Installing Windows+Sonar X1 on Mac - Any tips? Help?

Hi Gang...

I just inherited a couple of machines to blow my mind... the top one being a Mac Pro (2008) with dual-Quad-core Xeon 3.2GHz processors and 16GB Ram as well as an Apple Cinema Display...

Wow! What a leap in power! I've got some free DAW softwares installed and working fine, but I'm dying to get windows 64bit running on it so I can use this power for Sonar...

I've tried a couple of times but keep running into "issues".... While the OS has updated itself to 10.6.8, Bootcamp is still at 3.0 and I see a 3.1, 3.2 (separate 32/64bit), and 3.3 updates...

The only factory OS I have is Windows Vista 64 Service Pack 1.... Bootcamp fails to download the needed drivers and the install fails there. I have the Snow Leopard factory disc, but that's 10.6....

So I'm wondering... Should I install the bootcamp update(s) (and if yes, do I need to do each of them in succession or can I go straight to 3.3)?

I've researched some issues as to which windows can install on which mac and I believe I should be able to install vista64 on this one... but it wants service pack 2.... How do I get that on the install disc? ;-)

I'm both excited and frustrated.... So any help and tips would be greatly appreciated.... I'm a bit lost in Mac-World, but not completely in the dark...

Thanks...
Keni

Thanks Steve...

I read that FAQ and unless I'm mistaken, my machine is a 2008 which should support 64bit from Vista as well as Win7... I'd love to install win7, but the only copy I have is an upgrade version so there needs to be windows on the machine first.... But my vista copy is only SP1 and they ask for SP2

I'm wondering if it will let me install Vista 32 bit then upgrade that to win7? One of my concerns here as well is that the factory discs I have are for SP1 and all the postings ask for SP2...

I really want/need to buy a copy of win7 Ultimate but I'm far too broke... So I'm sitting here frustrated to have such a high power machine and only able to run a copy of S1-2 Free on it...

Thanks for pitching in...

Keni

http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/230249-sliptream-vista-sp2.html

This explains how to slipstream SP2 into Vista... It isn't easy, and you need a pc to be able to do that. I suppose you could also use a VM like virtualbox or VMWare or so.

kenny you can probably install vista 64 bit on a pc,then install your updates including up to service pack 2,once this is done you need to make a boot disk with your operating system,this is possible but would take a page or so to explain.
you can easily google it to learn how.
im also not totaly sure it will work on a mac because ive never done that before but i have made back ups for my own personal computers incase windows failed i could reinstall my original copy.

Thanks for all the good ideas Everybody...

This sure is a touchy thing, eh? I've got two drives and I'm trying to install windows on the second... I run bootcamp and get as far as having windows begin it's install... It starts with disk formatting, then proceeds to ask about (2 options) either download the needed drivers or have the original snow leopard disk.... I tried the download a number of times and it fails to find the files... I wanted to try using the snow leopard disk, but there's no way to open the dvd drive at this point because windows doesn't yet know the keyboard mapping to all the drive to open...

I'm gonna try doing this again today and I'm gonna see if I can place both disks in dvd drives (machine has two) and see if that gets around the issue?

I'm still very confused about the bootcamp updates... I have 3.0 and 3.1, 3.2, and 3.3 are available.... I don't know if I should download the updates first and if so, whether I need to run them each in succession or go direct to 3.3... I'm finding the info difficult to be certain...

Too bad all this power is in the mac.... it would have been so much easier if it was a pc! ;-)

Thanks again.... Oh, and I may try to contact Scott Lee too.... We'll see if he has any time to help...

Keni

Thanks...

Yes, it dawned on me to try that later... ;-) It does work and that's currently how I'm running the windows partition... Last night and today I updated the windows to the current version of Vista64 and tonight I will begin updating bottcamp from 3.0 thru 3.1, 3.2, 3.3 as it appears they need to be installed successively...

I've got the windows install working fine, but With the original install of SP1 and bootcamp 3.0, the install fails when trying to register everything.... So after installing all these updates (a few gigabyte), I'm hoping that Sonar X1 64 will install... I'm so excited!

When I have the cash, I may invest in Parallels (if I can get X1 working of course)... then I can be in one OS and run any program from either!

Keni

Sorry my typing is a bit funky but I'm typing this in on a mobile phone ;-)

Hi Gang...

Here's an update as well as some questions...

I was having a lot of trouble getting bootcamp to update, so I updated OSX to Lion and now Sonar is installed an working fine with one issue...

The audio output of the windows partition is extremely low volume.... I've checked all volume locations/settings and everything is max... When I return to the OSX partition, the volume is loud again...

Right now I'm only using the onboard chipset as I don't have the cash for a new interface and my old one (which I love - Soundscape Mixtreme192) is only PCI and this machine is all PCIe...

So that's my main issue... Other than that are the many 64bit issues... Mostly involving plugins...

Oh... that's one other issue... It seems I'm only seeing one of the two processors and I'm guessing that's a limitation of Vista64??? the machine is still light years more powerful than my regular DAW as it's showing the one quad Xeon cpu at 3.22GHz and 16GB of RAM... compared to the 2-core 2.0GHz cpu with only 2Gb of Ram... But I want it all! ;-)

Much thanks for all the help and support... I'm slowly catching up with the 21st century! ;-)

Keni

Keni: The amount of processors you can use is dependent on the version of Vista (and windows 7 for that matter) you use.
If you have Vista home basic or premium, it only can use one physical processor. You need at least Vista Business to use 2.
Actually, I would recommend upgrading your vista to Windows 7 professional. Much better than vista, and you can use all your processors...