bootcamp went well...win 7..not so well?

So I have Snow leopard installed on a new 27 inch imac i7 with 8 gigs of ram.

I used bootcamp to create a partition for a new win 7 installation. The partition went fine...did about 200 gigs out of a terabyte.

I then installed windows 7 through the bootcamp utility.

Windows 7 ultimate 64bit just didn't seem to want to complete. It would go HORRIBLY slow during the installtion (unpacking files) and finally would not get past the "starting windows for the first time". It would either stay at that screen indefinitely or, as is the case now, the screen goes black. I have to manually reset the computer.

1. Now, while this was all happening, when I reset, I just needed to hold the command key and I could load the OSX instead of the windows setup. (although if I did NOT hold in the command key..the default seemed to be the win 7 partition).

2. NOW my problem is worse . Last night the power went out and my computer turned off (I generally have it on). When I turned it back on, it only lets me load the defunct win 7 partition (meaning straight to a black screen after saying it's "loading windows"). The command key does nothing to allow me to see both Operating systems.

I did nothing odd in between 1 and 2..other than the black out. Any advice?

-El Gaucho

Have you tried holding down the "Option" key on a reboot? If your Snow Leopard partition is OK, you should see an icon for booting the MacIntosh HD.
Once you get back into Snow Leopard, go to System Preferences, Startup, and select your MacIntosh HD as the default boot. After that we can deal with trying to install Windows 7.

Regards.

Thank you for replying =)

I thought the "command" key WAS the "option" key. The one with the apple symbol on it. Well, that doesn;t show me an option to choose which partition to boot from.

This is what I tried.

I kept rebooting into the defunct win 7 partition...so I reinserted the win 7 dvd (it was not in the drive while having these issues)...did a new install (format for ntfs and everything). The same would continue to happen. Now I couldn't get the cd out.

I read if i hold in the mouse button while loading, it will eject the cd. I did so, and not only did I eject the cd, but OSX booted (without any option to choose though).

So, back into OSX, I deleted the bootcamp partition through bootcamp. Then redid a new partition, and tried installed Win 7. No luck. The same thing was happening again (rebooting to a black screen while not giving me an option while holding in the "command" key.

Then I repeated the mouse trick to return to OSX, deleted the bootcamp partition, and tried a NEW partition. This time I tried a Win XP CD. Now when I load the pc, I still do not get an option to choose my partition on boot when holding the command key. I do get a new error though, instead of a black screen...I get a message stating something about a disk error in dos.

Hmph...would be nice to be able to install SOMETHING with bootcamp...

The "command" key is not the "option" key. The key that says "alt" is the option key, (the key directly to the left of the command key) so I'm not sure exactly what was happening when you were pressing the command key.

In any event, it looks like you need to start over. I suggest installing Windows 7 rather than XP. An XP installation has to be accomplished using the correct version.

Acceptable versions of XP: MS boxed full install of XP SP2 or 3, or OEM System Builder's full install of XP SP2 or 3. Other versions do not work, or can be troublesome and fail during installation.

Also - see the following LINK for resolving the "black screen" problem you had when installing Windows 7.

Regards.

Thank you!

Thank you very much chscag for your help!

So what I ended up doing was deleting the windows 7 and xp partition and starting all over with boot camp once again.

This time I used one of the links that chscag supplied that used a USB drive method for updating the drivers during the win 7 installation.

So far, worked like a charm. Through many updates and finally using the OSX cd to install bootcamp in win 7, everything is working normally.

Much obliged!

Great to hear!

Enjoy your dual boot machine and have fun.

Regards.

wow l read all the journey you made with installation l am using snow leopard and win 7 32 bit together too! its really great. l didnt have those problems luckily..but my problem was l have forgotten to install drivers from snow leopard dvd..l guess audio problem was because of that..l solved it with installingand then upgrading from the apple site in case if you have. good luck and enjoy your systems! having problems make us remember the value of using computers without anything bad eh