Installing Windows natively.

[outermon]

I have a Mac Mini (1.67Ghz Dual Core Intel, 512Mb Ram, 60GB HDD) with Tiger and Windows XP. I foolishly allocated only 5GB of space to my windows partition during the boot camp beta. A couple months later I decided to use Windows as my primary OS. Now, a few months more, and the lack of space is becoming an issue, even with all my data/programs installed on an external HDD (usual Windows bloating, I assume). I can't even erase the partition via disk utility and reinstall Windows. Apple is becoming awful, they want to force me to buy Leopard just so I can erase my own partition! Unfortunately, I still need to use this thing until I can afford all the parts for my custom PC) that I'm going to build. (I got this Mac Mini for free; I would've never bought it).

So, now I need to know, would I be able to repartition my mac mini's entire hard drive and natively install Windows without using the Bootcamp partitioning utility? (I still have my driver's CD, w00t for my big book of software).

[sinclair_tm]

No, Windows will not install on any Mac natively because of unsupported hardware. Macs do not use a tradtional BIOS, but open firmware instead, and Windows does not support open firmware, and Microsoft has said that they do not ever plan to support open firmware, hence the need for Bootcamp. I also thought that it wasn't nice of Apple to drop the Bootcamp beta, requiring you to buy the new OS to use it, but it is their software, and they can make that call, just like Microsoft not reducing the price of XP when Vista came out. But that's for a different day. I'm afraid that there isn't much you can do at this point, except buy 10.5, or sell the Mini off to get the last money you need to build your PC.


Oh, if you decide to just find a new home for the Mini, it is always welcome on my desk, and free is in my price range

[outermon]

Ugh, looks like I'm going to need to go out and buy some dual-layers than. ;-)