Chris Blackwell's Domain

confessions of a web developer

Posts Tagged ‘iMac’

Fix for Boot Camp Problem with new 27-inch iMac

Monday, January 11th, 2010

Yesterday I talked about my new 27″ iMac and how I was going to install Windows 7 on it via Boot Camp. I touched on a problem I found when installing Windows, and that was the default driver for the ATI cards.

Windows installs default drivers after installing the Windows kernal. The problem that I experienced was that the default driver Windows installed for the ATI video card was not the correct driver and thus left the screen completely blank. I found that I was not the only one having this problem, and after some Googling around, I came upon a solution that seems to work great.

  1. Reboot your iMac and hold the Option/Alt button down to bring up the boot menu.
  2. Arrow over the the Windows install disc and press Return/Enter
  3. Navigate through the Windows install process until you come across the install options (it’s right after the language selection screen).
  4. Select the Repair your computer option
  5. Choose the C: BOOTCAMP drive
  6. In the list of repair options, find Command Prompt at the bottom and select it
  7. In the command prompt, type of the following command
    del c:\windows\system32\drivers\atikmdag.sys
  8. Close the command prompt and reboot your machine back into your Boot Camp Windows

That’s it! The ATI video driver should be deleted and you are free to install the Apple drivers and Boot Camp software (found on the OSX install disc that came with your machine).

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New 27" Intel Quad-Core i7 iMac

Sunday, January 10th, 2010

Today my new 27″ iMac arrived after more then a month wait. I ordered this machine on November 27, 2009 and it only arrived on Thursday. Today was the official unboxing and I’m happy to share the experience with you.

This is going to be replacing my existing iMac. Since I have a lot of iTunes media (TV Shows and Movies take up a lot of space), my needs for storage were fairly large. I am also going to be installing Windows 7 on this machine via Boot Camp so that I can play a few games (like Star Trek Online early next month). So taking everything into consideration I ordered the following specs:

27" iMac in Box

So far I am absolutely loving this machine and I can’t believe how much power they were able to fit into an iMac form factor. The draw back to this is heat. This machine runs HOT! The processor itself only idols at around 50c, but if you put your hand on the back of this machine, you could actually burn it if you left it there.

27" iMac Booting Up

I used Boot Camp to partition the hard drive for the Windows install. I allocated 500GB for Windows, and left 1.5TB for OSX. There was a display issue when installing Windows 7, as the default driver for the ATI card is not compatible and leaves the screen blank. There is a fix for this that I will be posting tomorrow.

27" iMac Installing Windows 7

Overall I’m very happy with my new machine. I think this is a powerhouse of a computer, and the price is really good value considering everything that comes with it.

I was considering last summer moving to a Mac Pro for storage and power reasons, but now this iMac takes care of everything I needed to do, at about half of the cost. Granted there is still a need for the Mac Pros, especially if you want more than two monitors, but for most consumers and prosumers needs, this new iMac fits the bill.

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