Boot camp black screen

wordsman · #1 August 25th, 2008, 04:31 AM

I just re-installed Mac OSX on my MacBook Air, then installed Windows XP Pro via Boot Camp. But I've not been able to boot XP yet because when I boot to Windows in Boot Camp I just get a black screen and 'Disk error. Press any key to restart'. No keys respond and I have to press the power button for 10sec to get anywhere. I can get back to Mac by holding the Option key when I reboot. I installed from a genuine XP Pro disk with SP2.

any ideas!

thanks

Frida · #2 August 25th, 2008, 11:57 PM

What type of XP Pro disks are you using? BootCamp needs a retail version of XP. I got the same black screen using a Dell XP disk. I had to buy an OEM version of XP Pro, which is identical to the retail version (which you can't get anymore).

Also, to be sure that XP will install properly, after setting up the partition using BootCamp, when asked if you want to format the partition as NTFS, FAT or leave partition as is, choose FAT if you want to access the PC files in OSX. Otherwise choose NTFS which XP allegedly runs best under. Apple recommend you don't leave the partition unchanged. It is best to format the partition from within Windows than to let BootCamp do it.

wordsman · #3 August 26th, 2008, 11:53 AM

thanks Frida. It's a retail disk and it's worked before. However i did let window leave the partition unchanged, so I'll have a go at setting it up again and let you know how I get on.

cheers

waiting_for_OSX · #4 September 13th, 2008, 04:17 AM

I bought a Mac Mini yesterday and I attempted to install Windows XP with SP2, which I have used previously and successfully with bootcamp on my first generation MBP. I have the exact same problem as the poster above on my new Mac Mini.

nixgeek · #5 September 13th, 2008, 07:01 AM

To all of you having these problems with Boot Camp, if you're running Tiger please be aware that the Boot Camp that ran on Tiger was a beta and no longer works. The final version of Boot Camp is included with Leopard and will only work with Leopard.

Frida · #6 September 13th, 2008, 10:31 PM

Does it strike anyone else as odd that we, who use Macs because they are more reliable and safer than PCs, are getting frustrated when we have problems installing Windows on them? It's like stabbing yourself with a fork while complaining about it hurting!