Can't see Windows partition on boot

[ktbills]

I gave up

I gave up and reformatted my boot camp partition from FAT32 to NTFS. Now on an option startup both the Mac HD and the Boot camp partition appear and can be selected.

A few other posts have reported similar results but you do lose the ability to write to the boot camp partition from OS X, though you can still read it.

 

[solmaker]

Thanks, Apple! This problem was fixed by the excellent MacBook EFI Firmware Update released April 8, 2008. Now Option boot shows both my Mac partition and my Windows FAT32 partition.

 

[rdav]

Boot Camp Partition / ReFormat Error.

I have had similar problems with boot camp on a MacBook Pro. Gave up and erased the Windows-XP partition. When I try to rebuild the partition with Boot Camp Assistant, there is an error message, items not removed. Do I have to reformat the entire Mac HD and restore everything from Time Machine before creating a Windows partition? Disk Utility will not permit formating while logged in, so how do I do this? Thanks...

 

[diggyz]

explanation and way to fix.

Anytime there is an issue with not being able to boot from a partition, the master boot record has been changed or damaged. This can easily happen by using disk utility to change partition size, adding partitions, or any other action that would change the basic structure of the data on the disk without keeping the MBR intact. Mac OS has difficulty keeping that intact when there is an NTFS partition active.

One quick fix that can rewrite the MBR is a simple program called TestDisk. This utility can scan the drive and find what kinds of partition tables that are active. If it doesnt find the partitions due to dataloss, you can manually select the partition type. Mac, PC, etc. it gives many options. The link is here along with documentation.
http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk

The quickest way to fix a mac in my experience with this software, is to use another apple machine over firewire. Boot the computer with the broken MBR into target disk mode (hold T during boot,) then run TestDisk with administrative rights on the second machine. (unix sudo in terminal) TestDisk does run from other operating systems and can fix a mac no problem, and I have tested this. From there you can simply follow the guides in the documentation or follow the on screen instructions.