Boot problems

[MacNaz]

Hi All,

I'm a newbie Mac user.

I've received a hand me down MAC from the company I work for.

It had boot camp installed and allowed me to use it as a PC or MAC. Having thought it really strange to have Windows on a MAC, I decided to research "how to remove Windows from MAC, following some instructions I found on Google.

After my tinkering about I'm now unable to boot as a MAC or Windows. When I try booting in MAC I get the grey apple logo on white background with the wheel of death.

When I try booting using the Windows option I get the "operating system missing" warning message.

Now it's useless as a Windows or MAC, how do I resolve this?

 

[DeltaMac]

In hind sight - this site would have been a good place to find out first how to remove Windows.
It's really simple - Boot to OS X. Run the Boot Camp Assistant, which will immediately give you the choice to remove the Boot Camp partition (along with the Windows software). It generally works very smoothly, although some configurations won't let you easily remove the Boot Camp partition, so you have to use other methods.

Can you tell us which Mac model you have, and what version of OS X you have installed?

You MIGHT still be able to boot to the OS X recovery system, which is simply to restart while holding Command-R
You will boot to a menu screen, where you can run Disk Utility. Do a Repair Disk, or First Aid, depending on the version of OS X.
Then, if that completes OK (just takes a few seconds) - quit Disk Utility, which returns you to the main screen.
Choose Reinstall OS X. That will ask you for the destination for the install, so just choose your boot drive, then continue with the OS X reinstall.
That process will download the OS X system files through your internet connection, then continue on with the reinstall.
It may take 20 minutes, or as long as an hour or more to finish, so be patient.

 

[brewmonkey]

Hi All,

I'm a newbie Mac user.

I've received a hand me down MAC from the company I work for.

It had boot camp installed and allowed me to use it as a PC or MAC. Having thought it really strange to have Windows on a MAC, I decided to research "how to remove Windows from MAC, following some instructions I found on Google.

After my tinkering about I'm now unable to boot as a MAC or Windows. When I try booting in MAC I get the grey apple logo on white background with the wheel of death.

When I try booting using the Windows option I get the "operating system missing" warning message.

Now it's useless as a Windows or MAC, how do I resolve this?

I once encountered something similar a long time ago, on a Mac far, far away...

After removing a Boot Camp installation (which had the Windows volume as the default boot option) following the then-current documentation from Apple on how to do so, the Mac got confused about which startup disk it should use. I resolved it by holding the 'option' key for a few seconds immediately after powering on the Mac which allowed me to select a startup disk. I picked the OS X volume, and once booted into OS X, I opened the Startup Disk panel in preferences which allowed me to re-pick the OS X volume to make that startup option permanent (the hold-down-option method is a one-time deal).

Hope that helps, but of course there could be other unrelated factors at play on your Mac.

Good luck.

 

[MacNaz]

I once encountered something similar a long time ago, on a Mac far, far away...

After removing a Boot Camp installation (which had the Windows volume as the default boot option) following the then-current documentation from Apple on how to do so, the Mac got confused about which startup disk it should use. I resolved it by holding the 'option' key for a few seconds immediately after powering on the Mac which allowed me to select a startup disk. I picked the OS X volume, and once booted into OS X, I opened the Startup Disk panel in preferences which allowed me to re-pick the OS X volume to make that startup option permanent (the hold-down-option method is a one-time deal).

Hope that helps, but of course there could be other unrelated factors at play on your Mac.

Good luck.

[doublepost=1464792915][/doublepost]Ok so it turned out that the copy of El Capitan that I got from the iStore was the upgrade not the bootable. I went back to get the bootable and was able to install El Capitan and remove boot camp and Windows. Thanks for the help
Now I'm off to discover whether Office 365 or Office 2016 for Mac is better.... Any advice will be appreciated

 

[ivanwi11iams]

I use Office 2016 on Windows and Mac. To me, just me, the Windows version seems to 'work' better.
I've since added my Office 365 email account to my iMac, and simply the builtin Email, Contacts, Calendar, etc.

Albeit, Word and Excel 2016 for Mac, does work; maybe I'm just not used to it as much as I am with the Windows version...

[doublepost=1464792915][/doublepost]
Ok so it turned out that the copy of El Capitan that I got from the iStore was the upgrade not the bootable. I went back to get the bootable and was able to install El Capitan and remove boot camp and Windows. Thanks for the help
Now I'm off to discover whether Office 365 or Office 2016 for Mac is better.... Any advice will be appreciated