I am stuck in a rebooting loop when trying to start XP in Boot Camp.
I have both BC and Parallels pointing to my XP installation, and both ways of starting windows have worked well. However, I never did succeed into upgrading BC 2.0 into 2.1. I tried both (within Bootcamp) through Apple Software Update and also did a manual download to disk of the upgrade. I then tried to upgrade to BC 2.1 from within Parallels. No luck there either.
Yesterday I started XP SP2 from Parallels and got a message that SP3 was released. I downloaded and installed and everything was dandy. However, when I try to start XP from Bootcamp I'm stuck in a repeatedly rebooting Macbook Pro.
I have uninstalled Boot Camp from my XP SP3 partition (chucked the Leopard DVD in the drive and uninstalled), then rebooted XP and did a new install of BC. I still get 2.0 installed, and there's no way I seem to be able to update BC to 2.1.
Soo... after reading several posts about installing BC 2.1 I finally was able to get the install sorted out (everything performed within Parallels)
The problem is related to localization:
1. Uninstall Bootcamp by inserting the Leopard DVD and following the instructions. Reboot.
2. Set all language to English (US) in the "Regional Settings Tab". Reboot.
3. Re-install Boot Camp from the DVD (check that all language is set to english). Reboot.
4. Download the stand alone installer (I did anyway) of BC 2.1 from the Apple website and install. The installer took a loooooooong time to even start, and a loooooonger time to finish. Reboot.
Now I've got BC 2.1 installed onto my XP SP3, but when I try to restart my mac from Boot Camp I'm granted with a message telling me that "chkdisk can't be found", and then the mac self reboots.
I have tried to make a safe boot, but neither of the options (the white text on back MS DOS-background) work. The mac reboots over and over.
What am I to do? Am I screwed? Do I need to flush the XP installation and start over (installing all softs etc etc), or is there a way for me to get BC 2.1 to work with my XP SP3 installation?
I solved the issue with XP rebooting. The catch is you have to be able to boot XP through Parallels. Then:
Uninstall SP3 through Control Panel > Add or Remove Programs. Make sure that "Show Updates" is checked, and then uninstall Service Pack 3. This operation takes a while.
After the uninstall is complete, restart XP through Boot Camp. I had the Leopard DVD inside the drive, and I'm not sure wheter that made a difference or not since the drivers for Apple Keyboard, wireless etc all were installed without me doing anything manually.
After that, I made an update to SP3 through Microsoft's build in updater. I now could start XP through Boot Camp without hickups.
However, I did get the nasty reboot-loop, this time inside Parallels. This issue was solved by going to Parallels Configuration Editor > Hard Disk 1, selecting the Advanced tab and then clicking the Clear-button to cleanup the BC partition. The next time Parallels started up XP, it made all the necessary installation of files.
Seems like everything's sorted now... knock on wood...
Hmm, this is the best advice I've seen so far regarding how to solve the problem of having Boot Camp wedged, while Parallels still works fine. I wish there was a better solution than having to uninstall SP3, but I'll give it a shot.
Just curious - did you install SP3 in Parallels or in Boot Camp? I did it in Parallels, and didn't even realize Boot Camp was wedged until several days after installing SP3 (as I use Parallels all the time, while I only go to Boot Camp to play games occasionally). I figured I was taking a small risk, but went ahead and did it anyway under Parallels. I wonder if that's what caused this particular hiccup? It seems like the more common problem is those who can boot in Boot Camp but for whom Parallels is broken (and damnit, they've got the easy fix, which I tried anyway - 'clearing' Parallels out of BC, didn't work)... maybe the 'direction' of the problem (what works and what's broken) has to do with the environment under which SP3 is installed?
For everyone's info, after noticing that BC was busted (and booting with F8, disabling auto-reboot but not getting a very helpful stop screen), I hit a number of forums, and realized I didn't install BC 2.1 before installing SP3. Installed it under Parallels (no clue if that even works right), didn't help - Parallels unaffected, BC busted the same way. Next, I 'uninstalled' Parallels (via the 'clear' option documented elsewhere) and restarted the VM, 'reinstalling' Parallels, although I didn't have to reinstall Parallels Tools looks like. (FYI, this seems to require reactivating XP, which I don't have trouble with since I have an MSDN licensed copy, but you might have problems.) After that, I gave up and finally found this post, yay Google.
I will follow the directions you provided, regarding removing SP3 under Parallels, rebooting into BC, and installing SP3 there, then 'clearing' out Parallels again. Will let everyone know if it works for me too... and I don't have my Leopard disc with me, so we'll see if that affects it. =)
For the benefit of anyone else with this problem, things pretty well worked out exactly as he described. Note that I use a MacBook Pro - on other systems, your mileage may vary.
For those who can boot in Parallels, but not in Base Camp, and receive the 'autochk' error before a stop screen (c000021a, Session Manager Initialization system terminated unexpectedly):
1) Under Parallels, boot XP, and under Add/Remove Programs, ensure tat 'Show Updates' is checked, and uninstall SP3.
2) If, like me, you installed the Boot Camp 2.1 Update (or any other programs for that matter), you'll get warnings that they "may not work correctly" after SP3 is removed. Keep going.
3) Once removed, shut down the OS, or just reboot like SP3 tells you to do. (If you're paranoid like me, you can do a restart in Parallels without any worries - mine came up just fine as SP2. There is this scary "Please wait..." screen during boot the first time that looks the same as the AUTOCHK error, don't worry.)
4) Reboot into Boot Camp. On my system, when it first came up, the keyboard didn't work at all (didn't try the trackpad), and I was unable to log in. (I use the old-school login prompt.) I just jacked a handy USB keyboard in. Upon boot, I noticed that a bunch of 'new devices were found' and the BC drivers were coming up just fine; this may occur pre-login if you don't have a USB mouse/keyboard, but I can't guarantee it. Note that these drivers came up and installed themselves without the Leopard CD being in the system or anything.
5) Just to be safe, I re-ran the Boot Camp 2.1 update (BCUpdateXP.exe) which I still had on my system. It's "required" before going to SP3, says Apple, and I wanted to make sure my drivers weren't dorked by removing SP3, or having installed them within Parallels in the first place. I don't know if it's necessary, but it's not a bad idea. If you install the drivers (and, at least on my 5400 RPM drive it takes quite a while!) you'll have to reboot afterwards. I did so, to no ill effect, and the keyboard and trackpad worked fine the next boot.
6) Install Service Pack 3. I personally hit update.microsoft.com for this, but you can use whatever version is handy. (Oh, and for those using laptops, make sure the AC cable is plugged in. I was moving my laptop to another room when I started the install, and it just aborted with an error - must be plugged in etc. - and I had to 'search for updates' a second time. Guh!)
7) Reboot the system after installing SP3, as it demands. The system should come up normally.
8) Reboot back into Mac OS X.
9) As described on other threads, start Parallels but do not start the VM yet. Instead, go to Edit => Virtual Machine, select the Hard Disk, and under the 'Advanced' button-tab-thing therein (on the right), press the 'Clear' button a ways down. Answer 'yes' to its prompt. It can take a minute or two for Parallels to 'remove' its whatever from the BC partition.
10) Boot the BC virtual machine. You'll get a popup from Parallels talking about a 'new boot camp partition,' 'install parallels tools,' 'reactivate windows,' something like that. (I didn't write any of it down.) Your only real worry is that you'll have to reactivate Windows, which - if activating over the internet doesn't work - requires a moderately annoying phone call to Microsoft Tech Support, from what I've heard. Fortunately, I have a MSDN version of Windows XP on this system (which I use almost exclusively for work, honest!), and it seems a lot more tolerant of multiple reactivations. Your mileage may vary.
Mind you, I'm not trying to steal the spotlight - markusn above figured it out and deserves all the credit! I just figured I'd write down my experiences and fill in a few details for anyone else who might run into this problem.
glad it all worked out for you as it did for me. I too use Boot Camp only for playing games (Call Of Duty 2 is the fave atm), and I use Parallels for all other web design checking and what not.
You made a good roundup of the steps to fix the rebooting issue. Hope that more people in the same situation will find this thread and get their systems running too.
I just want to recap/add the fact that if you're (like I am) running a non-english language in XP, you will need to set everything to US-English before upgrading Boot Camp to V2.1. This is very important. It seems like the apple engineers made a flaky installer that doesn't deal correctly with people from countries outside the US. Funny enough, I've always been running/using US English under MacOSX. Oh well =)
I'm in the same situation :: I uninstalled and reinstalled SP3, this time with the stupid American language settings, correct version of Boot Camp, and correct version of Parallels with reinstalled boot information. (I actually had all 3 --- yes all 3 problems!! Apple must have been drunk that day.)
I still get the reboot loop when I restart in Boot Camp. Any advice?
Well, I followed all the instructions to a 'T'....it seemed to work...until I decided to boot via bootcamp partition, why?...so yah, this did not work for me. I am still getting the autochk error. I think for now, I am going to just give parallels the axe, until they get their carp together.
OSX + XP + 3rd party software =[no go]...go figure.
Me too. I get the same loop when I start from Boot Camp.
Somebody better figure this out soon, because I need Windows to process 1.4 million text files for me, and I don't think I'd get the horsepower I need in Parallels!
I had the same problem, and could not start XP SP3 both in Boot Camp and Parallel.
However I managed to solve my problem by using my XP install disk to boot into Recovery Console (Option 2 after the CD has been loaded in XP setup screen).
It will prompt you after loading windows which installation of windows do you want to connect to, choose "1" if you only have one installation of windows.
You will need your Administrator password to logon.
After logging onto windows, you will see the DOS screen (DOS prompt showing "c:\windows\")
Type "chkdsk /p" and the Enter key.
Windows will check the disk and for mine it found a problem which it corrected, and I was able to boot into XP SP3 successfully without having to go the uninstall path.
We're having different issues here. For those who get "autochk program not found - skipping autocheck" when booting from Boot Camp, by that I mean when starting up your Mac and not in Parallels:
