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Apple 10.4.11 Update Can Brick Macs With Boot Camp
g-san writes "Some Mac users are having problems with the latest 10.4.11 update, yours truly included. The problem seems to be caused by the presence of a Boot Camp partition and renders the Mac unable to reboot after the update fails. Note the Geniuses at the Apple stores are recommending a full disk wipe; but data can be recovered via Firewire." MacNN has a note up that if you fall victim to this "known issue" and need to reformat the disk, you can't reinstall Boot Camp because it is no longer available to OS X 10.4 Tiger users.
.....but I'd dispute that reinstalling an OS is routine....
With Macs, unlike Windows, it is definitely NOT routine. I wonder, does this update only screw up Macs that also have a Windows OS installed? From the article, it seems to be the case. Moral: If you want to run Windows, get a cheap Dell and be happy.
All theory is gray
And the fact it uses a BSD like kernel which is way more stable then any NT kernel, and it has true permissions that are horribly emulated in UAC of Vista, so misbehaving applications can't install tons of spyware and the like.
/. ? I'm sure if you scour the Mac forums long enough you'll run into a post where someone claims his Mac ate his cat because it was bothered by it playing with the mouse.
I'm assuming you've never even looked into the NT kernel. The original design is by far one of the best kernel designs I've ever looked at. NT was horribly crippled by Microsoft when it came to the desktop. NT has real permissions, but something else Microsoft decided to dumb down at is was shifted over to the desktop. No matter how you slice it, Mac IS more stable then windows BECAUSE the drivers are written in house. The BSD kernel is nice, but it alone doesn't make Mac inherently better then NT. I've had the kernel PANIC on a Mac before, they're not invulnerable. But I cannot think of a time which I have had either system PANIC/BSOD (Mac OSX and XP) for anything other then a third-party driver.
So back to the article... Since when are forum posts a legitimate article that should be posted on
If i had one dollar for every brain you dont have, i would have $1.
Huh?
The bootloader doesn't expire. The only thing that expired is the Boot Camp partitioning software. Existing boot camp partitions, and your ability to boot into them, are unaffected by Boot Camp Beta's expiry.
Repton.
They say that only an experienced wizard can do the tengu shuffle.
So here is my saga with Apple...
.Trash. They were VERy reluctant to do this, especially when I mentioned hooking my computer up to their computer and running the program.
.Trash and run installer. I cannot get to the directory due to file permissions (no root). They refuse to turn on root (even on an external hdd-installed OS!) so I can run the update. He then tells me it is time for me to go, and they can do no more.
I had this EXACT problem happen to me last week. I was stupid enough to click "yes" install the update I trusted to not brick my computer. After it did Brick, I was fortunate to search for the answer to fix it online BEFORE going to the "genius" bar. Once I got there, I told them it was while installing the update that the problems had occurred. They did not believe me that it was "Apple's fault". They said I would have to do an archive re-install of the whole system. I said I knew another way to fix it by manually running the update. I then asked them to boot up with my computer in target mode and try to manually install the update, which should be in my home directory's
However, he had a Leopard install on an external HDD that they were willing to "try", b/c they could not hook my computer up to anything elese without it "costing me $150 to check it in to the service center, and then they would probably just do an Archive Install.'" They could boot off an external HDD w/o charging me, however, they only had Leopard on the externals, NO Tiger. So he boots up, I need a command prompt to get to the
Now, my Tiger CDs are in another country. I have no access to them, my computer is bricked. I cannot go home and fix the problem myself (otherwise, I would never have gone to the store anyway!), and I cannot reinstall. I am in town for another couple weeks, and will not be with my Tiger CDs for months! I know the answer to the problem. I ask to borrow some Tiger CD so I can try to boot to the command prompt and update, or reinstall. They refuse. But for "$150, I can check it in and they will do an archive reinstall."
So I ask if they can just boot my computer on a Tiger CD so I can get a terminal and run the update. It won't take 5 minutes I say! He agrees to do "this one last thing, but then that is it, and I have to go."
He finally does it, I get a command prompt. I manually run Installer, choose my HDD, it updates, all works.
Point being? Apple "genius bar" is more like the "apple, don't have a clue bar." If I wouldn't have know the answer BEFORE I went there, and had the technical know-how and the guts for force them to let me do it, I would have walked out with a new "archive install" and $150 less in my wallet!
You obviously haven't tried to print to a Windows-shared printer with options like Landscape or n-up printing. Or you haven't tried to add a printer shared from an older Mac, since they turned off CUPS browsing by default in Leopard for no apparently good reason. You may also not have noticed how flaky connecting to SMB shared drives can be. Leopard most certainly does not _just work_ for everyone. I'm back on Tiger and at this point looks like I'll be staying until 10.5.2 at the earliest.
A hacked boot loader? If you are already using boot camp, you can continue to do so for as long as you desire. No hacks are required.
The only thing which 'expires' is the OS X GUI tool which helps you create a Windows partition or burn a Windows-on-a-Mac driver CD.
I can't say i share the experience of the 2 posters above - SMB is now better for me than it has been ever. So well in fact that it's annoying. I get all the windoze servers at my work place showing up automatically on every Finder window's "Server" section. Passwords to sever shares are now finally remembered properly and I continuously log in to these with no probems. Unless it was some other kind of ailment, i suspect these users may be the minority. My 2 cents...
I use Final Cut Pro HD 4.5 for video editing (from the studio bundle). I don't need anything more - I normally use Linux, I only have my Mac so I can do video editing - that is it's pure purpose. Unfortunately I had this machine on the Internet (so it was easier to get texts and research problems etc) and one day a security update went into Tiger and WOOPS! Final Cut Pro doesn't work properly any more (can't take in video without heavy lag (unusable))!
So I use a day researching it, and in the end I find this on Apple's web page: Ah, something broke, you have to upgrade to Final Cut Pro 5. WTF? They want me to pay $much just to continue using my already expensive equipment, for what use? I do not need any of the new features in FCP 5 (or 6), I'm totally fine with 4.5.
So now I have to disconnect it from the Internet, take backup of everything dear, wipe the thing clean and install everything from scratch. Gah, so stupid. Apple is a bad company like all companies. They shit at you while they can.
I noticed a change from the final beta of bootcamp to the production version of bootcamp shipping in Leopard. It appears that windows partitioning is done differently.
In the final bootcamp beta, you could delete and recreate the windows partition during the windows installation and still have a bootable installation of windows. Not so in the new (Leopard) version of bootcamp. If you delete the partition created by bootcamp and re-create the partition using the windows installer, your new install of windows will not boot. This usually results in a "hal.dll" error.
I ran into this problem with an unattended installation of Windows XP - my answer file was configured to delete the existing windows partition and recreate / reformat the partition .
I opened a ticket with Apple support, but I haven't gotten any explanations other than a confirmation of what I observed.
-ted