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My Dad, the Switcher: Day 140

by Robert Palmer Mar 13th 2009 at 1:00PM

Yesterday, Robert talked about setting up a new Mac Pro for his switcher Dad. Today, setting up Windows proves to be a bit of a headache.

When I mentioned to my best buddy Cameron that Dad was getting a Mac Pro to replace his just-months-old Mac mini, he said "Wow. He sure moves quickly when it comes to toys!"

That he does. Just three or four months ago, he had bought his Mac mini. Now here we were, installing Windows on his tricked-out refurb Mac Pro.

This was proving to be a problem. For me, mostly.

He wanted to install Windows XP Service Pack 2, which, as far as we knew, would work fine. We started Boot Camp Assistant, and printed out the instructions. We had a whole 750GB hard disk to give to Windows, so we chose it and were restarting into that purgatory of Windows Setup in DOSville.

After loading its various components ("Human Interface Parser" was our favorite), Windows Setup displayed the volumes available to install Windows, but our newly-created Boot Camp partition wasn't listed. Uh oh.

Windows Setup desperately wanted us to reformat the C: partition as NTFS. Dad wanted to be able to read and write to the Windows partition from his Mac, and I thought Mac OS X couldn't read and write NTFS partitions. So that was out.

But, according to Windows Update, it was our only option. Stymied!

Dad and I took a break and sat down for some lunch. After we ate, he posited: "I bet it's because the partition size is too large for FAT32." We thought on that for a while. It turns out, FAT32 can support partition sizes up to 2TB, but the cluster sizes get larger, and therefore make it inefficient for use on large disks. Regardless: Windows Setup wouldn't be able to create a partition that large.

I called Cameron, who happens to be the bossest IT pro I know. He said that we should have no problem using NTFS. It works with Boot Camp, it works with Parallels, and -- best of all -- you can still read and write to the volume using MacFUSE. Nice.

Away we went with a single huge NTFS partition, then, and all was well. When the Windows Setup process completed, Dad went on to install his Mac Pro's drivers from the system restore CD, and install Parallels, too. Shoot -- he hardly needed me at all.

Then, blissfully, this email:

There's still a little more work to do: He wants to migrate his old Windows system over using Parallels Transporter. Once that's done, he can get rid of his old PC, and move the Mac Pro into its place. Sure, it means rearranging his desk a little (the Mac Pro's a little taller than his old PC).

All told -- for Dad, it's been pretty easy going as a Mac owner for 140 days and counting. Now, though, it's down to work.



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Yesterday, Robert talked about setting up a new Mac Pro for his switcher Dad. Today, setting up Windows proves to be a bit of a headache....
 

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GadgetGav

I'm not questioning whether your Dad should have bought a Mac Pro, or if you should write a switcher article about it - I find this series very useful.
I am questioning the math though...
If you take the 8 core basic model at Apple and add one 1Tb disk there, then go to OWC and get two more 1Tb Hitachi drives with 32Mb buffers and 16 Gb of RAM, your total is still 'only' $3956.97. The geekbench scores for any of the 8 core machines are comparable, so I can't see the benefit of going to the older 3.2Ghz over the newer, lower clock rate ones. I'd throw in the Radeon HD 4870 graphics card and maybe an extra optical drive (another $300 total) if it was me and I'd still be well under $5K.

March 14 2009 at 8:54 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
EQB

One thing of note for booting a MacFUSE mounted NTFS bootcamp partition in parallels: ALWAYS "eject" the NTFS partition in finder (or from the desktop. Whatever floats your boat) BEFORE running bootcamp in parallels. Parallels uses it's own FUSE implimentation which doesn't play nicely with MacFUSE, leading to both MacFUSE and Paralells using the NTFS partition at the same time. Data corruption will ensue.

Ejecting the NTFS partition in OSX prevents the problem from occurring, though it should be noted that the official Parallels line is you should not run MacFUSE on a machine with Parallels. See my posts in the parallels forums here:

http://forum.parallels.com/showthread.php?p=139551#post139551

--Eight_Quarter_Bit

March 13 2009 at 11:46 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
now4real954

ok...all these people that are complaining about what his dad bought/wanted...get a grip

he has the right to use what he wants to use and from the previous stories on this topic...it seems to me like Robert's dad is a big time computer man...he has done development for windows for years and years...and this was a complete surprise that he wanted to try a Mac in the first place...

so it was just a natural progression for this guy who is apparently the kind that wants his power...once he got the taste for what just a Mac Mini could do...it was no surprise to me that he would want to go PRO...

by no means does Steve seem like the old grandpa...doomed to spend his days in the rocking chair watching tv all day...sounds to me like he is a vital and important man that wants the tools that he wants to do what he wants to do with it...

where do you guys get off attacking him for his choices...its not like Robert yammered on to his dad about getting an over priced over powered Mac Pro...this was just as much of a surprise to Robert as it was to me...who would have thought that the DIE HARD windows man like his father would just change from PCs to Macs like he did...but i say MORE POWER TO HIM...

wish my mother would give up the PC and come to the light...lol

good luck Steve and Robert...keep up the good work

March 13 2009 at 11:10 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Gilbert Palau

Um. There is something I wanted to add.

Parallels nor VMWare Fusion allow you to access a live bootcamp partition. All they do is migrate your bootcamp partition into a virtual image. but the stuff you are putting in your image is not going to your bootcamp partition.

I wish it were that seamless frankly... but wanted to point that out.

March 13 2009 at 6:23 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
5 replies to Gilbert Palau's comment
robogobo

I still say overkill. If you need both OS X and Windows in the field, fine, install them on your laptop. But at home, it's a waste of energy and money to run a $5000, 300 watt machine, when you could have two smaller, cheaper machines and a dual input monitor. It's a terrible example to potential switchers who already think Macs are overpriced.

March 13 2009 at 5:11 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
2 replies to robogobo's comment
KevinB

$5000? I was just on the apple store and priced out a machine I would like for $3500.

But I don't see why having two machines is even a good idea. Two boxes takes more floor space, adds more cables, and in the end isn't the same performance. And performance is the whole point of the Mac Pro.. is it not?

Cheap machines are just that, cheap. You get what you pay for.

March 13 2009 at 6:21 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
robogobo

"The extra disks, memory, software, and processor options he chose pushed the grand total above $6,500. He wanted to find a way to come in under $5,000. He found a refurbished 8-core 3.2GHz model for just over $4,000"

round figure. anyway, a new Mini and a decent Windows box could do as much or more with dual OS's than a Mac Pro running Parallels, and at half the price and power consumption. Hell, even the mini alone would be enough for most dual system applications. "Software development" is rather vague, and usually doesn't require 8 cores and 16GB of RAM.

Hear that would-be switchers? YOU DON'T NEED A MAC PRO to switch. There are plenty of less expensive options.

March 13 2009 at 7:06 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
phermas

How come your Dad doesn't sign his emails Dad? Are you guys on a first name basis?

Pat

March 13 2009 at 4:58 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Unseelie

While it's true that FAT32 supports up to 2TB, Windows does not support installing to FAT32 for sizes larger that 32GB.

March 13 2009 at 4:15 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Jon

I was under the impression that Macs could read NTFS-formatted disks out of the box (but not write to them) - is this not the case?

March 13 2009 at 3:39 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to Jon's comment
Keenkreations

It is true that a Mac can natively read from NTFS drives, it is always nice to have write access too. I personally use NTFS for Mac....great easy little program.

March 13 2009 at 4:44 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
jason

Drop Parallels and go with Vmware Fusion, it will blow his mind :)

March 13 2009 at 2:44 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Alex

Sorry for off-top... What's pictured on that email message screenshot? That's definitely not Mail... I suppose it is MobileMe web interface (which I've honestly never seen alive), but the screenshots I've found online look almost exactly like Mail, while this one is different. I'm intrigued...

March 13 2009 at 2:23 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
3 replies to Alex's comment
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