Booting into Windows the easy way: Flipside and Quickboot

[illjazz]

There are two tools I've found that will let you reboot into Windows straight out of Mac OS X, without having to change your startup disk or hold down the option button at boot:

Flipside: http://projectappletree.org/applications/Flipside/Flipside.html
Quickboot: http://buttered-cat.com/products/QuickBoot

I'm running OS X 10.6.2 and Windows 7. Neither of these works for me :/

When I try to reboot into Win7 using Quickboot, my unibody Macbook Pro just does a regular reboot and I land right back in OS X.

Flipside does not even list my Bootcamp partition after its initial scan. When I select the Bootcamp partition manually using Flipside's "manual mode", I get this message: "Unable to set that volume as a startup volume. See the log for more info."

Anyone know what's up with all this? I did install Win7 *before* Apple announced official Bootcamp support for Windows 7. I don't know if that has anything to do with it, but there it is.

Also, when booting into Windows, do any of you get that black screen with the blinking underscore in the top left corner that just blinks around for a good 20 seconds or so before actually commencing to boot Windows? I always wonder what the hell the point of that screen is other than to make me wait..

 

[Jottle]

There are two tools I've found that will let you reboot into Windows straight out of Mac OS X, without having to change your startup disk or hold down the option button at boot:

Flipside: http://projectappletree.org/applications/Flipside/Flipside.html
Quickboot: http://buttered-cat.com/products/QuickBoot

I'm running OS X 10.6.2 and Windows 7. Neither of these works for me :/

When I try to reboot into Win7 using Quickboot, my unibody Macbook Pro just does a regular reboot and I land right back in OS X.

I've had issues with these types of programs on my unibody macbook pro as well. It's not uncommon. This program works for me, however.

Please give it a try as well:

Bootchamp (http://www.kainjow.com/downloads/BootChamp.zip)

main site: http://www.kainjow.com/

 

[illjazz]

I've had issues with these types of programs on my unibody macbook pro as well. It's not uncommon. This program works for me, however.

Please give it a try as well:

Bootchamp (http://www.kainjow.com/downloads/BootChamp.zip)

main site: http://www.kainjow.com/

Many thanks for the tip. I was hopeful, but it seems Bootchamp stumbles the same way the others do. Check out the screenshot I've attached.

I'm getting the feeling that I will have to reinstall Windows 7 in Bootcamp if I want this to work at all. That would not be very desirable.

BTW, the reason that second preference option is disabled is because this was suggested in the help file. Didn't help, not even after restarting the app.

 

[wesrk]

Why not install rEFIt?
http://refit.sourceforge.net/

It will give you a nice looking menu to either choose Mac of Windows, or more options if you have them, and just select what you want and you're done.

 

[illjazz]

Nevermind. They all seem to work now. I tested Flipside and Bootchamp and they both worked admiraby. I assume that Quickboot now would work too.

I remembered that I'd installed Tuxera NTFS for Mac at one point and hadn't uninstalled it properly. In Disk Utility, the filesystem for my Bootcamp partition was listed as "Tuxera NTFS", which may not have played nice with these utilities. I uninstalled Tuxera properly and disabled Macfuse, booted into Windows manually, rebooted into OS X and THEN tried Flipside and Bootchamp and suddenly they both worked. Problem solved!

rEFIt looks interesting, I must admit. But I find it rather offputting that the latest release came out on 2009-03-23, as the site states. With a version number of 0.13, which isn't something I have an issue with.. but just saying. Also, that that's months and months before Snow Leopard was released. Makes you wonder about compatibility issues and all..

Whatever the case, seeing how I now apparently have three different utilities that all work perfectly, it's a moot point anyway.

A note regarding Flipside: it still does not detect my Bootcamp partition properly, but using it's manual mode now works. One cool thing about Flipside: it also has an option to boot the Mac back up in target mode without having to hold "t" at boot. Pretty cool.

Thanks everyone!

 

[wesrk]

rEFIt looks interesting, I must admit. But I find it rather offputting that the latest release came out on 2009-03-23, as the site states. With a version number of 0.13, which isn't something I have an issue with.. but just saying. Also, that that's months and months before Snow Leopard was released. Makes you wonder about compatibility issues and all..

It worked perfectly under 10.5 Leopard and I have it now under 10.6 Snow Leopard and still works like a charm. Try it. You press the power button and you get a huge Mac icon and subsequent icons for whatever other thing you can boot into, Windows, DVD, and even more options to boot from. Back in 10.5 I tried some alternatives and this was by far the easiest one.

About the blank screen you mention, I also get it but no more than 2 or 3 seconds and that might even be too much. It should go right into Windows. There are some issues with pirate copies of Windows and the activation method, that have been explained somewhere in this board about that particualr screen with the white cursor blinking lasting for a long period of time, but I think your 20 seconds is too little to be inside what others stated.

 

[Jottle]

rEFIT is good if you have more than just bootcamp and mac osx operating systems installed on your mac. Flipside, bootchamp, and quickboot are probably more convenient if you just want to restart your computer into bootcamp without having to hold down any keys or be at your computer when it starts up again. I like these programs because they allow "two clicks" in the mac os finder and your computer is starting up into windows.