boot

An interesting note for people using either Windows XP or Windows Vista with Boot Camp is that you will not be able to install the latest version of Boot Camp (version 4) on your system. In a recent knowledgebase article, Apple outlines the system requirements for Boot Camp 4, part of which is the requirement for "an authentic, single, full-installation, 32-bit or 64-bit Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium, Professional, or Ultimate disc."

While Boot Camp 4.0 will run in either Snow Leopard or Lion, it is a requirement for setting up new Windows installations in Lion even … Read more

MacFixIt Answers is a feature in which we answer questions e-mailed in by our readers. This week readers wrote in asking numerous questions about OS X Lion, including ways to set up dual-boot environments, options for clean installs, whether or not Rosetta could be hacked to work, and options for re-downloading the Lion installer either for different Macs or for creating a boot DVD after you have already installed Lion. We continually answer e-mail questions, and though we present a few answers here, we welcome alternative approaches and views from readers and encourage you to post your suggestions in the … Read more

Mozilla revealed preliminary plans today to take the Gecko engine that drives its Firefox browser and turn it into an open-source operating system that will eventually work on phones and tablets.

Called Boot to Gecko, it is known that the source code will be released to the public "in real-time," wrote Andreas Gal, a Mozilla researcher. Gecko is the rendering engine that powers Firefox and the e-mail client Thunderbird. By contrast, while Google's Android mobile operating system is open source, the main development work on it does not become available until after Google has green-lit its publication--sometimes … Read more

The features and advancements in OS X Lion may make it an enticing installation; however, as has been mentioned previously, Apple is doing away with a few key features that have maintained compatibility with some popular applications. Some of these features, such as the lack of Java, can be remedied by installing support for them, but there is no workaround for others like Rosetta and support for 32-bit system extensions in the default 64-bit boot environment. And a number of (perhaps mostly relatively obscure) applications may have trouble running, as can be seen on the RoaringApps Lion compatibility database. As … Read more

OS X Lion has been released and is available in the Mac App Store to download and install. While its availability solely as a download may have its conveniences, the lack of its initial distribution on optical or other media has been met with a decent amount of criticism, especially by those looking for options to troubleshoot and customize their OS installations. Apple's approach to installing and managing your Lion installation does offer a decent amount of flexibility, but if you would like to have your Lion installation on DVD, then you absolutely can do this.

Luckily the OS … Read more

There are several start-up warnings that your Mac can present, which indicate something is wrong with your system. If the boot chimes are replaced by any alternative audio signals such as loud beeps, then this indicates the system's hardware or firmware is malfunctioning or not properly set up. Provided the system's hardware is working properly, then you may see a blinking question mark if a boot volume cannot be found, but beyond this you may see a prohibitory sign show up on the screen.

Generally when the prohibitory sign shows up, you will initially see the gray Apple … Read more

The boot menu that Apple includes in Mac systems is convenient, especially if you manage multiple operating systems on your computer or if you need to boot to an alternative boot volume. To activate the boot menu, upon starting up you just need to hold the Option key after hearing the system's boot chimes, and then select your desired boot drive from the automatically detected options. While convenient, in some instances the boot menu may start appearing at random times after the system is restarted.

By default, Apple's computers will boot to the hard drive that is selected … Read more

Apple's Thunderbolt technology supports both Displayport and PCI Express connectivity through two simultaneous and separate channels, which means it will connect both to displays and peripheral devices such as hard disks, all through the same port at the same time. Given that multiple devices are all connected through one port, people may wonder about the troubleshooting options and limits when making use of this technology for troubleshooting purposes.

Target Disk mode Apple recently released a knowledge base article discussing the options for Thunderbolt connectivity, which in part covers the options for Target Disk mode. Target Disk mode allows you … Read more

Apple has released a firmware update for iMac systems that addresses problems where iMacs have been hanging during start-up or when waking from sleep. Unfortunately Apple has not specified which specific iMac models are eligible for this update. The contents of the updater file show the Flasher utility is for ATI graphics, though this does not narrow the systems down by much because most-recent iMac models except for the early 2009 ones have used ATI graphics.

Because of the lack of specifics about the eligible models for this update, even though the updater is available as a standalone installer, we … Read more