Bootcamp from ISO

Thundermoon1994 · Sep 12, 2007

I long ago lost my WinXP install disc. Thankfully, I did copy the disc image and wrotedown the serial number. It worked fine for Fusion, but I would like to create a BootCamp partition for windows for running games. In the BootCamp assistant, it says I need a CD or DVD with Windows. Will it be possible to istall XP from the ISO file or do I need to have it on a disc?

Thanks,
Damien

cwa107 · Sep 12, 2007

Thundermoon1994 said:
I long ago lost my WinXP install disc. Thankfully, I did copy the disc image and wrotedown the serial number. It worked fine for Fusion, but I would like to create a BootCamp partition for windows for running games. In the BootCamp assistant, it says I need a CD or DVD with Windows. Will it be possible to istall XP from the ISO file or do I need to have it on a disc?

Thanks,
Damien

You need to have it in disc form because when you install Windows via Boot Camp, it literally shuts your machine down and then attempts to boot from the physical disc for installation. Fortunately, ISO can be easily burned to disc. I use Roxio's Toast to burn ISOs, but I think you might be able to do it with Disk Utility too. The only problem would be if the ISO wasn't created with the boot binaries and structure intact.

Thundermoon1994 · Sep 13, 2007

Okay, I burned the ISO file to a DVD and I've verified that it's on there. When I start BootCamp, it says it can't find the Disc. Please help.

Thanks

cwa107 · Sep 13, 2007

Thundermoon1994 said:
Okay, I burned the ISO file to a DVD and I've verified that it's on there. When I start BootCamp, it says it can't find the Disc. Please help.

Thanks

XP never shipped on a DVD, so that might be part of it. Also, you don't want to burn the file as a standalone file on a disc. You need to actually use a utility that can extract an ISO and burn it as a complete disc with all the files contained therein.

I use Toast for this, but I think Disk Utility can do it too. See this tutorial.

Again, if the ISO wasn't created just the right way, the bootloader won't be present on the image. If that's the case, you need to remaster the ISO before you'll get a self-booting disc out of it. See this tutorial for details. Although it focuses on creating a slipstreamed disc, it also covers how to create an XP disc that is bootable.

Thundermoon1994 · Sep 13, 2007

It's weird, because I did exactly what it says in toast help and it ended up being an iso file on the disc.

Thundermoon1994 · Sep 13, 2007

cwa107 said:
XP never shipped on a DVD, so that might be part of it. Also, you don't want to burn the file as a standalone file on a disc. You need to actually use a utility that can extract an ISO and burn it as a complete disc with all the files contained therein.

I use Toast for this, but I think Disk Utility can do it too. See this tutorial.

Again, if the ISO wasn't created just the right way, the bootloader won't be present on the image. If that's the case, you need to remaster the ISO before you'll get a self-booting disc out of it. See this tutorial for details. Although it focuses on creating a slipstreamed disc, it also covers how to create an XP disc that is bootable.

So is there any way I can do the second part in Mac? I tried the first thing, but it still doesn't detect it. I guess I need to make it into a self-booting disc. How is this done?

cwa107 · Sep 13, 2007

Thundermoon1994 said:
So is there any way I can do the second part in Mac? I tried the first thing, but it still doesn't detect it. I guess I need to make it into a self-booting disc. How is this done?

You said you were using Toast. Did you actually try burning a CD with Toast? In Toast 8, you'll want to click 'Copy' and then 'Image file'. Open the image file and click the Record button. If the resulting disc doesn't work, then we know for sure that the ISO truly doesn't have all of the needed binaries to boot.

If that's the case, I think you're going to be out of luck unless you actually have a physical disc and a Windows machine to follow the tutorial with. Although I'm sure the same can be done on a Mac, all of the tutorials I've ever seen are geared toward Windows.

Thundermoon1994 · Sep 13, 2007

Well that's fantastic..........lol

Thundermoon1994 · Sep 14, 2007

I got it to work!!! What I had to do was make sure that the disk image was mounted and then actually use that as the source of the burn. *shrugs*

Thanks a lot for all you help!

cwa107 · Sep 14, 2007

Cool beans. No problem.

Chunchkinator · Sep 22, 2007

So I tried this, and it didn't work. I wasn't able to pick the ISO image.

cwa107 · Sep 22, 2007

Chunchkinator said:
So I tried this, and it didn't work. I wasn't able to pick the ISO image.

What exactly is it that you tried? There's quite a bit of things mentioned here.