Want a Challenge?

I recently purchased a MacBook and I love it. I'm new to macs, but I quickly learned how to manipulate it and work the system how I want. I love it so far.

Yesterday I tried to bootcamp it but apparently something has gone terribly wrong. I now have a messed up flipper baby of a computer. Part Mac, Part PC.

On startup, I used to get the error screen with the flashing folder with the question mark, now, I get a windows start black screen that asks me where to boot from. When I insert the Mac OSX install disk, and hold down the C key, everything starts good until I get to the "Select a Destination" screen where there are no options for selection.

What happened? I believe that when the system partitioned, and formated my hard drive, it's formated everything, not just the partitioned section.

There is no accessible hard drive on the computer that I know to access. All I have are the two startup disks I received with the MacBook. I am under Warranty.

Please help. I'll be on and off all day to answer questions and try suggestions you may have.

Hi.

This has not happened to me, but I have heard of others who it happened for.

1) Apparently, what you supposedly need to do is to use Windows Setups disk partition tool or any Windows partition tool and REMOVE all partitions, but not create new ones. The reason for this is that Windows assumes a different partition scheme than MacOS X and so MacOS X cannot read the partition table when Windows has partitioned it, hence your seeming lack of partitions.

If you are unable to remove the partitions, you can try #2 below.

2) In the OS X Installer, after choosing language, instead of continuing the installation, go to the menu at the top left and open Disk Utility. Then you will need to erase/wipe all partitions. You may create your Mac and Windows partitions here while at it though, if you like.

On an side note:
Did you buy your Macbook used? Do you know how old it is?
When you get your Mac up and running, please open Apple menu -> About this Mac -> More Info and tell us what you get about info on it. That can help us find out if there's firmware updates or something you might need.
Otherwise, during bootcamp installation, it is usually crucial that you just choose the partition you want to install Windows on and do absolutely nothing else.

Windows Vista SP1 and Windows Server 2008 are able to read this new partition scheme and also supports/are increasingly going to be using it as their default partition scheme as well on emerging PC systems and servers. End user PC world and Windows XP isnt't there yet though.

Side note: as this question is one that at least I have noticed lately, if its not too much trouble I would appreciate it if you changed the subject to something more descriptive of the situation, like "Bootcamp Windows Installation ate my entire harddrive" or similar

This could help other users

She works!
Thank you.

Glad to hear it