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Boot Camp Flaw Leaves Some Users Fuming
Karl Cocknozzle writes "Some users who chose to install Apple's recent beta-offering of Boot Camp without basic precautions (like a full backup) have found themselves unable to boot their Macs to OS X. In a discussion thread on Apple's technical support Web site, more than a dozen users reported that Boot Camp successfully partitioned their hard drive and allowed them to install a working version of Windows, but then would no longer allow them to switch back. The download-agreement page for Boot Camp contains the explicit warning that Boot Camp is still 'Beta' software, and would not be supported if problems arose. On the whole, it sounds like the number of affected users is quite small, but may reflect a common lack of knowledge of what a 'beta' release really is: Not ready for prime-time."
I wonder how many of them simply didn't read the instructions that say "Hold Option/Alt down during boot up to switch". I know my boot camp defaults to windows. Minor problem easily overcome.
There is a big difference though. The issue with dual booting is usually either:
a)Windows overwrote the MBR and doesn't know how to boot any other OS
b)Linux or other bootmanager overwrote MBR and doesn't know how to boot windows (this is far less common nowadays but we all remember when it was huge problem)
or
c)You chose to install the linux boot manager NOT in the MBR, and the windows boot manager in the MBR takes precedent, so you reboot and go right in to windows.
With Boot Camp this is different, apple is emulating BIOS inside their own EFI boot manager, so the windows bootloader has no chance of ever affecting the OS X install. This is a bug in apples boot software that is affecting apples OS, not some other OS's software affecting another OS.