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Boot Camp Hard Drive Warning

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For any of you going through the Boot Camp install on your Mac for the first time, I wanted to show you something that is VERY very important in this process. Failure to do this step properly can result in OS X being completely messed up.

When you get to the screen that allows you to select the partition to install, you will see all of your partitions listed (including unpartitioned space). Make SURE you select the partition that has the Boot Camp label, and is formatted using Fat32. If you choose any of the others listed there, you will honestly completely mess up OS X. Why Fat32 you ask? According to Bwana.tv:

Fat32 gives you read/write access to the partition which is, in my opinion, the main benefit. NTFS is better overall since you don’t have partition and file size limitations and you also get the security features of the file system. The main drawback is that NTFS is read-only from Mac OS X so you can’t write files to your Windows partition.

Also, be sure to choose to “Leave Current File System Intact”.

As I said, this video is dedicated solely to this part of the Boot Camp setup process. I cannot stress enough how critical it is to follow these steps.

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42 Comments

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[IMG +]Boot Camp Hard Drive Warning(Chris Pirillo )

How to Find Hidden Music in Windows XP  - Nov 13, 2007  - chris@pirillo.com (Chris Pirillo) Top Cool Laptop Accessories  - Nov 13, 2007  - chris@pirillo.com (Chris Pirillo)Boot Camp Hard Drive Warning - Nov 13, 2007  - chris@pirillo.com (Chris Pirillo)

Boot Camp Hard Drive Warning(Chris Pirillo )

Tech Interviews File Sharing at College and the Repercussions How to Stream Video Online for Free How to Find Hidden Music in Windows XP Top Cool Laptop AccessoriesBoot Camp Hard Drive WarningPlaying Dead How to Erase Files Securely How to View Weather Maps in Google Earth There?s Nothing Wrong with Windows Vista Dog Pictures

how convenient for apple to do that. Microsoft would never make something like this. why FAT32 and not NTSF?

OS X can read/write FAT32, not NTFS.

Did that actually work with that last step? I read through the manual and it stated in bold that you had to chose to reformat as FAT32 again. Or NTFS if you don’t want to easily transfer files inside of osx to your bootcamp drive.

os 10 should be messed up

“A Mac ‘can’ be a PC”, well then what is it? lol

Just what I need from a Windows Fanatic Newsletter … A video about the Mac!

A Mac an only be a ‘PC’ when it is an Intel based Mac. You can’t just go out and buy a Mac and slap Winblows on it.

I may actually use Boot Camp eventually if Final Fantasy XI doesn’t see a Mac release, so thanks for the tip Chris

Well… my Windows partition is NTFS and I have no known problems. Care to elaborate on “messing up OS X”?

if your new to the world..there IS a difference between Mac and PC, yes they are both computers but a mac is not a pc

A Mac is a Personal Computer, an Apple xserve isn’t.

Yes there is a difference between an unlimited OS Mac PC and a Cloner PC, but that doesn’t mean a Mac is not a Personal Computer. As many have said, Apple started the PC industry, not including the Xerox Alto(which even Xerox doesn’t count).

If you want to write/edit files from OS X to Windows system partition… maybe, but you can have a “spare” FAT32 partition for data and so you can have full access to it from both os.

OS X can read/write FAT32 partitions, where as NTFS partitions OS X can read only.

Thanks for the info guys!

God you have such a fucking gay voice you fucking faggot. Jesus christ i want to punch my monitor.

you do that you’ll be sorry ^^

there are about 5 things wrong with your sentence

you think dropping a bunch of f-bombs makes you cool? think again..

You can only install windows properly if you format it during the windows installation

I have a simple little question here. Im trying to use boot camp to install windows. I went through all the steps correctly I think. I selected “leave the current file system intact” It notifies me that the setup will continue after the system reboots. I let it reboot, and then it says press any key to boot from cd, if I choose this, it runs through the setup again. If I wait it says disk error press any key to continue. when I press a key nothing happens. id love some help
thanks

Hey man I have the same exact problem myself. I have been trying to figure out for the past while now without finding any answers. Please any help from anyone would be amazing!

ME TOO…the same dam screen is showing up for me

I figured it out. It says that that will happen on occasion and when it does, this is what you have to do: Re-install if from the CD, this time choosing NOT the leave as is, yet the full format in NTFS or FAT32 (depending on if you want OSX to see and have access to the files on that partition). After this it will work fine. I did 3 after finding that out with no probs. So I imagine that that will solve your problems. Cheers and best to ya :]

Windows XP displays “Disk Error” message during initial setup, what did I do wrong?? .in apples page >> Important: Do not use the option named “Leave the current file system intact (no changes)”.

the boot camp instructions say not to choose”leave the current file system intact” but to choose FAT or NTFS according to the size of ur partition

Hey… I have a regular macbook (black 160 GB). I partitioned my hard drive and when i put my windows install disk in, it loads everything necessary for windows. It tells me to press the Enter key to start the Windows setup. When I do this, my macbook’s keyboard doesn’t respond…

Can someone please give me feedback!?!?!?!

nothing will happen if you delete an unknown partition? or will it? its not EISA

nothing will happen if you delete an unknown partition? or will it? its not EISA

nothing will happen if you delete an unknown partition? or will it? its not EISA

nothing will happen if you delete an unknown partition? or will it? its not EISA

GET UBUNTU, It’s Grrrrreat!!

I really wish I had watched this before I ran boot camp, ruined my harddrive, and took it into the Apple Store to get it fixed.

Thanks anyway. <3 I’m about to try again, so I watched this video a few times first just to make sure.

You actually got the last step wrong Chris. You have to format the partition (not leave it intact). It states this in the instructions.

Mac OS X can read and write to NTFS with a free third party utility. All you need is MacFUSE and NTFS-3G after MacFUSE is installed. Linux ext2 filesystem can also be both read and written to using Ext2FS for MacFUSE.

I have no idea why these utilities aren’t more common, they are a Godsend when needing to access Windows and Linux data in a pinch.

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