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."

I wonder...

[dev_sda]

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.

Early adopters get burned again

[Junky191]

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?

Heh...

[rAiNsT0rm]

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!

Ok...

[thefirelane]

Ok, So obviously, if you install beta software which repartitions your drive, without backing up... your fault.

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'?

Didn't Follow Directions ... ?

[MidKnight]

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.

Re:And this make the news?

[shotfeel]

AFAIK, no user data was lost. Boot from CD/DVD or in target disk mode and procede.

Re:And this make the news?

[mikeal]

There is a big difference though. The issue with dual booting is usually either:

a)Windows overwrote the MBR and doesn't know how to boot any other OS
b)Linux or other bootmanager overwrote MBR and doesn't know how to boot windows (this is far less common nowadays but we all remember when it was huge problem)
or
c)You chose to install the linux boot manager NOT in the MBR, and the windows boot manager in the MBR takes precedent, so you reboot and go right in to windows.

With Boot Camp this is different, apple is emulating BIOS inside their own EFI boot manager, so the windows bootloader has no chance of ever affecting the OS X install. This is a bug in apples boot software that is affecting apples OS, not some other OS's software affecting another OS.

Re:priceless quotes

[Babbster]

My favorite part: "I am speaking as a career software developer and lifelong Apple devotee. But i'm not touching boot camp again while in Beta and will still be wary beyond that."

Hi, career software developer! Nice job screwing up something that most non-software developers seem to have had no trouble with! And the fact that you knew it was in beta and are still whining like a little bitch? Priceless!

Seriously, though, I have to say that I think Apple did exactly the right thing in releasing this software, even if it is imperfect. There were too many people determined to dual-boot Windows, and who were willing to do so in "hack" fashion, for Apple to ignore and leave out in the cold. While I'm sure they're still having to deal with support calls on this, I think it would have been much worse had they waited six months while user after user used completely unsupported third-party solutions to get the job done. And, if folks are wary of Boot Camp still being beta, they benefit from the early release as well, in the sense that they now know that Apple is working on a solution that will be available in the next big OSX release. Considering Apple usually keeps their info top secret until actual release, that seems uncharacteristically open of them.

Re:Well...

[TFGeditor]

You call it PPP: Pre-Production Prototype

Re:And this make the news?

[NutscrapeSucks]

Installing Windows after Linux/BSD is really not very difficult. All you need to do is run four or five obscure Unix commands, which is situation normal for Linux/BSD users.

Re:Partitioning

[SanityInAnarchy]

My Linux labels partitions just fine, and I'm sure OS X does too. It's probably that Windows doesn't label them as OS X partitions.

So, if you can't bring yourself to blame the users, blame MS, not Apple. It's not a Boot Camp bug, as it's not something that Boot camp could ever fix on its own.