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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."
While it is interesting . . . but if you have ever tried dual booting with Windows the first couple of times you always find out that Windows will boot and the other operating system is screwed up. I mean seriously - when has dual booting with Windows "ever" worked out of the box? It seeks always to dominate and does not ever like to share.
And people, people, please figure out what a beta is... sheesh.
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What a way to welcome users to Windows, with an introduction to our friend, Fdisk, as in now your disk is 'f'ed!
Anyhow, it is unfortunate, and hopefully it will be fixed shortly.
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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.
Film at 11. Honestly how could people not anticipate these sorts of things based on the long-established pattern of problems with being among the first adopters of a new hardware/software system?
This is easily every mac user's worst nightmare.
Turning on your shiny new iMac to see it boot into windows no matter what you do.... the horror!
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
Caveat freakin' emptor.
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I've got an Intel Mac, and I've been trying to decide between using Boot Camp or XOM. I'd prefer XOM just because it's Free Software, but it seems like Boot Camp has more momentum among users. Does anyone know what the particular differences between the two are, and which one is better? In particular (to stay on-topic), is XOM likely to cause the same problem mentioned in the article?
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Boot Camp is a highly educational product from the sadistic^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H mind of Steve Jobs. Those users came looking for an authentic Windows experience, and Apple delivered!
Do you like German cars?
Wow! I am like TOTALLY SHOCKED that something that Apple says is *beta* and that they refuse to, at this time, provide technical support for, is buggy!
After reading this thread, I was totally amazed at how many of the people didn't bother to back up their disk before installing something that alters your system's hard disk partitions. Duh. What do you expect?
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At least with these guys they have the option of doing an erase and install to restore their software to the way it was before. Some people are not able to boot their computers any more without using the firmware restore CD.
Please, please, please, before trying this type of stuff, RTFM...
One of these days i'm going to find this 'peer' guy and reset HIS connection!
Really, this is Google's fault for releasing a series of very well understood, usable, secure, nearly flawless applications all under the "Beta" name!
Karl Cocknozzle writes: ...common lack of knowledge of what a 'beta' release really is: Not ready for prime-time.
I take it Karl doesn't work for google?
:wq
I just got my Intel iMac yesterday, and I installed Boot Camp and Windows on it. I am willing to be that what happened was these users didn't know what they were doing. When you use Boot Camp to install XP, Windows exposes the entire partition table when you are installing, which includes a couple of small system partitions. Chances are these users didn't understand that those partitions were necessary and they deleted them while they were installing Windows. It's not Windows' fault, it's ID10T error.
It is funny on a couple levels, but in reality it is BETA software and has never been made out to be any different. News outlets and the media in many places did make it out to be a final product and I can see where a lot of people could have been led to believe so... but in the end it is what it is.
I just like the fact that it gets stuck in Windows... I mean if you're going to have a bug at least make sure your users aren't stuck in the competitions OS!
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Elsewhere it was conjectured that these people had actually installed Windows XP over OS X.
We're obviously going to hear a lot of that
A more interesting question: Is Google to blame?
Before everyone jumps on me, I mean this: Most people don't know the history of the term 'beta'... so their first exposure to it is through Google (where it is primarily used as a marketing term). To most people, in its context, it is just interpreted as 'new'.
To most people, does beta now just mean 'new'?
I attribute this largely to the dilution of the term itself, personally. The introduction of Web 2.0 seems to have convinced many users that "beta" now indicates that production quality software has arrived, but the developer would rather not be held liable for defects. It is quickly becoming shorthand for "use at your own risk."
Maybe Apple should have referred to Boot Camp as alpha software.
Do you like German cars?
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
I heard that many of the "fuming" early adopters (which in itself is pretty silly) simply didn't follow the instructions closely enough, and ended up repartitioning their entire drive... including the existing partition that had OS X installed on it.
Apparently the world-will-make-a-better-idiot maxim has been proven right yet again. This sort of a mistake typically isn't even possible on non-beta Apple-provided software; I bet that idiot-proofing is somewhere on the post-beta software development schedule
I wonder if anyone who actually followed the directions closely have this problem.
Someone should go to their door and kick them squarely in the nuts for being idiots.
It's BETA folks, means it might break things. Back up your data if you absolutely must play with it.
Hell, back up your data anyway.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
It happened to a friend of mine. He purchased a HFS+ driver for Windows (Mac Drive). Upon installing the driver, he managed to mount the Mac partition under Windows and recover his personal files.
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.
From reading the posts at the Apple discussion forums, it looks like the problem has something to do with the partitioning and/or a corrupted swapfile.
OK, I'll grant that some mac users are as dumb as you are implying, but if you read the thread I posted above, you'll see that not all of the people with this problem are complete idiots.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
And we can put this squarely at Google's feet for perverting the meaning of "Beta". Honestly.
Sure, users need to take some responsibility for their actions, and having a clue. But the idea that beta bight be buggy but still basically works just fine is a direct result of Google's perpetual Betaware.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
I installed BootCamp on my MBP with lots of free space on the HD. It killed my OS X partition. But I didn't lose anything since I had made a backup. I lost an hour of time but that was it.
Course, now that most things are released as beta software, we should probably think of a new term to really mean beta. People seem to treat beta as 1.0 releases and get mad when things go wrong.
It's no wonder people are confused. Beta doesn't seem to mean "testing" any longer, it just means great product with a greek letter attached. Or at least that is what I have learned by surfing around at Google.
I thought this happened to me. But it turned out that the Startup Disk control panel in Windows only worked once I booted at least once into OSX via the option key. I wonder if others had that happened. I was pretty scared because I, like an idiot, didn't back everything up. But now I have Age of Empires III goodness going when I get bored.
This Alpha branding may be part of their blessed strategy: "I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Jobs." iRevelation, 1:8
I just installed the Boot camp yesterday and have Windows on a Mac Mini. Part of that process required me to resize Mac OSX partition to make room for the Windows partition. Then it takes me to the Windows installer which has to format the new partition (Boot Camp doesn't do it) to Fat32 or NTFS before installtion can begin. The windows installer displays the partitions on the disc but it can differentiate the Mac OSX partion from the one for Windows. So, if someone split the drive down the middle during Boot Camp, he/she won't be able to recognized the right partition and they can easily reformat the one with Mac OSX. My suggestion is to partition the drive with two that are of unequal size. Use that to identify the drive during installation.
You don't have to be smart to use a Mac, you just have to be smart enough to buy one
How's the saying go "Apple makes Macs large so their users won't accidentally insert them into their anus, and makes the corners round in case they manage to do so anyway"?
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The Alpha was probably internal to Apple, and the Beta was public.
Apple's slick boot camp website
This is not the layout or speak of a piece of beta software. It is a marketting page.
The top titles are:
"Macs do Windows, too"
"As elegant as it gets"
"Included Amenities"
I have no experience beyond my own installation, but the steps were to update the firmware, partition, then install. Each step is possibly disasterous, but the install was what almost got me. Good thing I've done more than one XP installation in the past. You know how the XP installation goes, if there's no XP/NTFS-ish partition, the XP installer asks which partition you want to reformat. My Mac Partition showed up highlighted, and not the new XP partition. The new XP partition was all the way at the bottom of the list of partitions. I ALMOST hit return and almost destroyed my MacOS X installation! I can see how a lot of people would make that same mistake. My problem, therefore, was really with the Windows installer, and my own lack of careful reading.
Where's the dude who always bitches that Ubuntu is a horrible, horrible distro because it "made his machine inaccessable"--that is, he was a dumbass and didn't backup, plus he was beligerant toward those in the community who tried to help, plus he lacks the basic knowledge to install ANY OS, let alone try a dual-boot Linux/Windows installation.
Maybe if he reads this, he'll realize that things can ALWAYS go wrong when installing a second OS, even on the reputedly uber-stable and very homogenous Mac platform. It's a process that should be reserved for those who are either very knowledgable or very cautious, if not both. Maybe he'll stop popping up in nearly every Ubuntu thread, re-telling his stupid story.
I'm not holding out much hope.
I was installing Boot Camp on my MacBook. And it was, like, "beep beep beep beep beep".
....
... a bummer.
And then, like, half my operating systems were gone. And I was, like,
It was a really good operating system, you know?
So I had to install OS X all over again.
It was, kinda
I'm Ellen Fleiss, and I'm an early adopter.
Tuus crepidae innexilis sunt.
The real problem I've seen lately is companies taking glorified betas (with lots of serious bugs) and passing them off as finished products. Passing off nearly finished products as beta is just fine in my book, by comparison.
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Once you go windows you never go back.
I can throw a one hundred thousand pound walrus right through a brick wall.
Come on, people, get with the program. Anyone who uses Windows knows that *all* versions are initially released as a public Beta. It took XP until Service Pack 2 to finally come out of Beta.
So, it's perfectly understandable that someone trying to put Windows on a Mac would think Apple means the same thing as Microsoft when it says something is a "beta".
Sheesh!
"My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right." --Senator Carl Schurz (1872)
hm. i thought it was
:)
Backup
Everything
Then
Apply.
that's always worked for me
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The first page of the instructions covers all the beta and backup warnings. All they need to do is place this information somewhere on the product information page:
"Warning: Boot Camp Beta is preview software licensed for use on a trial basis for a limited time. Do not use Boot Camp Beta in a commercial operating environment or with important data. You should back up all of your data before installing this software and regularly back up data while using the software. Your rights to use Boot Camp Beta are subject to acceptance of the terms of the software license agreement that accompanies the software."
Backup is part of daily computer use. Those without an automated backup solution are those who will lose data, whether they're re-partitioning, or they experience a hardware failure. That's just the way it goes.