Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

installing XP without OSX on a mac

O

oldmanflabby

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 18, 2009
13
0
first things first: i'm a TOTAL amateur in computers (as people who participate in forums go), and am only 15.

if my title didn't make it clear enough (it was oddly worded), i would like to run windows XP on an ageing macbook through bootcamp, and i just dont think it could take two operating systems, so i was wondering if it was possible (or rather within my amateurish reach), to run windows without mac's OSX - to effectively turn my mac into a PC. if it is possible, could anyone tell me how or how i could find out, bearing in mind that advanced or intermediate vocabulary will be lost on me?

thanks, Oldmanflabby :)
 
when you use boot camp it doesn't run any of Mac OS X so the performance of your mac should be fine as long as you have enough hard drive space to put windows on. I am unsure if you can completely remove OS X.
 
yeah thanks, that's really useful. however i doubt i'll have enough hard drive space for two OSs and applications. i haven't received the computer yet, so depending on how good it is i may be able to bypass the mac OSX uninstallation and just have both operating systems, which would be an easy answer.
 
When you run the Boot Camp Assistant to prepare your Mac for the XP installation, you get to adjust the hard drive space allocated to each OS. Try moving the slider as much to the XP side as you can to maximize space. If it's still not enough, here are two options you can try:

1) If you don't have any data you want to keep on the OS X side (or if you can easily backup what is there), try reinstalling OS X, but customize the installation so it only includes the bare essentials (it's surprising how much space the additional languages and printer drivers can use). Then when you run the Boot Camp Assistant, you should be able to squeeze the maximum amount of space for XP.

2) If you still need more space, consider buying another hard drive for your MacBook. A 320 GB drive can be had for about $80 or so... depending on your needs you can go bigger or smaller. Swapping out drives is a piece of cake compared to other Apple laptops, and for $20 you can get a case to convert your current MacBook's drive into an USB external drive.

Hope this helps!
 
oh wait! i just realized that i wrote macbook unconsciously, when in fact the computer is a second generation iBook from 2001 (giving it an almost definitely too low hard drive of 10GB). does this make the hard drive hard to change?
 
oldmanflabby said:
oh wait! i just realized that i wrote macbook unconsciously, when in fact the computer is a second generation iBook from 2001 (giving it an almost definitely too low hard drive of 10GB). does this make the hard drive hard to change?
Click to expand...

If it's an ibook it does not have an intel chip. It cannot use boot camp. It could only run Windwos as a virtual machine which would be too slow and not worth it.
 
If it were an Intel, you could probably do it. Bootcamp Assistant is merely a partitioning application and has nothing to do with the actual functioning of Windows. For example, if reformatting/reinstalling your hard drive, you can set up a MS-DOS (FAT) partition on your drive through Disk Utility, and simply boot up to a Windows disk while holding down the C key. As long as the FAT partition is there (and maybe in the right place) it will boot from the disc.


For example, while booted to my Mac OS disc in prep for a reinstallation (ultimately to resize my Windows partition, I just decided to reinstall everything from scratch), I partitioned my drive with Disk Utility, set the bottom partition as MS-DOS, and named it BOOTCAMP (just in case, as that's what the BC Assistant does). After installing the Mac OS, I just inserted my XP disc and restarted to it with the C key.

So, theoretically, you could possibly set the entire drive as FAT, and then boot to the Windows disc after that. If not, setting 90% of the drive to FAT with just a base install of Mac OS X (of around 10GB).
 
Rhalliwell1 said:
cant even VM on PPC.
Click to expand...

Yes, you can with Virtual PC. Slow as heck, which is why I said it would not be worth it.

madog said:
If it were an Intel, you could probably do it. Bootcamp Assistant is merely a partitioning application and has nothing to do with the actual functioning of Windows. For example, if reformatting/reinstalling your hard drive, you can set up a MS-DOS (FAT) partition on your drive through Disk Utility, and simply boot up to a Windows disk while holding down the C key. As long as the FAT partition is there (and maybe in the right place) it will boot from the disc.


For example, while booted to my Mac OS disc in prep for a reinstallation (ultimately to resize my Windows partition, I just decided to reinstall everything from scratch), I partitioned my drive with Disk Utility, set the bottom partition as MS-DOS, and named it BOOTCAMP (just in case, as that's what the BC Assistant does). After installing the Mac OS, I just inserted my XP disc and restarted to it with the C key.

So, theoretically, you could possibly set the entire drive as FAT, and then boot to the Windows disc after that. If not, setting 90% of the drive to FAT with just a base install of Mac OS X (of around 10GB).
Click to expand...

It's not Intel, so this does nothing for the OP.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back