marcusfromtuebingen

Q: Nobody told me Lion won't install when there's a Bootcamp partition. What now?

Nobody told me Lion won't install when there's a Bootcamp partition. But there is one on my iMac. What now?

iMac, Mac OS X (10.7)

Posted on Jul 20, 2011 9:28 AM

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Q: Nobody told me Lion won't install when there's a Bootcamp partition. What now?

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  • by Graham Perrin,

    Graham Perrin Graham Perrin Jul 24, 2011 7:25 AM in response to marcusfromtuebingen
    Level 2 (259 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jul 24, 2011 7:25 AM in response to marcusfromtuebingen

    Off-topic from the opening post, which is happily answered —

     

    Expect to see many people writing things such as:

    fresh and toasty DVD

    Another word for toasting a part (not the whole) of the .app that Apple provided for installation of 10.7 (Build 11A511):

     

    • hacked.

     

    If you're lucky: reinstallation from a hacked-out part of the installer will appear to succeed.

     

    If you're unlucky: your system may become unusable. 

     

    If you wish to experiment with things that are hacked:

     

    • before experimenting, have backups that are comprehensive and suitably tested.

     

    #Lion #FileVault 2 users: never attempt reinstallation of Mac OS X 10.7 from a Recovery OS where the #USB flash drive or #DVD was #hacked …

  • by stevefromtemecula,

    stevefromtemecula stevefromtemecula Jul 25, 2011 1:17 PM in response to marcusfromtuebingen
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 25, 2011 1:17 PM in response to marcusfromtuebingen

    I have the converse problem:

    I've had Windows XP SP3 working just fine on a Bootcamp partition since I bought my MacBook Pro in January.

    I've been running Parallels without a hitch.

    I installed LION yesterday on my MacBook without trouble. Today, I tried to run Parallels and do something in Windows. But, while parallels starts OK, Windows won't bot anymore.

    Even trying to start Windows at system startup using the option key doesn't work.

     

    ANyone got a fix?

  • by Robin Bonathan,

    Robin Bonathan Robin Bonathan Jul 25, 2011 1:25 PM in response to stevefromtemecula
    Level 1 (101 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jul 25, 2011 1:25 PM in response to stevefromtemecula

    Try starting windows in safe mode.

     

    option key as before then press F8 as soon as you selected boot from bootcamp

  • by stevefromtemecula,

    stevefromtemecula stevefromtemecula Jul 26, 2011 12:50 PM in response to Robin Bonathan
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 26, 2011 12:50 PM in response to Robin Bonathan

    Robin,

    No can do. Holding "option" key while cold staarting laptop does not provide any options! THe machine boots directly into LION.

    Parallels starts, and I get the "My Bootcamp" window. Clicking the start windows button results in the message below:

    error window.jpg

    I tried using disk utility to repair & verify the disk:

     

    disk repair.jpg

    I can see all the files on the disk in Fionder. The Bootcamp icon remains on my desktop.

    I tried executing "Notepad" from the system folder. WHen I do, I get a message that I'm openng it for the first time and then get to the Parallels Desktop window again with the same results.

  • by Roosevelt Jones,

    Roosevelt Jones Roosevelt Jones Jul 26, 2011 3:24 PM in response to stevefromtemecula
    Level 2 (380 points)
    Jul 26, 2011 3:24 PM in response to stevefromtemecula

    I believe you should get the boot disk selector even if you only have one bootable volume. Wait until the startup chime sounds and then press and hold the Option key.

     

    You might try these posts to see if you can recover the BootCamp volume:

    https://discussions.apple.com/message/15650137#15650137

    https://discussions.apple.com/message/15714635#15714635

    https://discussions.apple.com/message/15694076#15694076

    I am not sure if all of these post assume you have Windows7 or not. I restricted my search to just the past week. You may be able to find more information by searching these forums for "fixmbr" or "MBR" or you can follow-up with the posters of the above postings to see if they can provide more details.

  • by Roosevelt Jones,

    Roosevelt Jones Roosevelt Jones Jul 26, 2011 3:31 PM in response to marcusfromtuebingen
    Level 2 (380 points)
    Jul 26, 2011 3:31 PM in response to marcusfromtuebingen

    Extra reading material: http://www.ntfs.com/mbr-damaged.htm

  • by stevefromtemecula,

    stevefromtemecula stevefromtemecula Jul 27, 2011 12:40 PM in response to Roosevelt Jones
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 27, 2011 12:40 PM in response to Roosevelt Jones

    Thank you Mr. Jones.

    We're making progress.

    Following one of your suggestions, I inserted the XP install CD and restaredt my laptop: waiting for the chime then pressing the option key I indeed get a choice of boot options including the CD.

    Not sure how I did it but, I can now boot to Windows XP from the Bootcamp disk. It seems in perfect condition with all my files and pregrams still intact.

    However,

    If I boot into Lion, then start Parallels (with all current updates as of yesterday) I get the same message (follow the thread up) indicating that there is a "disk hardware configuration problem".

    Restarting & booting into the "HD Recovery" disk, running through the repair & verify, it doesn't seem to change.

     

    It's looking like the issue may be with Parallels & Lion - not Bootcamp & Lion.

  • by Roosevelt Jones,

    Roosevelt Jones Roosevelt Jones Jul 28, 2011 9:31 PM in response to stevefromtemecula
    Level 2 (380 points)
    Jul 28, 2011 9:31 PM in response to stevefromtemecula

    I had some problems with my Parallels BootCamp VM as well. I ended up removing the original one and recreating it. It seems to be working now.

  • by jamarico,

    jamarico jamarico Sep 10, 2011 12:48 PM in response to d3vi1
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Sep 10, 2011 12:48 PM in response to d3vi1

    How can the partition table be prepared for Windows with gdisk (GPT fdisk) instead of Boot Camp Assistant? Maybe d3vi1 could shed some light on this?

     

    Problem: Windows HD (NTFS, with XP Pro SP2, restored from drive image) doesn't show up on alt-boot, and if chosen in system preferences, boot up ends at blinking cursor.

     

    History: Partition scheme made hybrid with gdisk. All looks fine:

     

    Partition table scan:

      MBR: hybrid

      BSD: not present

      APM: not present

      GPT: present

     

    Found valid GPT with hybrid MBR; using GPT.

     

    Number  Start (sector)    End (sector)  Size       Code  Name

       1              40          409639   200.0 MiB   EF00  EFI System Partition

       2          409640       326475791   155.5 GiB   AF00  Lion HD

       3       326475792       327745327   619.9 MiB   AB00  Recovery HD

       4       327745328       726511023   190.1 GiB   AF00  Macintosh HD

       5       726773760       976773119   119.2 GiB   0700  WINDOWS HD

     

    Disk size is 976773168 sectors (465.8 GiB)

    MBR disk identifier: 0x41B241B1

    MBR partitions:

     

    Number  Boot  Start Sector   End Sector   Status      Code

       1                     1    726773759   primary     0xEE

       2      *      726773760    976773119   primary     0x07

     

    Disk Utility says the partition table is fine. Windows sees two partitions, the second one is "Windows HD". It's correctly selected in the "boot.ini". Also added again in Recovery Console with bootcfg. Had a new boot sector written with fixboot. Chkdsk found an error (not more info) but only with p option.

     

     

    What could be the problem here? What other magic (I didn't do with gdisk) could BC Assistant be doing apart from installing a MBR for the Windows partition? Can I be reasonably sure that fixmbr won't damage my partition table (complains about "non-standard or invalid boot record" as it's probably not familiar with that hybrid thing)?

  • by d3vi1,

    d3vi1 d3vi1 Sep 12, 2011 1:41 PM in response to jamarico
    Level 1 (40 points)
    Sep 12, 2011 1:41 PM in response to jamarico

    Fixmbr won't actually damage your partition table. It only touches the MBR and not the GPT. In my experience, what you're seeing is not a MBR problem but a restore problem. What happened the last time I saw this was that when the partition was resized in the restore, the bootloader file was not on the right spot on the disk (the nth entry in the root directory). The solution to that was to get a Norton Ghost trial, and on another (Windows) computer make a backup and a restore of the Windows partition (via a USB bridge for the HDD).

    The thing is, generally the MBR code will give an error if no active partition is found. If one is found, no message is displayed but the active partition boot code gets executed. That code has to fit in less than 512 bytes and chainload ntldr or bootldr depending on your OS. As you might imagine in 512 bytes you don't have room for error messages and to correctly interpret NTFS in order to find the file regardless where it is on the partition so they hack around it and put the booloader file always in the same place. A defrag application or partition resize app that doesn't know not to touch that file will mess it up and make that partition unbootable.

    As an experiment, put that hdd in another system (not Mac) and attempt booting from it. If it works, you should get to a blue screen, but anyway at least pass the part with the bootloader menu.

    The fix with Ghost is kinda lame, but it's know working. Give it a shot.

     

    Cheers,

    R.

  • by jamarico,

    jamarico jamarico Dec 25, 2011 4:11 AM in response to d3vi1
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 25, 2011 4:11 AM in response to d3vi1

    d3vi1, herzlichen Dank für deine Erklärung und Tipps!

     

    The drive image I'm trying to restore is indeed from a smaller partition. I did a backup/restore now from Boot Camp partition using Parallels/W7/Ghost (trying to avoid taking the MBP apart and finding a Windows machine; I realize it's not equivalent but wanted to give it a shot). Unfortunately, at the end of the restore, Parallels (or rather OS X) denied Ghost overwriting the MBR of the physical drive. Result: boot still fails, stopping at blinking cursor.

     

    Then I remembered, when I had to restore the same kind of drive image to a new partition of different size (i.e. larger) some years ago, it only worked after a fresh XP install (with NTFS quick format) on that partition in advance. Doing that now made the partition show up on alt-boot again, but bootup now fails with the infamous "hal.dll missing" error. Sure enough, hal.dll and boot.ini are in place and the entries are correct. The usual fixes didn't help. I manually deleted boot.ini and recreated it with bootcfg and suppose that program should know to place the file as the correct entry in the root directory (fixboot'ed too).

     

    So now my problem boils down to that I can't even get a fresh XP SP2 install to boot from that partition (btw, same thing if I try to boot from it in Parallels). That with the partition table looking OK (see my last post; can't risk to repartition again as this is my work system and deadlines are coming up) and boot.ini supposedly in the right spot.

     

    Any further ideas why the bootloader struggles with this partition scheme?

  • by Robin Bonathan,

    Robin Bonathan Robin Bonathan Dec 25, 2011 4:33 AM in response to jamarico
    Level 1 (101 points)
    Mac OS X
    Dec 25, 2011 4:33 AM in response to jamarico

    You CAN install lion with bootcamp partition.

     

    Go to your disk utilities.

     

    Select your bootcamp partition.

     

    Select "unmount"

     

    install lion.

  • by mulligans missus,

    mulligans missus mulligans missus Dec 25, 2011 4:39 AM in response to Robin Bonathan
    Level 2 (370 points)
    Dec 25, 2011 4:39 AM in response to Robin Bonathan

    Read, search. Very usefull tools on the internet and in forums.

     

    Good Luck.

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