HELP NEEDED - Windows has taken over my mac

What happens when you hold down Option when you start your Mac? Does it list your Mac dvd or external hard drive?

 

What happens if you tell it to boot from its reinstallation dvd?

 

How long have you let it sit and attempt to boot from its dvd?

 

I'm not sure what is wrong with your iMac.

 

Sorry, not sure where I got iMac from.

 

Reinstall OSX (sounds like you killed the partition anyway), restore (Time Machine?) and try installing boot camp one more time.

 

Are you absolutely sure that it deleted your mac partition?

If you used the bootcamp utility then it should not have done that unless something really weird is going on with your computer.

Just a question, did you install the bootcamp drivers off the osx install cd that came with your macbook pro after installing windows?
That should allow the windows installation to read apple formatted drives, as well as install the bootcamp system tray, which will let you select your default boot drive.

If windows has become the default (which from memory from when I installed windows on my macbook pro became the case), then at the moment holding down option will not work, and neither will trying to boot off the install CD to fix your mac, as it is also formatted for mac.

Those bootcamp drivers on the install disk are important if you are going to run windows on your mac without any big problems.

If you have already done this, then maybe something odd has happened during the install.
Another possibility could be that you could have by mistake formatted over your osx installation while installing windows?

During the step that looks like this: http://www.iclarified.com/images/tutorials/2672/10878/10878.jpg

could you have selected the wrong partition?

Hopefully someone will be able to help you out further on these forums.

 

Windows 7 will not recognize a Mac partition and will just label it as unformatted.

 

Unpartitioned is what the Windows 7 installer calls HFS+ (Mac) partitions. Are you absolutely sure you installed Windows on the correct partition and formatted the correct partition?

 

Normally, to set an alternate startup volume, such as a bootable CD or DVD, you should use the Startup Disk system preference. However, if your regular boot disk is damaged or if you can't set the CD or DVD as a startup device from the system preference, try one of the following options:

Restart your computer and immediately press the Option key. Icons for all available startup volumes will appear. Click the one you want to boot from, and then click the right arrow button to complete the startup process.

Restart your computer and immediately press Command-Option-Shift-Delete. You must press all the keys at once. The computer will start to boot from the CD or DVD drive. If there isn't a bootable disc inside the drive when you begin the reboot, the computer will attempt to boot from another partition or drive.

Restart your computer and immediately press the c key. The computer will look for a bootable CD or DVD and, if it finds one, will use it as its startup device.

 

silly question perhaps - but are you using a wired keyboard? (if a wireless and the bootcamp is not installed then that -could- explain your issues)

 

I take it you don't have the Bootcamp Assistant installed in Windows? If you do, click on that in the system tray and see if it shows any other partition. Then set that as your startup and see what happens.

Alternatively, if you haven't yet installed the Bootcamp drivers, put your OS X disc in and run it, let it install them once you're in logged into Windows. Don't insert it until you are logged into Windows. Then try the above step.

If that doesn't work? That's far above my rather rudimentary level of knowledge...

 

What happens when you start it up with the Mac OS X dvd in and no hard drive?

One other thing I thought of: Why don't you try resetting the PRAM? http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1379