bootcamp + reboot errors.

[Gemma]

Hello, sorry if this isnt the right place for posting I'm desperatly in need of any assistance.

I've had a 24'' aluminum Imac - 500gb harddrive running leopard since december, I wisely decided today to be a smart arse and install bootcamp, I was given a disk by my cousin he assured me it had sp2 he'd used it to install bootcamp before with no isses for a friend - and sure enough its all gone horrifically wrong.
now I know - I did read the PDF with instructions, I read a good few walk throughs on how to do it but I'm an idiot for not printing them out to help when everything went wrong.

I made a 20gb partion to install windows, followed the onscreen bootcamp instructions and went ahead inserted the disk and everything was fine up until the format screen, there was only one drive to format c: drive and nothing else no mention of bootcamp beside it so I decided to go back and work out where I'd gone wrong, as soon as the disk was removed and the computer restarted it refuses to load back to OS, all I'm getting is a black screen with a white underscore flashing.

I've reset the pram, i've tried to boot from the install cd but as soon as I get to the main window and open disk utility it wont let me change anything, I can neither repair the disk or permissions, infact none of the options are available at all.

I know I haven't wiped the original OS, so I desperatly didn't want to reinstall from scratch, eventually I gave up and tried to reinstall from the original leopard disks and when I get to the screen asking where to install leopard it givesme no option, so physically I can't install it. And now its impossible to remove the disk from the drive at all, eject button, holding the mouse down, I even tried ejecting it via terminal and its not showing any signs of budging.

Is my computer toast?
please help if you can, I've been googling since 1am to try and fix it alone but its just not willing to give an inch. you're my last hope before I give up and call apple, which I really really don't want to do. :/

 

[sickmacdoc]

Sorry to hear about your poor experience. I'm betting you will be printing out the guide next time you try!

In order to get you straightened out, assuming you are correct and have not done anything to your Mac OSX installation (and it sounds like you haven't harmed it from my read), first force your machine to shut down.

When you restart it, press and hold the Option key right after you hear the startup chime (bong, clang, call it what you will) and a grey screen should appear on the screen after a few moments. On it you should see each bootable device on your system- which hopefully will show your internal drive as one of the icons. It should also show the disk that is stuck in your drive, but that is not important.

Select the icon representing your internal drive and hit enter and it will then hopefully just boot right into OSX like a normal boot.

If we are still good at this point, then run the BootCamp Assistant program again and select the option to restore your hard disk to a single partition (basically undoing the establishment of the BootCamp partition that you did the first time you ran the Assistant).

That should get you back to the point you started, ready to try all over again (after printing the guide of course)!

If this doesn't work, let us know and we will try to assist further.

 

[Gemma]

thank you for your quick reply
I'm sitting at the computer right now I've done exactly as you suggested and the two icons which appear are a hard drive option labelled windows and the disk, when I click the windows drive it just comes back to the same black screen as before, theres no mention of my original operating system anywhere despite me never actually installing windows.

 

[sickmacdoc]

OK- well if the OSX installation on your internal drive did not show up in the Option boot, then somehow during your experience that partition has gotten messed up to the point of not being bootable simply enough, so we need to concentrate on getting OSX installed fresh on it.

Hopefully you had nothing on the disk that you don't have backed up (or can't live without) because my only suggestion as to how to proceed will involve wiping the disk.

The best thing I can suggest is to use the Option method (or hold down C after the startup chime) to restart from the Leopard disk you have in the drive. When it has finally started up all the way, start up Disk Utility from the menus that appear at the start of the installer.

I think the reason it could not reinstall OSX earlier is that your drive is so confused that it needs to be reformatted- so while in Disk Utility, click the drive in the left hand column (click the line that lists the full drive, not any partitions that it might show). Click the "Partition" tab at the top of the screen. Then:
• Select "1 partition" in the "Volume Scheme" at the top left
• Click the "Options" button at the bottom and confirm that "GUID" is selected
• In the "Volume Information" section, give the drive a name as desired, then make sure "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)" is selected in the "Format:" field
• Click "Apply", wait a few seconds and you should your drive's name appear in the left hand column.

Assuming the name appears as described, quit Disk Utility. You then be able to proceed to the installation of OSX successfully as your drive should now appear as a valid destination.

Hope it goes smooth.

 

[Gemma]

I followed your directions to the hilt and it worked perfectly, Leopard is installing as I type.

to be honest I've lost a fair bit of stuff, but the relief of being able to know I haven't killed my harddrive is worth so much more! I can live without it all so long as it works.

Thank you so much for your help especially at this ungodly hour of the morning, its totally made my day

 

[sickmacdoc]

OK great- that has to be a weight off your shoulders so really glad to hear!

Sorry to hear about your data loss, but that gives me an opening to suggest that after this you not only print the guide, but that you obtain a low cost external drive to use as a backup drive as well! I'm a fanatic about that (and advising others about the need!).

It's 3am here- so yes an ungodly time of the morning from my point of view too!

Better luck with your next BootCamp installation episode too.