Boot Camp installation on alu MacBook gone terribly wrong...
Okay so this is what happened:
I start by freeing 20GB for Windows XP, then rebooted with the windows disc inserted as recommended. Then the blue Windows installer started, but when it got to the partition selection tool, it only showed one partition, the Mac partition (at least that's what I think it as, it was 131000MB in size) and there was no unformatted space or anything to select. I found this a bit weird so I just backed out of the installation, then upon reboot, all I got was a Windows blinking cursor... I rebooted holding alt, and it only showed a Windows partition as being bootable, and that was the one that gave me nothing but the blinking cursor...
I never formatted anything so all the data must still be there somewhere, but what exactly went wrong and how can I fix it/ recover what's there to recover?
Thanks in advance
I start by freeing 20GB for Windows XP, then rebooted with the windows disc inserted as recommended. Then the blue Windows installer started, but when it got to the partition selection tool, it only showed one partition, the Mac partition (at least that's what I think it as, it was 131000MB in size) and there was no unformatted space or anything to select. I found this a bit weird so I just backed out of the installation, then upon reboot, all I got was a Windows blinking cursor... I rebooted holding alt, and it only showed a Windows partition as being bootable, and that was the one that gave me nothing but the blinking cursor...
I never formatted anything so all the data must still be there somewhere, but what exactly went wrong and how can I fix it/ recover what's there to recover?
Thanks in advance
Comments
You should have used Bootcamp Assistant
I did, I had Boot Camp Assistant free up 25gigs for XP, then it said insert windows XP disc and reboot, which I did, then the Windows installation process started, at the "select where to install" screen, all that appeared was a 131000MB chunck, which I supposed was the OSX installation. It didn't show any free space available or nothing.
Try booting from a Linux LiveCD and if the partitions are visible, right click and mount them. This should at least help you recover your data.
I'm not sure why you got the result that you did, but you might want to triple check that all your system software and firmware updates are current before you attempt again.
Ouch, man. If you still have a Leopard install disk you might be able to boot up from that and run disc utility.
I agree, the installation disk should be the tool to sort this out. I have never used Boot Camp, only virtualization solutions, so I cannot recommend anything else than trying to solve the problem using Disk Utility from the installation disk. But please, come back to post and let us know.
I tried Disk Utility, it said the hard drive was 149 GB of unpartitioned goodness...
Somewhere the Boot Camp assistant really messed up I think... the only slightly suspicious thing we might've done is putting the MacBook to sleep once the Assistant had finished partitioning and prompted for the Windows Install CD, but still...
I went to a Mac retailer with the laptop, told them to recover whatever data they could. If people can recover data from drives that have been erased and reformatted, recovering data from this drive shouldn't be impossible.
I tried a Linux Live CD, it didn't see the drive...
I tried Disk Utility, it said the hard drive was 149 GB of unpartitioned goodness...
Somewhere the Boot Camp assistant really messed up I think... the only slightly suspicious thing we might've done is putting the MacBook to sleep once the Assistant had finished partitioning and prompted for the Windows Install CD, but still...
I went to a Mac retailer with the laptop, told them to recover whatever data they could. If people can recover data from drives that have been erased and reformatted, recovering data from this drive shouldn't be impossible.
Did you have a time machine backup?
Why not reinstall Leopard and just let time machine restore you HDD?
I use superduper but TM will do this won't it?
I tried Disk Utility, it said the hard drive was 149 GB of unpartitioned goodness...
Did you have the option to archive and install again the system?
Did you have the option to archive and install again the system?
If the Disk utility detected only unpartioned space, the option "archive and install" probably wouldn't be available...
If the Disk utility detected only unpartioned space, the option "archive and install" probably wouldn't be available...
With the mess Boot Camp created, you can never know what is right and what is wrong.
Luckily there's not a lot of crucial info on the laptop. It does ecourage me to buy an external hard drive and do some backing up.
- Followed the Boot Camp prompts - I (created a 32GB partition for Windows)
- When asked to put in my windows CD, I inserted an XP CD from work.
- Reboots my computer then Windows setup initializes
- The partition I created did not appear, but instead the only available is a 131,000 MB partition (or thereabouts)
- I abort the setup, and when holding Option key, only a Windows partition is available (the one which Boot Camp created I presume) and a second Windows one from the CD that is still in the drive. NO Mac OSX option!!
I have no idea what to do as I'm new to the Apple team. I will not give up hope in retrieving my data. There has to be some way of getting it back..
Can anyone help me with this issue further?
I'm about to try using the MAC OSX cd that came with my MBP...
I wanted a second opinion, so I took my drive to a data recovery specialist and they too concluded that the partition is not there and had been overwritten somehow. They said that data could likely be recovered but it would cost around AU$300-400. I'm reluctant to do this as I managed to recover a lot of the photos I had lost and i'm lucky to have backed up most of my things 6 weeks or so ago (I wonder what else I may have lost!)
Not happy...
I left my computer with a certified Apple Repair Centre and upon using their own diagnostic software they determined that somehow my Mac partition had been overwritten. I'm still unclear as to how this happened if anyone can explain this to me??
I wanted a second opinion, so I took my drive to a data recovery specialist and they too concluded that the partition is not there and had been overwritten somehow. They said that data could likely be recovered but it would cost around AU$300-400. I'm reluctant to do this as I managed to recover a lot of the photos I had lost and i'm lucky to have backed up most of my things 6 weeks or so ago (I wonder what else I may have lost!)
Not happy...
You could connect that wonky Mac with a Firewire cable to a working one, then start up the wonky one holding T on the keyboard. It will then show up on the working Mac's desktop as an external disk. And consequently you can run recovery software and disk utilities on it.
I turned off the MacBook after this, and it gave me a strange screen... So I held the power button, restarted it, and viola, the login screen comes up. Once logged in, there are two extra drives shown on the desktop... "BOOTCAMP" and "EFI"... not sure what deleting them will do; guess you're on your own from here.
That said, a friends computer who has never reformatted in 1 - 2 years of ownership is NOT a good candidate for Boot Camp Assistant's partitioning skills.
Rule of Boot Camp: If a small chance of corruption, then a large chance of failure.