Gaming BootCamp question

[lolzed]

My friend is gonna buy a Mac,and probably might install Windows(maybe 7)...does the disc have to be a retail/original version,or a burnt/pirated one will do?

 

[Originality]

As long as it configured correctly as a boot disk, either works.

 

[lolzed]

What do you mean exactly?

 

[overlord00]

anything will do... essentially all disks are the same, and make no difference, MS only cares that you have an official licence key... if its pirated you will probably have a key which is black listed... it will work however.

steam edit:

 

[rockstar99]

anything will do... essentially all disks are the same, and make no difference, MS only cares that you have an official licence key... if its pirated you will probably have a key which is black listed... it will work however.

steam edit:

Lol why do you edit your gamercard in the post?

 

[Originality]

A boot disk is a removable storage media that's been configured to run when booting up. In this case, it means that the Windows install disc (whether retail or backup) will automatically run the installer if the computer is booted up with the disc inserted (although this depends on the boot order in BIOS). Usually, BIOS will ignore any disc that's not been configured as a boot disk (e.g. a PC game or music CD) and move onto the next device in the boot order (usually the primary HDD).

This is how things have been up to Windows XP. I assume nothing has changed in Vista and 7, although more BIOSs now allow manual booting by pressing a key (like F11) to bring up the list of bootable devices.

If you're just burning the DVD from a disc image file (e.g. *.iso), then it should automatically be written as a boot disk.

EDIT: Getting "disk" and "disc" right is annoying. It's called a "boot disk" because it was originally done with floppy disks. For some reason, when they invented CDs, they decided to spell it "disc". Either way, if there's a boot error BIOS will still say "insert boot disk".

 

[lolzed]

So basically,I get the right ISO,burn,and that should work?

oh also,how long does bootcamp-ing take?Setting up and installing Windows I mean.

 

[Rydian]

Burn it PROPERLY. Don't just burn the ISO as a data file to a disc, that's not right. Go into a disc burning program, open the ISO, then tell it to burn it.

 

[lolzed]

What burning program do you suggest? ImgBurn?

 

[Rydian]

CDBurnerXP, IMGBurn, there's like 50.

 

[Originality]

Installing an OS can take anything from 40 minutes to 2-3 hours. It depends on the OS, speed of the drives, and speed of the CPU. Even after, it can take a day to get all the updates and basic programs (like FireFox, VLC, WinRAR, ImgBurn, etc) installed.

Oh and btw, don't burn the DVD at max speed. Burn it slower to reduce the chance of corruption somewhere.

EDIT (because I don't feel like making another post): I personally prefer having a single partition per drive. It's easier to manage/scan that way.

 

[overlord00]

all that needs to be done, start the boot camp manager, create a partition, the size depends on what you plan to do with it, i use mine for steam, and have allocated about 50GB.
after the bootcamp manager is finished it will tell you to insert a disc, do so, then it will automate the install as much as it can, ie dont touch anything (ie holding bootkeys, holding the mouse button down to eject discs, etc) and also install to the correct partition (called bootcamp).

its not that hard to figure out, and last time i did this took me about 20 mins to install xp... which i still think is a better gaming os than 7.

also, @rockstar, because its not a signature.

 

[Nimbus]

BootCamp for the most part isn't entirely needed. It's just a GUI for the built in Partitioner.


In fact, I'd advise you use Disk Utility to partition the drives, however that's just me. Either way works.