If you’re having a hard time getting Boot Camp to correctly install Windows and you’re getting either a “disk error” or “hal.dll missing” error, here’s how to actually fix it.
First, you’ll have to restore your disk to a full Mac OS X partition.
Then, you’ll reformat it to be a Mac OS X partition and a Windows partition (using Boot Camp).
This is now the important step. You must write over the partition. So load up the Terminal and enter
sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/rdisk0s3 bs=1m count=100
Where rdisk0s3 is the disk where the Windows Partition is. To know the name of your Windows partition, you can go to the Disk Utility (Applications-Utilies) and look for a partition under your hard drive.
When that is done, you can restart your computer with your Windows CD and install it. Everything should be fine now.
PS. Use at your own risk. The command involve writting 0′s to your partition table, which might screw it up if done unproperly.
PPS. I cannot be held responsible for anything happening to you or your computer.
Last login: Thu Dec 6 14:43:40 on console
Macintosh:~ martijnhendriks$ sudo dd if=/dev/zero/ of=/dev/rdisk0s3 bs=1m count=100
WARNING: Improper use of the sudo command could lead to data loss
or the deletion of important system files. Please double-check your
typing when using sudo. Type “man sudo” for more information.
To proceed, enter your password, or type Ctrl-C to abort.
Password:
dd: /dev/zero/: Not a directory
Macintosh:~ martijnhendriks$
So what now?
Have you correctly enter the “of” disk. Are you sure it is labeled /dev/rdisk0s3? To know that, you can go to the Disk Utility (Applications-Utilies) and look for a partition under your MBP hard drive (if you’re using a MBP of course…)
same prob, not a directory..
I looked it up and disk was labeled disk0s3, not rdisk0s3
do you need to set it to /dev/zero/ or /dev/zero ?
thanks in advance
Zero is a bloc device, not a directory. The command should be :
sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/rdisk0s3 bs=1m count=100
no slash after zero.