Has Boot Camp screwed up my MacBook's start up sequence forever?

[doubleohseven]

Ok, here's what happened.

I tried installing Windows XP on to my MacBook running Leopard last November using an XP installment disk that came with a Dell Desktop. So that worked out well, until Boot Camp told me to print out an instruction sheet. Well, I don't have a printer connected to my MacBook, so I continued the installation without it.

Bad idea.

The installation apparently 'finished' so I clicked "finish" but the whole installation process went back to the beginning, so I had to force quit the installation (my MacBook was running from just the disk, not 'Macintosh HD'). By the way, I went through the installation process a couple of times before I thought "this is just keep on repeating."

Well, whenever I go to boot up my MacBook now, a message comes up in a black background with white writing saying "No bootable disk, press any key to continue." Pressing any key doesn't work, so I have to hold down the power button (which I hate doing since it's apparently bad for the HDD) to turn it off, and I now have to hold down the alt/option key whenever I start up my Mac. By the way, the only disk that comes up is 'Macintosh HD', not the 'Windows HD' I partitioned earlier, which I have now deleted.

My question is, what else can I do to completely erase this message I get at the start up?

Thanks in advance.

 

[BlueRevolution]

 -> System Preferences -> Startup Disk

 

[Tomorrow]

I tried installing Windows XP on to my MacBook running Leopard last November using an XP installment disk that came with a Dell Desktop.

Is this an actual Windows XP full installation disk or a Dell system restore disk? Don't forget it has to be at least SP2 as well.

 

[doubleohseven]

 -> System Preferences -> Startup Disk

The start up disk is Mac OS X, 10.5.6 on Macintosh HD. It's always been on this disk, but for some reason this message still comes up.

Thanks anyway.

 

[doubleohseven]

Is this an actual Windows XP full installation disk or a Dell system restore disk? Don't forget it has to be at least SP2 as well.

I don't think it was a restore disk; it had the full version of Windows XP SP2 on it.

 

[ravenvii]

I don't think it was a restore disk; it had the full version of Windows XP SP2 on it.

All restore disks have full versions of Windows on them. It's just that it's a restore disk, designed to restore the machine that came with it to the state it came out of the factory in.

For Boot Camp, you need an RETAIL or OEM copy of Windows, that you, yourself, bought. Not a copy that came with any machines.

However, you can convert that Dell restore disk into an actual Windows install disk with nLite. This does require Windows, however. You'll have to figure it out. Try VirtualBox. I'm not going to tell you how, you do the research and work yourself.

www.nliteos.com www.virtualbox.org