02-15-2010, 09:17 PM

Ok so I got a mac about a half year ago and am loving it. I decided that I wanted to be able to run Windows XP on the machine for occasional gaming and a few programs that stream basketball games that are not on Mac. So I got Parallels and it worked ok. For gaming it just didn't cut it though and I decided I want to partition the drive in boot camp.

The problem is that even though I have more than the 32g I want to give Windows it won't let me do it. I'm guessing that it needs continuous 32g of room which it does not have. Fine. So use Super Duper to clone my HD onto my external HD. but now what?

I think if I wipe out my original hard drive or reset it, I can then partition 32G to windows and then use SuperDuper to clone my MAC OSX HD back to the Mac side of the partition. Do I have to go out and get a copy of MAC OSX to do this?

Any help would be great. I'm on OSX 10.5.8 with 2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo and 4 GB 1067 MHz DDR3.

02-15-2010, 09:58 PM

I've been using Parallels fora while now, why would you possibly want to use BootCamp instead of that ?. If you use BootCamp on its own then its impossible to swap from one OS to the other with a reboot. At least you can swap using Parallels, seems a shame not to use the software since you've already bought it. So maybe if you could tell us why Parallels hasn't worked out we could go from there.

02-15-2010, 10:11 PM

Well while playing Civilization 3 it went slop and Tropico 3 was so slow I really couldn't play it. The Macbook is less than a year old and I have more than the standard RAM so I'm thinking I should be able to play these games. I'm hoping that I prefer bootcamp. Also, I never liked going back and forth on Parallels and it seemed to cause some problems staying connected to my wifi. I updated to Parallels 5 from 4 and lost my registration number so I only had a trial now. I already deleted parallels so I guess long story short, I'm done with it even if perhaps I could have gotten it to do what I needed.

02-15-2010, 10:15 PM

So I booted up in my external HD and tried to erase my internal HD (I'm guessing this is what I need to do) but it would not let me and I got an error saying that it could not unmount it. I a sort of unframiliar with the concept of mounting.

02-16-2010, 06:46 PM

Well I got Boot Camp to let me partition the drive. I got a free program called Disk Inventory X which shows your files by size and deleted a lot of the bigger files on my drive.

Now I found that I need a Windows XP with Service Pack 2. So I'm downloading that. I how that my keynumber for the XP I was running in parallels will work on this. Also I read that I will need to insert my my OSx disk which I do not have. I am assuming that I can download it from mac.com and that it will somehow know I have a legit copy and work for me.

If anyone can offer some advise it would be greatly appreciated. I've searched around and there doesn;t seem to be a lot of help on this particular problem.

02-16-2010, 07:41 PM

I'm not sure exactly what it is that you're doing but to me it sounds like you're going to need to purchase a copy of OS X, and maybe a copy of XP.

There is no legal way you can download a copy of OS X, and unless you're a university student somewhere who is authorized to download a copy of XP from their server, you can't legally download that either.

Regards.

02-16-2010, 07:59 PM

Well, I know with Windows, you can download a copy because you need to enter the validation number. so you really own that number, you can put it on what ever compiuter you want and you can download the OS. I'm assuming Mac works the same way. I bought the macbook at the apple store, idk why they didn't give me the disk for OSX but I own the copy thats on my computer right?

02-16-2010, 08:52 PM

If you own the license (product code) for a copy of Windows XP Home, then you can borrow the same copy from a friend, burn it, and use your product code to install. That's perfectly legal.

But OS X does not work that way. There are no product codes or activation involved. If you bought your Mac at an Apple store, then the disks were included. If they were not, go back to the store and ask for them.

As I stated before... there are no legal downloads of XP or OS X that are available except what I mentioned before about being a student and downloading from a university server. Neither Microsoft nor Apple allows their operating systems to be available via download. (Microsoft does allow downloading to special subscribers who have already paid for the licenses.)

Regards.

07-08-2012, 06:04 PM

Originally Posted by chscag

If you bought your Mac at an Apple store, then the disks were included. If they were not, go back to the store and ask for them.

Apple has changed this. The Macbook Pro I got new in December did not come with any recovery disks. Everything you need is on the hard drive or maybe online.
If you got your Mac new less than 365 days ago you may find that AppleCare or an Apple Store Genius will answer your questions. (And you should seriously consider buying AppleCare for help with software as well as hardware problems. (I did and found it always pays when you have a notebook computer.))
I also strongly advise you to get an external hard drive and SuperDuper! to make a clone copy of your hard drive. (A bare drive and an enclosure, if you are handy and want to try to save money.)
And I suggest you should go online and find the instructions for making a flash drive with a copy of the Lion installer you download from Mac App Store. It takes a long time to download and runs faster from a flash drive than from a DVD.

07-09-2012, 04:52 AM

If you are on (or upgrading to) Lion, then there is a perfectly legal $30 download from the Mac App Store, but you must of course be running the latest Snow Leopard (10.6.8) to get it.

The OP may well already BE on Lion and thus wouldn't have "recovery discs."

07-09-2012, 01:32 PM

The original thread is dated Feb 2010 and that was clearly before Lion.

I don't know why either of you are responding to a thread that is over two years old with information we already know? Please observe thread dates.

Thanks.