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Boot Camp not showing anymore as a Startup Disk option?

For months, my internal 1TB had been partitioned 750GB/250GB OS X 10.6/Windows 7, with no problems - I want to use Windows, I either reboot and hold Alt, then choose Windows when the menu comes up, or I go System Preferences > Startup Disk and change it to "Boot Camp".

A few days ago I shrank the 10.6 partition by 200GB using Disk Utility, then formatted the space as Mac OS Extended and installed the preview of OS X 10.7 Lion (I was invited to try it via the AppleSeed programme).

Since then, the only options I have in System Prefs > Startup Disk or when holding Alt during boot are 10.6 and 10.7 - Boot Camp seems to have vanished as a choice. If I open Disk Utility, Boot Camp is still there, still 250GB. If I browse the Boot Camp partition in OS X I can see all my Windows files, etc, it just seems to be gone as a bootable option

Help!

MacBook Pro (Mid-2010) Intel i5, 4GB RAM, Mac OS X (10.6.6), Mac Mini (Early 2009), MacBook (Early 2009), iPhone 4, iPad 64GB WiFi only

Posted on Mar 3, 2011 8:52 AM

Reply
17 replies

Mar 3, 2011 9:46 AM in response to markmc78

Well, you changed the partition tables, you changed the partition ID of where Windows is or was. None of which is supported, and now you have more partitions so that Windows is no longer in one of the first 4. GPT, EFI, two HFS.

I don't know how to edit the tables or if that will be successful.

Had you put Lion on its own drive, or make the internal Lion + Windows. And often the case a new OS version you should also format the drive with the OS before loading, even if it lets you update. 10.6 changed partition tables and expanded the GUID and 10.6.6 made more changes. Moving target.

Remove 10.7 and see if you can get it to work.

This is one scenerio, testing a new OS, where running either the old OS (10.6) or the new one (10.7) as VMs as virtual hard drives would be nice.

You might want to consider using Windows in a VM also, then you might have use of all three, or move things around with a 2nd hard drive (VMs can reside anywhere and used just not boot Windows directly).

Mar 3, 2011 10:14 AM in response to markmc78

Ok, deleted the Lion partition and expanded my original OS X partition back to it's old size. Rebooted, and when I look in Disk Utility my Boot Camp partition is listed as "Mac OS X Extended (Journaled)" and it also says "this partition cannot be modified".

Before I removed Lion, I booted into it, and noticed that System Pref > Startup Disk still showed "Boot Camp". I selected it, restarted, and got white text on a black screen saying "No bootable disk inserted".

I've also disabled Tuxera NTFS but that hasn't helped

Mar 3, 2011 10:28 AM in response to markmc78

I would have booted from another hard drive to run OS X and Disk Utility Repair Disk.

Then I would have booted Windows 7 DVD to do any system repair it thought needed.

I don't know what Lion did, I skipped that invitation.

If you do need NTFS driver, I suggest Paragon, seems to be more reliable.

Windows on Mac has a number of limitations. Yes, people have managed triple boot with linux like Ubuntu but not with two Windows or two Mac OS systems. Having one internal hard drive is too stifling. Maybe with two SSDs you could.

Apr 2, 2011 7:43 PM in response to markmc78

Hi there, I was just wondering if you found a solution to your problem. I did exactly the same as you did with the same result. My Bootcamp is still on the desktop and shows as accessible drive. I can start it through Paralells fine just when I try to boot up on it via Option key it does not show up. I had that happen right after I installed 10.7 Lion. I uninstalled it and still it is a no-show. Does anyone has a solution for that?
Thanks in advance

Apr 2, 2011 11:27 PM in response to Asher ben Levi

I have done exactly same thing in the past, and not found a way back. Had to start all over.

However there is a prog called rfedit which might help, but I have no knowledge or experience of it.

For future reference iPartition enables many more on the fly partitioning and repartitioning options without messing up the Bootcamp partition, which Disk Utility always does

Message was edited by: Mike Boreham

Jul 20, 2011 7:22 PM in response to Bobby Lindsey

*** Report for internal hard disk ***



Current GPT partition table:

# Start LBA End LBA Type

1 40 409639 EFI System (FAT)

2 409640 425185495 Mac OS X HFS+

3 425185496 426455039 Mac OS X Boot

4 426455040 1465147391 Basic Data



Current MBR partition table:

# A Start LBA End LBA Type

1 1 409639 ee EFI Protective

2 409640 425185495 af Mac OS X HFS+

3 425185496 426455039 ab Mac OS X Boot

4 426455040 1465147391 0c FAT32 (LBA)



MBR contents:

Boot Code: Unknown, but bootable



Partition at LBA 40:

Boot Code: None (Non-system disk message)

File System: FAT32

Listed in GPT as partition 1, type EFI System (FAT)



Partition at LBA 409640:

Boot Code: None

File System: HFS Extended (HFS+)

Listed in GPT as partition 2, type Mac OS X HFS+

Listed in MBR as partition 2, type af Mac OS X HFS+



Partition at LBA 425185496:

Boot Code: None

File System: HFS Extended (HFS+)

Listed in GPT as partition 3, type Mac OS X Boot

Listed in MBR as partition 3, type ab Mac OS X Boot



Partition at LBA 426455040:

Boot Code: None

File System: Unknown

Listed in GPT as partition 4, type Basic Data

Listed in MBR as partition 4, type 0c FAT32 (LBA)



ok someone translate this in to english for me ? My windows partition is greyed out, computer wont boot in windows. MAC partition works fine.....

Jul 31, 2011 9:22 AM in response to Rizwan1111

I have the same problem... Can do WinClone, not supported on Lion, to get an image backup of W7 partition. At this point, since I can get to all the data on that partition, I would be more than happy to do an image backup of it, reinstall Windows 7 to get the boot partition to work, then reimage back to that original W7 partition so that I wouldn't have to reinstall and reconfigure all my applications.


My data is:


*** Report for internal hard disk ***


Current GPT partition table:

# Start LBA End LBA Type

1 40 409639 EFI System (FAT)

2 409640 253309143 Mac OS X HFS+

3 253309144 254578687 Mac OS X Boot

4 254578688 977104895 Basic Data


Current MBR partition table:

# A Start LBA End LBA Type

1 1 409639 ee EFI Protective

2 409640 253309143 af Mac OS X HFS+

3 253309144 254578687 ab Mac OS X Boot

4 254578688 977104895 07 NTFS/HPFS


MBR contents:

Boot Code: Unknown, but bootable


Partition at LBA 40:

Boot Code: None (Non-system disk message)

File System: FAT32

Listed in GPT as partition 1, type EFI System (FAT)


Partition at LBA 409640:

Boot Code: None

File System: HFS Extended (HFS+)

Listed in GPT as partition 2, type Mac OS X HFS+

Listed in MBR as partition 2, type af Mac OS X HFS+


Partition at LBA 253309144:

Boot Code: None

File System: HFS Extended (HFS+)

Listed in GPT as partition 3, type Mac OS X Boot

Listed in MBR as partition 3, type ab Mac OS X Boot


Partition at LBA 254578688:

Boot Code: Windows BOOTMGR (Vista)

File System: NTFS

Listed in GPT as partition 4, type Basic Data

Listed in MBR as partition 4, type 07 NTFS/HPFS

Jan 31, 2012 3:42 PM in response to markmc78

I was able to get back to working condition from the original poster's state by:


1. delete the extra partition

2. reboot several times.

3. flag the partition as bootable using fdisk (google for instructions)

4. reboot a few more times.


I noticed that after I had created the extra partition, that my bootcamp partition was id 5. After deleting the partition and rebooting several times, the id went back to 4.


It still isn't showing up in the startup disk app, but it does show up in the boot menu after pressing option on boot.


BTW,

2012 MacBook Pro

OSX Lion

Windows 7 64-bit bootcamp

Boot Camp not showing anymore as a Startup Disk option?

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