Bootcamp problems

[Ramonesmania]

I got a 2008 8-core 2.8ghz mac pro yesterday. And today I decided to install windows vista home premium.

I can partition a hard drive in the boot camp assistant no problem, but when I put in the vista disc and get to the part where I have to select a drive, it won't let me pick the partition I just made (FAT32) because it 'needs to be an NTFS formatted drive'.

I've heard that if you then click the format option at the bottom it should automatically format it to NTFS, but when I do it won't let me go any further because the OS 'may not be able to boot from this drive' and says I should check that 'the hard disc controller is enabled'.

If anyone can offer some advice on what to do I'd really appreciate it.

Thanks.

 

[Tesselator]

You have a utility called "Bootcamp Assistant" that creates the appropriate partitions after which the Windoze install DVD will then work properly. Some people say you ALSO need to format it under windows too but I didn't. I don't think it's actually needed.

 

[gugucom]

Vista is NTFS only and Bootcamp will only prepare FAT32. That bit is right. It appearsd that you have a curious malfunction there. Are you sure that you have selected the right volume that Bootcamp prepared? It is usually named bootcamp. I suspect that Tesselator installed XP because XP is happy with FAT32 up to 32 GB partitions. It is a bit different to Vista. I would try this again from scatch and make sure the partition table in disk utility is set to GUID. If the fault persists I would try another install disk because it surely is not working as usual then.

 

[Tesselator]

I installed Vista64. But I don't pretend to know what I'm talking about either. All I know is that I used the Bootcamp Assistant to set up a 280 GB drive - full drive "one large partition". And then I installed Vista64 directly as prescribed by the bootcamp assistant, without knowingly formatting anything during the Vista64 install process.

 

[gugucom]

I installed Vista64. But I don't pretend to know what I'm talking about either. All I know is that I used the Bootcamp Assistant to set up a 280 GB drive - full drive "one large partition". And then I installed Vista64 directly as prescribed by the bootcamp assistant, without knowingly formatting anything during the Vista64 install process.

I havn't checked that installation method. I typically install all native Windows in GUID partitioned drives. The described method may actually use an MBR partition table. So results may vary. It is complicated and a bit confusing.

 

[Tesselator]

Yeah, as said I dunno cheese&crackers about it. I had gone for 2 years trying it periodically now and then and never got BC Assistant to do anything at all except tell me I was stupid for even trying. So when I tried it that time and it bestowed the potential of action upon my pointed head I hesitated not in my glee and surprise.