A bunch of Issues with a MBP

[Renegade89]

Ok, I'm working on my dad's newish MacBook Pro, and basically the end goal is to be running Snow Leopard with boot camp into Windows XP SP3.

He currently has Leopard and a really messed up HD. I tried installing XP on his machine a week ago, but the version of bootcamp that was on the leopard disk wouldnt work with either his MBP or XP SP3. So, he decided to just upgrade to Snow Leopard. Well, Snow Leopard wouldn't install because apparently something happened to the disk and its not GUID partitioned. And I can't erase the bootcamp partition to create one full partition, so I have to back up his mac partition using time machine and then use disk utility to create one partition, then install snowleopard, then restore from time machine, then use boot camp to install XP.

Does this sound right? Will i be able to use his Leopard time machine back up to restore everything into snow leopard? Or will I have to create one partition, then restore from time machine, then upgrade to Snow Leopard? Or will I have to create one partition, install LEOPARD, restore from time machine, then install snow leopard?

[Consultant]

What caused the hd problem? User error? Hardware problem?

[thejadedmonkey]

Why can't you erase the bootcamp partition?

If you have a time machine backup, it would be easiest to just wipe the entire hard drive, create a single partition for it, restore OS X off of the time machine backup, and then run bootcamp.

If that doesn't work, you shouldn't install Snow Leopard over leopard, as Leopard is messed up, and I wouldn't recomend an OS upgrade when the original OS is that FUBAR.

[Renegade89]

Originally Posted by Consultant

What caused the hd problem? User error? Hardware problem?

Well I dont really have a clue. I messed up installing bootcamp, but i don't see how that would affect the mac partition... I don't know how it isn't GUID partitioned.

[Renegade89]

Originally Posted by thejadedmonkey

Why can't you erase the bootcamp partition?

If you have a time machine backup, it would be easiest to just wipe the entire hard drive, create a single partition for it, restore OS X off of the time machine backup, and then run bootcamp.

If that doesn't work, you shouldn't install Snow Leopard over leopard, as Leopard is messed up, and I wouldn't recomend an OS upgrade when the original OS is that FUBAR.

This is what it says when i run bootcamp:

The startup disk cannot be partitioned or restored to a single partition.
Back up the disk and use Disk Utility to format it as a single Mac OS Extended (Journaled) volume. Restore your information to the disk and try using Boot Camp Assistant again.


So thats probably what I'm going to have to do.


Edit: So after I create the Single Partition, can I restore from time machine right away?