So i currently own a macbook pro (late 2008 model) with an upgrade of 4 gigs of ram. I am thinking about switching over to bootcamp because I am a producer and alot of the programs I want to use are for PC only. My first question is after installing windows am i going to have reinstall all my music production software and will i be able to use the software on both my Mac OSX and Windows? Also I have a 1TB external drive..will I be able to have access to this on my mac and bootcamp? Lastly when partitioning my drive how much space should I have free on my Internal HD ( I currently only have about 80 Gb left free).
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New Bootcamp user questions???
- Thread starter bjkirkendall
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What OS X version are you running? Which version of Windows are you planning to use in Boot Camp? Are you currently using a VM solution for your Windows only software?
It might help if you tell us what specific software you are asking about and how you are using it now.
read access certainly. Read write will require either reformatting the drive in FAT32/exFAT or installing a third party read-write driver for NTFS or HFS+. Note that these can lead to data corruption and data loss. SO make sure you have a good backup plan.
That depends on how much space you want to give your new Boot Camp partition, and how little space you may have had in the past. You may need to defrag your partition to make room for Windows.
If your current drive is smaller than 500 GB, you may just want to consider spending the US$60 to buy a brand new 500 Gb drive and install that as part of your upgrade.
B
I am currently running 10.5.8 software...I plan on using windows xp because my understanding is i have to have snow leapord in order to use windows 7 right? I am currently not using any VM solution, just running OSX by itself. Also regarding my 1Tb drive...it is fairly new and its a Seagate. When i first installed it asked if i wanted to format it for mac or for pc/mac...unfortunatly i chose mac..but this should be fairly easy to change correct?
Do you already have an XPSP2 license you can dedicate to your Mac? If not you may have a hard-ish time finding one.
Snow Leopard provides the drivers you need for W7, but you don't actually need to install it.
Your OS X will not be affected by installing Windows, so whatever software you currently have installed will stay installed. You'll have to install whatever you need in Windows, but since you already said it's Windows only it shouldn't share a license with an OS X version. So I don't understand your concerns.
The hard part about reformatting the drive is you need to move the data elsewhere first. So at some point getting another drive or installing MacDrive becomes easier.
B
Do you already have an XPSP2 license you can dedicate to your Mac? If not you may have a hard-ish time finding one.
Yes I do for an older pc that I have.
Your OS X will not be affected by installing Windows, so whatever software you currently have installed will stay installed. You'll have to install whatever you need in Windows, but since you already said it's Windows only it shouldn't share a license with an OS X version. So I don't understand your concerns.
I am going to be using some windows only software...but I also have alot of virtual instruments installed on my MacOSX. Most these instruments have around 50GB libraries that i have installed on my external hd. I was just worried that I wasnt going to be able to use the software on both bootcamp and OSX...but i guess i can just reinstall windows version of my software on bootcamp and then still use the libraries from my external drive right?
The hard part about reformatting the drive is you need to move the data elsewhere first. So at some point getting another drive or installing MacDrive becomes easier.
Well i do have an older 250 gb external hd....so would it be possible to move it all there and then move it back when im done without screwing anything up?
By the way thanks for all your help! I really appreciate you takin the time to help me out!
Yes I do for an older pc that I have.
Your OS X will not be affected by installing Windows, so whatever software you currently have installed will stay installed. You'll have to install whatever you need in Windows, but since you already said it's Windows only it shouldn't share a license with an OS X version. So I don't understand your concerns.
I am going to be using some windows only software...but I also have alot of virtual instruments installed on my MacOSX. Most these instruments have around 50GB libraries that i have installed on my external hd. I was just worried that I wasnt going to be able to use the software on both bootcamp and OSX...but i guess i can just reinstall windows version of my software on bootcamp and then still use the libraries from my external drive right?
The hard part about reformatting the drive is you need to move the data elsewhere first. So at some point getting another drive or installing MacDrive becomes easier.
Well i do have an older 250 gb external hd....so would it be possible to move it all there and then move it back when im done without screwing anything up?
By the way thanks for all your help! I really appreciate you takin the time to help me out!