Omg Please Help

Well, I was trying to install Windows XP via Bootcamp and it wasn't working so I decided to delete a couple of partitions during the Windows installation (when it asks you what partition you want to use and if you want to format it NTFS or FAT, blah blah..) so I deleted a couple of small partitions (200 mB or so) not thinking it would affect my Leopard OS. I then formatted the Bootcamp partition to NTFS. The XP install worked fine, but I am no longer able to boot Leopard. Holding the Option key during startup does nothing, even with a Tiger or Leopard install disc inserted. I have precious data/apps on the Leopard partition so if anyone has any suggestions I would appreciate it very much.

Thanks

-SwItCh- said:

Well, I was trying to install Windows XP via Bootcamp and it wasn't working so I decided to delete a couple of partitions during the Windows installation (when it asks you what partition you want to use and if you want to format it NTFS or FAT, blah blah..) so I deleted a couple of small partitions (200 mB or so) not thinking it would affect my Leopard OS. I then formatted the Bootcamp partition to NTFS. The XP install worked fine, but I am no longer able to boot Leopard. Holding the Option key during startup does nothing, even with a Tiger or Leopard install disc inserted. I have precious data/apps on the Leopard partition so if anyone has any suggestions I would appreciate it very much.

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You could try booting from the Leopard install disc to fix the disk:
- put the install disk it in your drive and restart your mac holding down the 'C' key until your machine boots from the disc
- a screen will appear asking you to start the OS X install, you don’t want to do that.
- look in the menu for the Disk Utility option and run that
- the installer will quit open up Disk Utility.
- click on the repair disk and repair permissions options

Sounds like you wiped your Leopard's primary or supporting partitions. UNIX-based OSes often have multiple partitions that are otherwise unnoticed by the user, but used for things like the swap file. This is why Apple designed the Boot Camp Assistant in the way they did - to minimize the potential of mistakes like this.

You would be best advised to boot from your Leopard System Disc, and do a full Erase and Install, scrapping the Windows partition for now. Then, when finished allow the Boot Camp Assistant to do the heavy lifting.

Oh Well..

Thanks guys, but when I boot from CD (holding C) there is only the Bootcamp partition and no option to restore/repair my dear old friend Mr.Leopard. So, after beating the stupidity out of myself I will continue with a fresh install of Leopard and attempt the Bootcamp install without deleting any partitions.

Thanks again for your suggestions.

This is what happens when you over-think things ;P