Have Your Mac and Windows Too with Boot Camp
http://lifehacker.com/384256/have-your-mac-and-windows-too-with-boot-camp

The following post was originally published in Chapter 11 of our new
book, Upgrade Your Life: The Lifehacker Guide to Working Smarter,
Faster, Better.

You can have both a Mac and a PC on a single computer, using Apple's
new Boot Camp software. Boot Camp lets you install Windows on your Mac
in addition to Mac OS X. With Boot Camp set up, when you start your
Mac, you can choose whether to use OS X or Windows. Boot Camp is a
great way to consolidate the computers in your life and to run
essential Windows programs that aren't available on the Mac. Here's
how to set up Boot Camp to get a Mac and PC all rolled into one.

Note: Setting up Boot Camp is not a trivial task because it involves
repartitioning your Mac's hard drive and installing another operating
system and drivers. Block out a couple of hours for this project.

1. What You Need

Getting Boot Camp and Windows up and running on your Mac requires
specific hardware and software. Here's what you need:

- An Intel-based Mac running OS 10.5 (Leopard) with all software
updates installed.

- At least 10GB of free space on your Mac's hard drive.
A working printer connected to your Mac (with plenty of ink and paper!).
- A genuine Windows XP installation disk, which includes Service Pack

2. (Important: You cannot install XP using a disk that does not
include SP2 and expect to download it after the fact. If you have an
old XP CD without SP2, here's more on how to add SP2 to your older
Windows XP installation disk.)
OR
A genuine Windows Vista Home Basic, Home Premium, Business, or
Ultimate installation disk (32-bit version only.)
Set Up Boot Camp

Before you get started, free up as much space on your Mac's hard drive
as possible. (Here's more on how to identify and cut back disk space
hogs.) Then back up all your important data, just in case. Do not skip
this step! Finally, log on to your Mac as an administrative user (and
log off any other users), quit all running applications, and if you're
using a portable Mac, make sure it's plugged into a power source. Got
all that? Great. Now it's time to get Boot Camp going.

Step 1: Launch the Boot Camp Assistant

The Boot Camp Assistant is a step-by-step wizard, located in
/Applications/Utilities/, but it can help you only as long as you're
in Mac OS X, which you are not throughout this entire process. So the
first thing the Assistant does is prompt you to print the 26-page user
guide [PDF]. Experienced users may be annoyed by this seemingly
unnecessary step, but because you'll be rebooting your system and
making major changes, a paper copy of the guide is a comforting help
along the way when the on-screen Assistant isn't available.

In fact, Apple's user guide printout is more complete than any
instructions I could include here, so rather than repeat the
instructions it already contains, I offer additional information not
included in the official instructions.

Step 2: Partition Your Mac's Hard Drive

After you've told the Boot Camp Assistant that you want to set up
Windows on your Mac, you come to the scary (and fun!) part: splitting
your Mac's hard drive into pieces and setting Windows to install on
one of those partitions. The Assistant will show you a map of your
Mac's hard drive. Click the divider to drag it and set the size of
your Windows partition (which will take space away from the Mac
partition). Alternatively, using the buttons, you can split the drive
equally, or use exactly 32GB for Windows, as shown.

What size should your Windows partition be? Good question. This
decision is difficult to undo later, so do consider a couple of
questions before you decide:

What will you use Windows to do and how much how much hard drive space
will that take up?
If you're using Windows just to play PC games, for example, you won't
need much space (10-20GB will do.) But if you want to manage your
photo library in Windows (which I do, with Picasa, because I prefer it
over iPhoto), you'll need enough space to accommodate all your photos.
It's impossible to know in advance exactly how much space you'll need,
but guesstimate as best as you can. Also, keep in mind that you can
attach external drives to add space in Windows. But remember: Files
stored in the Mac OS cannot be accessed from within Windows, so make
sure you have enough space for all the programs and files you'll want
in Windows.

What format will the Windows partition be, FAT or NTFS?
If your Windows partition is larger than 32GB, you will have to format
it as NTFS, not FAT. Mac OS X cannot write to NTFS-formatted drives,
but it can write to FAT drives. That means that a Windows partition
greater than 32GB will be read-only in Mac OS. In general, FAT is
considered less reliable than NTFS. (Windows Vista uses only NTFS, so
the 32GB threshold isn't a factor if you're installing Vista.)

After you've chosen how to split your hard drive between Mac and
Windows, click the Partition button.

Step 3: Start the Windows Installation

With your partition created, insert your Windows installation disk and
click the Start Installation button in the Boot Camp Assistant. Your
Mac will reboot from the Windows installation disk and begin working.

Two things to know when you're installing Windows:

When it comes time to select the partition to format, be absolutely
sure to choose the partition labeled C:Partition3 . Vista will list it
as Disk 0 Partition 3 BOOTCAMP. One false move here and you could wipe
out your entire Mac, so choose carefully.

If your partition is less than 32GB and you're installing Windows XP,
you'll have a choice between the NTFS or FAT Windows format. NTFS is
recommended, although FAT is okay, too. Whatever you do, don't select
Leave The Current File System Intact—make sure you format the
partition to NTFS or FAT.

Complete the rest of the Windows XP installation per the installation
disk's instructions.

Step 4. Install the Windows Drivers for Your Mac's Hardware

After you're completely booted into your new Windows installation,
eject the installation disk and insert your Mac OS 10.5 installation
CD. Let Autorun launch Setup.exe, and follow the on-screen
instructions. When the drivers are installed, Windows will recognize
your Mac's devices (such as the Bluetooth receiver, video adapter,
iSight camera, and wireless receiver.) If you receive a message saying
that the software hasn't passed Windows testing, click the Continue
Anyway button. You'll have to reboot to finish this installation. Then
you're done!

You Choose

Now you have the choice to start either Mac OS X or Windows on your
Mac. To make that choice when you turn on your computer, hold down the
Option key and you'll see the two partitions you set up, as shown.
Click the one that has the operating system you want to use.


Alternatively, if the computer is already running, use the Boot Camp
software to restart in a particular operating system. In Windows XP,
click the Boot Camp icon in the system tray, and in the Startup Disk
tab, select Macintosh HD or Windows and click the Restart button to
move into that operating system, as shown.

While you're in OS X, you can do the same thing by going into System
Preferences and choosing Startup Disk.

Using a Mac Keyboard in Windows

When you first start using Windows on your Mac, one of the first
things you'll notice is that the Mac keyboard is different from
Windows keyboards. It has a Command key but no Windows key; on
MacBooks and iBooks, the keyboard has a Delete key but no Backspace
key; it also has no Print Screen Key. The Boot Camp user guide you
printed includes a complete table of Mac keyboard Windows action
mappings, but the most important ones to know are the following:

The Option key is the Windows Alt key.
The Command key is the Windows key.
The Delete key is the equivalent of Backspace.

To forward delete with it on built-in Apple keyboards (on your Mac
notebook), use Fn-Delete. (External Apple keyboards have a forward
Delete key.)

The Windows Print Screen key is F14 on an external Apple keyboard.
Your best bet is to bookmark the Boot Camp key mapping reference in
Windows for easy reference the next time you need to use Print Screen
or Delete.

For more documentation, user discussions, troubleshooting, and
frequently asked questions about Boot Camp, see Apple's Boot Camp
support section. Also, be sure to download and install the latest
update to the Boot Camp software for Windows, just released this past
week. Finally, if you want to hop into Windows without leaving OS X
once in awhile, here's how to virtualize and dual boot the same
Windows on your Mac.