Ugh...

I bought a Macbook Pro and all was well. I used multiple partitions in case something happened to one, I could just boot into another. However, a friend wanted to play a game I only had a windows copy for, so I used bootcamp to install windows on my mac.

I thought, "oh I don't need any anti-malware software... it's only for the weekend.." So I installed the game and we were trying to network our computers for gaming. Now I had used my Windows XP software on more computers than I was permitted and had a fun conversation trying to get it activated.

The microsoft customer service rep was like, "how many computers have you installed this software on?" My first reply was "3". He said, "How many?!"
"Uh... two?"
"Two? You've broken the agreement--"
"Oh wait! Sorry, I musunderstood! Uh... one computer... yeah, that's it. One computer that I'm re-installing it on!"

Anyway, so I get all set up but as everyone knows, networking can be a nightmare. In the process I let my firewall down for a few moments while we were trying to get the computers to communicate and suddenly I got ebombed with spam.

I panicked and shut the computer down. Problem is, now it doesn't start at all. It goes on like it's going to boot into Mac OS X but then screen goes black where it normally booted into Win XP. I can't even get a menu up. If you don't know how bootcamp works, basically, you tell it to restart in the other OS while in the current one, not choose before it loads.

I have a warranty on it, but I don't want to chance losing everything I have on OS X, besides, bootcamp, while made by Apple, isn't covered by warranty. Yet, I've tried using the OS software and it doesn't do any good. And if I open the damn thing up to get to it's hard drive, I void the expensive warranty. Any suggestions?

I'm not in the MAC camp, but I'd imagine they have some sort of emergency boot thing built in (I say "thing" as I know mac's don't come with floppies anymore).

In trolling google (Terms: bootcamp +emergency +mac) I came accross this which basically states that you can use a windows bootdisk to boot into windows on an intel-mac; so you should head over and grab a copy of the "ultimate boot disk" and try to boot your way into window$.

I greatly appreciate the info, Gizmo! It was a pain but I managed to create the CD without errors, after several attempts. However, my Mac didn't boot on the CD, it refused to boot on any CD. I was hoping this would be different, but apparently not.

There are some really great tools on that disc though, and it may be my saving grace yet. I'm going to attempt to boot the computer from an external source (external HDD or my other comp.). If I can get it to fire up, I'm sure I'll be able to recover it using these tools. Let me know if you come across a really good data recovery site or something.

I'll let you know how it turns out.

On "non-mac" pc's we hav to specify a boot order in our bios; likely the same there

Unfortunately, no bios related screen comes up (system dies before the screen would normally appear). But I'll keep an eye out for such a menu option when I attempt my external boot.

Weird lol... As you can tell I'm grasping at straws here; I've never really played with a mac except during school and when I was at Adobe... though that was pre-intel-mac's so runnin window$ in it wasn't a necessity (though I'm sure now they've likely cut the windwo$ machine's everyone had at their desks out of the picture and have a triboot of XP/MacOS9 and MacOSX

Well, basically, how I had my Mac configured, it begins to boot in Mac OS X, then before anything but a white screen appears, it switches to windows and boots how you'd normally see the PC boot.

Mac OS X is so unlike any Mac OS before it, revolutionary even, that there is absolutely no reason to install windows. However, I'm a PC user recently crossed over (though still big time PC user) and have some old apps for windows that I didn't want to take the time to replace with Mac apps (aka, that damn videogame and some adobe software). So, as the story goes, here I am.

Mac OS 9 is in a nutshell, obsolete. And with Mac OS X's new release, I'm getting antsy to get back up and running on my Mac. Not to mention I have my whole freaking digital life stored there.

Anyway, still researching data recovery... between exam studying and self teaching HTML... gee I feel like such a newbie!! I wish I would have gotten into this crap when I was 12 or something like everyone else!

I'm beginning to ramble, time for another 24oz Full Throttle.

Alright,

My Macbook Pro is up and running!! I'll let you know how in case someone runs into this problem in the future. I went onto Apple's website (like I should have done first thing, since it is an Apple product **kicks self hard enough to break a leg**) and asked the same question I did here.

Ironically, some retired guy, probably older than my grandpa, says, "Hold down the option key while you start the machine. Don't let off until the computer finishes making it's start up sound. Then choose the partition to boot from."

I'm a freaking idiot!! LMAO! Seriously, I've not used my Mac in over a week just because I was searching the web for things like, "Mac crashes, has windows installed, need to reboot but can't cause the machine just goes to black screen and won't do anything regardless of OS disc or anything else that I try while losing sleep and taking medication" (slight exaggeration).

Well I guess the simple answer is usually the right one. Who would have known that switching from a PC to a user-friendly platform would be so difficult.

Thanks for the help though Gizmo, that is a very useful boot disc I now have for future failures. I'll be prepared in advance for a change!

Well aware of the differances, but at Adobe we had to use both as not every user was running OSX ...

Glad to hear you're up though! Sounds like hitting the f8 key during windows bootup ...