Apple 10.4.11 Update Can Brick Macs With Boot Camp

g-san writes "Some Mac users are having problems with the latest 10.4.11 update, yours truly included. The problem seems to be caused by the presence of a Boot Camp partition and renders the Mac unable to reboot after the update fails. Note the Geniuses at the Apple stores are recommending a full disk wipe; but data can be recovered via Firewire." MacNN has a note up that if you fall victim to this "known issue" and need to reformat the disk, you can't reinstall Boot Camp because it is no longer available to OS X 10.4 Tiger users.

that's the Beta Bootcamp only

[2ms]

My 10.4.11 with Bootcamp froze for about five hours during the screen where the choice between your OSes comes up. It was just the grey background with neither hd icon showing. I thought everything was toast. Left for a while in despair and total frustration -- it wouldn't even go into OS X -- but it seemingly magically "worked itself out" after something like 5 hours. Strange. Anyway, installed Leopard immediately because Bootcamp was supposed to stop working when Leopard released anyway and my livelihood unfortunatley depends on using Windows every day on my machine.

If you read the original agreement when install Bootcamp without Leopard (ie the pre-Leopard versions of Bootcamp), it tells you it is Beta software only and that it will expire in October 2007. And that's what it did.

I installed Leopard anyway -- the full, non-beta Bootcamp (ie the one in Leopard release) has a bunch of additional features and drivers (such as for eject button, volume buttons, lots of little details that the beta did not -- it's much better -- I highly recommend Leopard to any heavy Windows users.

Re:Hmm...

[2ms]

No, Boot Camp before Leopard was always Beta only. You had to agree to recognize that before installing. It was originally only going to be available with Leopard, but then they decided to offer it as a Beta that you download from Apple. It never came on any macs before Leopard. You had to go download it (for free) as beta software.

Boot Camp never came on Macs before Leopard!

[2ms]

It was Beta Software. You had to recognize this to install it. It was a free beta download. It was never part of Tiger. It was something you were given opportunity to try for free as beta software, but was originally intended to only become available with Leopard!

Please grasp this people.

When you installed it, it told you that it expired in October 2007!

I have a 17" iMac bought one month after this guy

[theurge14]

On that thread he says he has a 17" Macbook Pro bought 9/06, I bought my 17" iMac a month later. I was able to run Software Update from OS X 10.4.10 to 10.4.11 without incident and I also have the Boot Camp beta (1.3 to be exact). Anecdotal evidence really doesn't prove much in his case.

The thing I don't understand about his story is that he took his Macbook Pro to a Apple store genius bar and they told him his only option was a reinstall, they wouldn't tell him how to boot into target disk mode and now he's online asking how to fix this problem? Uh... I'm sorry, but I just don't believe that.

Re:Yeah

[DurendalMac]

I never said it wasn't a pain or that there couldn't be data loss. I said the term "brick" was used improperly because bricking implies that it's completely ruined. But hey, try to argue nonexistent semantics, AC.

Re:Hmm...

[644bd346996]

This could actually be interpreted as partly Google's fault, for raising expectations of "beta" software. Which is exactly what Boot Camp on 10.4 is: a public beta that expired quite a while ago. In particular, when the beta software also involves your boot sector and the Windows bootloader, you should consider yourself lucky to have anything recoverable. (Of course, it doesn't sound like Windows was at fault here, but nobody should be surprised when something like this breaks.)

In the case of the OP on the Apple forums, it sounds like the biggest problem was that the person had less than 1GB free space on the OS X partition. Obviously, this is only indirectly due to BootCamp, but it did stop the OP from doing an "archive and re-install" of the OS. It is interesting that one person reported that running the 10.4.11 updater under 10.5 but applied to the 10.4.10 partition works, so it isn't a completely reliable bug.

It is also worth noting that nobody has reported an actual filesystem corruption requiring a reformat, so the linked article is just plain wrong. Using the "archive and install" option to roll back the OS seems to be a reliable workaround. (With the one exception noted above.)

Re:Yeah

[DurendalMac]

In addition to my original post, I'd also like to add that I work in a Mac shop. I've seen some Leopard bugs that made me shake my head in disgust, but I have yet to see any issues with 10.4.11, this one included, and I've had plenty of Macs with 10.4.x come across the bench that were upgraded to 10.4.11 with no issues at all. I seriously doubt this is widespread at all.

Unlicensed Software

[Pinky3]

"The license to use Boot Camp Beta expires when Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard is available to the public."

"Warning: Boot Camp Beta is preview software licensed for use on a trial basis for a limited time. Do not use Boot Camp Beta in a commercial operating environment or with important data. You should back up all of your data before installing this software and regularly back up data while using the software. Your rights to use Boot Camp Beta are subject to acceptance of the terms of the software license agreement that accompanies the software."

Users of Boot Camp Beta did read the terms of use, didn't they?

Re:Need more common hardware...

[aitikin]

First off, the argument about a Mac being over priced is extremely flawed on the high end (which is usually where I'm paying attention). Second, I really can't think of anytime that there's been an app that's $100 that normally is a "given" in Windows. Linux, you can find anything as a given, and because of this, you can usually find a good counterpart for OS X. Apple has some of the best support for older systems. Last I checked, through a little hacking, the latest revision of the operating system can be installed on over 7 year old hardware and legitimately with 5 year old hardware.

Now, the supporting Linux is a slightly fair argument. They use a BSD variant and give it some support (merely by following the license they made). I am not a fan of their neglecting Linux on the iTunes front, but that being said, the only thing I'd like to see Linux have is easy access to the iTMS. You can use FAAD and FAAC (yes, FAAC sucks kinda).

Now here's the key point that has come up time and time and time and time again. APPLE IS A HARDWARE COMPANY!!! Software is an afterthought to them. They do a damned good job with software, but still, it's not their primary concern. Their primary concern is selling Macs. So keeping that in mind, the fact that they still support half a decade old hardware is saying something. Claim they're evil, say they need to support Linux, they need to sell cheaper computers, etc.

I'd be glad to take the lesser of two evils here, and in the battle between Winbloz and Mac, Mac is the lesser evil.

If this makes me an "Apple" fanboy and modded down, so be it. I just think that people blow this way out of proportion. Besides, for the topic at hand, yeah, it sucks that the hardware won't really work anymore, but then again, it is kinda a shame that people leach off of the kindness of others, like beta testers that use it after the final product is out.

Completely Overblown

[diamondsw]

Overblown just a bit? There's a bug here. Sadly, one that is not likely to be fixed, since it was in the last planned release of Tiger, but consider:

• This has only affected a few users - it is NOT widespread (10.4.11 has been out for nearly two weeks, and this is the first we hear of it).
  
• This only affects users with Boot Camp, which like it or not is beta software on Tiger, and always has been. Standard disclaimers apply.
  
• All data is intact; otherwise you couldn't access it by Firewire Target Disk mode, or by booting from a CD. Something is simply screwing with the initial boot process.
  
• Nothing here indicates that it cannot be fixed by an Archive and Install process to lay down a fresh copy of the OS. On OS X, this keeps your home directory and settings completely intact, and almost every third-party application. You might have to manually move a couple files from the "Previous System" folder to your fresh OS.

So, no real data loss, only a couple unfortunate users reporting it, and it's relatively easily fixable. I'm sorry, but stuff like this happens to someone with any OS patch, on any platform. Not news.

I think the correct term is

[Techman83]

Hosed [foldoc.org] not brick [wikipedia.org]

Re:Macs

[TheGreek]

A bricked Mac was back when there was that audio CD with the copy-protection scheme, that crashed the OS as soon as the disk was inserted, and on all subsequent reboots. Since the Mac doesn't have a physical eject button for the CD, the whole system unit had to be shipped to a repair depot where they could eject the offending CD.

1) Power on the computer.
2) Wait for the chime (don't have to do this on Intel, but I always did with PPC).
3) Hold down mouse/trackpad button until CD ejects.

Re:Macs

[Swift2001]

Well, there were 10 upgrades to 10.4 before this. They worked mostly fine. Fine for me, but I understand that a small percent had trouble now and again. I'd call that routine. And I just upgraded to Leopard. I had a backup all set aside. My plan was to Erase and Install, and then suck all the data and programs off my backup. A friend said, "No. Just try the upgrade. Then, if it doesn't work, you can erase and install." Half and hour later, I booted into Leopard, and everything... just... worked.

Re:Macs

[cooley]

1) Power off the computer
2) perform paper-clip origami
3) stick it in the hole to pop the CD tray open

Back in the day when I was doing desktop support, I just kept a bent paper clip in my toolbox.

re: Boot loaders

[King_TJ]

Umm.... it has definitely happened in the past on Windows-based boxes with dual or multi-boot configurations set up on them! I remember struggles and research to recover "dead" systems that came about when trying to set up dual-boot configurations with things like IBM OS/2 and Windows, for example. One OS would perform an upgrade over the old one, and in the process clobber the boot record info that was formerly allowing a dual-boot.

And although this is an unfortunate situation, it's hardly a case of Apple "completely fucking up and making a mockery of their own catchphrases".

Apple basically told people all along that using BootCamp on an OS X 10.4 Tiger based Mac was a beta test thing. The final version would be included with Leopard. If Tiger updates end up breaking this feature after the beta period has already expired - I'd almost assume Apple did it on purpose, so people would be more compelled to pay up for the new OS version that actually includes that functionality as a legitimate part of it.

The ability of Macs to dual-boot into Windows isn't some "amazing new thing" in and of itself... The main reason BootCamp was important was because they provided device drivers for all the Apple hardware that Windows couldn't auto-detect and use otherwise (such as the iSight cameras, backlit keyboards on their notebooks, keyboard function keys for volume up/down and screen brightness, etc.)

I've been using a Mac Pro in a dual-boot Windows XP and OS X configuration since I first bought it, and never installed BootCamp on it at all. I simply placed XP on a separate hard drive, rather than trying to partition it out on the same drive.

Re:Macs

[vux984]

Some macs do not have the 'paperclip' hole in the case. The physical drive still had it, but you had to dismantle and open up the case to reach it... this wasn't particularly trivial on some macs.

Re:Yeah

[adamstew]

Mac refers to the Hardware. OSX is the operating system that runs on Macs...hence it's name: "Operating System 10"

use rEFit

[Dystopian Rebel]

If you read the original agreement when install Bootcamp without Leopard (ie the pre-Leopard versions of Bootcamp), it tells you it is Beta software only and that it will expire in October 2007. And that's what it did.

Yep. Use this instead.
http://refit.sourceforge.net/ [sourceforge.net]

Re:It is bricked

[Anonymous Coward]

Me being a puritan: ROM is read only memory and, by definition, is READ ONLY.

What you are thinking of is firmware :-D

hehe, sorry...the whole "it's bricked"..."it's not bricked" discussion is just far too amusing...I had to throw some gas on the fire :-D

Re:Completely Overblown

[DurendalMac]

The reason he had to reformat is that he had about 1GB left, which means there's not enough space for an archive & install, which would have left all his data intact with a fresh installation of the OS and all would be well again. Nah, don't let that get in the way of your rant against a problem that has affected half a dozen people for all we can tell.

Re:Completely Overblown

[DurendalMac]

If it was an XP update bug that didn't affect half a dozen people who couldn't do a repair because they didn't have more than 1GB of space, you'd have a point. As it stands now, this is OS updates as usual. Every single patch/service pack/update will have a few horror stories. If this was widespread, then there would be cause for worry. There are a handful of cases that we know of. How did this hit the front page?

Re:Completely Overblown

[dj_krztoff]

Actually, if you dual-boot Vista with Linux, it stops creating system restore points :) I learned this one the hard way.

Re:Completely Overblown

[VGPowerlord]

I promise I'd only give the offender a hard time until they released a fix. For Apple, the next 10.x.y is about a month away. For Microsoft, the next SP is 6-12 months away. I don't see anything wrong with trashing Microsoft for that long, if that's how fast they can release a service pack.

Microsoft releases updates once a month, to the point where the second Tuesday every month is now nicknamed Patch Tuesday [wikipedia.org] in Microsoft shops.

Or did you seriously think that Windows XP hasn't been updated since Service Pack 2 came out in 2004?

Re:Yeah

[mstone]

Sure: It's like saying a car that's out of gas is 'totaled'.

Re:Macs

[Rune69]

Bah! [slackware.com]