corruption problem (for him at least).

  • Beta with no backups? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by grasshoppa ( 657393 ) on Thursday April 13, 2006 @03:27PM (#15123731) Homepage
    Someone should go to their door and kick them squarely in the nuts for being idiots.

    It's BETA folks, means it might break things. Back up your data if you absolutely must play with it.

    Hell, back up your data anyway.
  • FTA: "This isn't a minor glitch, but a major problem. Barring erasing my drive and reinstalling OS X, I am stuck with an Apple laptop that only runs Windows," wrote a user. "I don't want solutions that entail using the command line. I would like something from Apple saying that they recognize the problem and are working on it." So you installed BETA software that changes firmware settings and repartitions your working harddrive and you won't just reinstall your system if something goes wrong? What's next
  • ...if it breaks, you get to keep the pieces. An no, this isn't the end of the world, it's not like you iPod Nano screen is getting scratched too easily!

  • Remedy-HFS+ driver for Windows (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 13, 2006 @03:31PM (#15123790)
    It happened to a friend of mine. He purchased a HFS+ driver for Windows (Mac Drive). Upon installing the driver, he managed to mount the Mac partition under Windows and recover his personal files.

  • Google (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Frosty Piss ( 770223 )
    On the whole, it sounds like the number of affected users is quite small, but may reflect a common lack of knowledge of what a 'beta' release really is: Not ready for prime-time.

    And we can put this squarely at Google's feet for perverting the meaning of "Beta". Honestly.

    Sure, users need to take some responsibility for their actions, and having a clue. But the idea that beta bight be buggy but still basically works just fine is a direct result of Google's perpetual Betaware.

  • They're idiots... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by tktk ( 540564 ) on Thursday April 13, 2006 @03:32PM (#15123801)
    First, Boot Camp is beta software. Second, non-destructive partitioning seems to work only if you're lucky. Making a backup is a basic precaution and it's your own fault if ignore it.

    I installed BootCamp on my MBP with lots of free space on the HD. It killed my OS X partition. But I didn't lose anything since I had made a backup. I lost an hour of time but that was it.

    Course, now that most things are released as beta software, we should probably think of a new term to really mean beta. People seem to treat beta as 1.0 releases and get mad when things go wrong.

  • Beta is not always a clear term... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MadAnalyst ( 959778 ) on Thursday April 13, 2006 @03:32PM (#15123803)
    It's no wonder people are confused. Beta doesn't seem to mean "testing" any longer, it just means great product with a greek letter attached. Or at least that is what I have learned by surfing around at Google.

  • Thought it happened to me. (Score:3, Informative)

    by WatertonMan ( 550706 ) on Thursday April 13, 2006 @03:33PM (#15123817)
    I thought this happened to me. But it turned out that the Startup Disk control panel in Windows only worked once I booted at least once into OSX via the option key. I wonder if others had that happened. I was pretty scared because I, like an idiot, didn't back everything up. But now I have Age of Empires III goodness going when I get bored.
  • I'm always wary of any program that resizes a partition that contains data, NO MATTER WHAT THE OS! This is one of those tasks that you should always be careful with--make full backups before doing it. It doesn't matter how braindead simple the software is. There's always the chance that it could screw something up. That said, it seems that the number of affected users is surprisingly low.
  • Looks like these guys need some beta on what "beta" means... (Sorry, rock climbing joke)
  • They call it "bleeding edge software" for a reason, sometimes you get cut.

    Anybody who thinks they can install an operating system without taking proper precautions (i.e. backing up a disk or being otherwise prepared for the consequences of messing up an install) deserves what they get.

  • They propbably nuke the Mac OS X partition (Score:5, Informative)

    by Enrique1218 ( 603187 ) on Thursday April 13, 2006 @03:44PM (#15123941) Journal
    I just installed the Boot camp yesterday and have Windows on a Mac Mini. Part of that process required me to resize Mac OSX partition to make room for the Windows partition. Then it takes me to the Windows installer which has to format the new partition (Boot Camp doesn't do it) to Fat32 or NTFS before installtion can begin. The windows installer displays the partitions on the disc but it can differentiate the Mac OSX partion from the one for Windows. So, if someone split the drive down the middle during Boot Camp, he/she won't be able to recognized the right partition and they can easily reformat the one with Mac OSX. My suggestion is to partition the drive with two that are of unequal size. Use that to identify the drive during installation.
  • I would say not only did they not understand the term beta, but they may have never heard the term backup either.

    Really if you are going to mess around with your harddrive partition atleast have your important data backed up, if not the whole drive. Flash drives are cheap and easy to back up data to (if you don't have an other computer handy), as are external usb or firewire drives. [blogspot.com]
  • Break
    Everyones
    Technology
    Assets

    Best I could come up with. I'm under caffeinated today.
  • Its isn't Apple's style to release a BETA of anything. Apple seldom released public betas, instead tends to only distribute betas to those select few that actually have a developers membership.

    It is also unusual that one of Apple's Beta's would be so flaky. Usually they reserve that for release software and then quickly patch it.

    While I was under the impression that Apple probably always had Boot Camp up their sleeves, something now tells me that this may have been a rushed effort to prevent too many ille

  • I almost deleted my Mac partition. (Score:5, Informative)

    by all_wet ( 780697 ) on Thursday April 13, 2006 @04:04PM (#15124197)
    I have no experience beyond my own installation, but the steps were to update the firmware, partition, then install. Each step is possibly disasterous, but the install was what almost got me. Good thing I've done more than one XP installation in the past. You know how the XP installation goes, if there's no XP/NTFS-ish partition, the XP installer asks which partition you want to reformat. My Mac Partition showed up highlighted, and not the new XP partition. The new XP partition was all the way at the bottom of the list of partitions. I ALMOST hit return and almost destroyed my MacOS X installation! I can see how a lot of people would make that same mistake. My problem, therefore, was really with the Windows installer, and my own lack of careful reading.

  • So its true? (Score:5, Funny)

    by delahappy ( 920330 ) on Thursday April 13, 2006 @04:39PM (#15124575)
    Once you go windows you never go back.

  • Windows = Beta Software (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Prototerm ( 762512 ) on Thursday April 13, 2006 @04:54PM (#15124733)
    Come on, people, get with the program. Anyone who uses Windows knows that *all* versions are initially released as a public Beta. It took XP until Service Pack 2 to finally come out of Beta.

    So, it's perfectly understandable that someone trying to put Windows on a Mac would think Apple means the same thing as Microsoft when it says something is a "beta".

    Sheesh!

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