Bootcamp Gone Wrong

Ok guys, I need some help on this. I think I may have accidentally wiped out my friends HDD on his macbook pro while trying to install bootcamp. So basically, here's what happened: I was trying to install bootcamp on his mac. I inserted the Windows XP Professional CD, it took me to the bootcamp hard drive partition app. I completed it and created a 32 GB partition. Then I attempted to install Windows to that partition. Everything seemed to be going ok and everything finished fine. It then restarted, after restarting it asked me if I wanted to boot from the CD, thinking that I didn't really want to, after all I had already installed Windows, I let it sit for a bit. So then it kind of just froze. I shut it down, rebooted, and this time pressed a key when it asked me to boot from the CD. It then took me back to the install Windows on this partition manager. Thinking that this was a bit odd, I reinstalled it, it rebooted and it asked me to do it a third time. Severely confused by this I shut it down, restarted, removed the disk and then restarted again, only to be greeted by a white screen with a blinking folder and a question mark. I think that I may have wiped his hard drive because when I use the MAC OS dvd to boot into mac, it doesn't show his main hard drive as having a name, which, theoretically if nothing happened, it should list it as like Macintosh HD or something. So needless to say I'm a bit worried that I may have just completely screwed him over. And I didn't back anything up at the start, which I should have, but I was impatient, and they didn't back any of their stuff up either. So I was just wondering if anyone could help me try to figure out what happened. I've looked at some of the support guides online at apple.com but I'm afraid they are not much help. So please any help is appreciated. Thanks again.

 

YOu probably installed it the second time on top of the wrong partition and it reformatted it to something Windows can use. Hope you have a backup... Its always best to have a backup before ever messing with partitions.

 

Was kind of thinking that was the case. That's actually what the Apple tech guy said on the phone. I'm almost positive that was not the case, but it very well may have been. And I didn't back it up =/. So I'm SOL at the moment unless I can somehow recover his data.

 

well done.

 

-___- Indeed.

 

I guess this is a word of warning to others- messing with partitions is the easiest way to accidentally lose all your data.

It's probably best to set up bootcamp with the clean install process. Back up everything, do a clean install of OS X, set up bootcamp and do a clean install of windows.

 

If I ever get his data back, I will do exactly that. Provided he lets me touch his macbook again...

 

When you boot off the OSX disc and run Disk Utility, what partitions does it list on the drive... size, type, etc...

 

The important thing is to remain confident. Look your friend in the eye, laugh maniacally, and repeat these words exactly:

"It looks like my work here is done. You can expect bill in the mail."

No, but seriously, get a recovery disk and look at the partitions. You might have overwritten the wrong partition. It happens. I've done it.

Yes indeed, even with expertise, and the best partition manager and the easiest graphic installer, anyone can install to the wrong partition in a moment of inattention.

 

when there is no disk in the drive, if you turn the computer on while holding the option key what comes up. is there an OSX option.

The main reason many windows installations fail is because after you create the windows boot partition in the mac os environment then reboot with the windows install disk is you have to format the bootcamp partition. you cant simply choose the bootcamp disk then install. the only disk that should be formatted is the one that says bootcamp. its obvious imho.

with any luck your friend has a time machine backup.