Installing Windows 8.1 and Bootcamp on 2013 nMP 6,1

Thanks, I think I have given up. The fast food options in Windows 8.1 are just not good enough

I have been having good results playing high-end video games on my Mac Pro late 2013. See the thread below.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1755638/

I have decided to try Boot Camp for running games natively and in better quality, but I will give up on that endeavor after the roadblocks I encountered. The results I was getting were good enough for me right now, and I will stick with that until a better solution is found for thunderbolt enclosures.

hfg said:

I don't know about the "fast food options" ...

I do know that I have found not all Thunderbolt enclosures will boot Windows on a Mac. I haven't found any multi-drive enclosures which will (and I have been curious about the Thunderbay IV but haven't tried it). I assume it has to do with the chip-set in the Thunderbolt interface. The enclosures that I have booting Windows do have to be attached while Windows is running from the internal installation so that the Thunderbolt hardware could be detected and drivers installed prior to cloning it to the external TB drive.


Good luck and post your success when you find it...

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So, I'm coming back to trying to make Windows 8.1 work on my Mac Pro (Late 2013). I know I won't be able to boot from an external Thunderbolt expansion enclosure, like my OWC Thunderbay IV. I can live with that, and I've gone ahead and just created a 60 GB internal BootCamp partition. So, I'm up and running.

But even though it won't BOOT from an external Thunderbolt expansion enclosure, I still need it to be able to READ from the drives in that enclosure. 60 GB just isn't enough HD space for the games I need to install, and I need it to be able to access those HDs.

It simply doesn't recognize them, and there are no specific Windows drivers offered by OWC for my enclosure. Of course I've installed latest drivers offered by Apple. Is there any generic Thunderbolt driver out there I can use?

Once again, I read the advice here, saying to turn off fast boot: http://support.apple.com/kb/TS4531?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US
Click Control Panel.
Choose "Hardware and Sound."
Under Power Options, choose "Change what the power buttons do."
Under "Shutdown settings," remove the checkmark from "Turn on fast startup."

My problem is that even though I am logged in as an Admin, I can't get those additional options to appear! I click where it says to make additional options appear, but none do! I even reinstalled Windows 8.1 and it didn't work.

Any thoughts on how I can force Windows 8.1 to recognize my Thunderbolt devices?

On the Thunderbay IV specs, it shows PC compatibility. I don't see any Windows drivers available, although there is a link to a "Instructions for Windows formatting" document. Interesting that one of the screenshots shows a BootCamp ( C: ) drive and a OS X SSD drive in a Windows environment box.

If you ran your internal Windows installation WITH the drive enclosure attached and powered on, Windows should have seen the new hardware and a pop-up notified you that the drivers (Thunderbolt and SATA) were being installed. At that point I would assume you would go to the Windows Disk Management page and see the drives and be able to format them for Windows. I have not had a chance to try this myself with the Thunderbay IV.


http://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/TBIVKIT0GB/

hfg said:

On the Thunderbay IV specs, it shows PC compatibility. I don't see any Windows drivers available, although there is a link to a "Instructions for Windows formatting" document. Interesting that one of the screenshots shows a BootCamp (C drive and a OS X SSD drive in a Windows environment box.



If you ran your internal Windows installation WITH the drive enclosure attached and powered on, Windows should have seen the new hardware and a pop-up notified you that the drivers (Thunderbolt and SATA) were being installed. At that point I would assume you would go to the Windows Disk Management page and see the drives and be able to format them for Windows. I have not had a chance to try this myself with the Thunderbay IV.





http://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/TBIVKIT0GB/

Click to expand...

It's very strange, because somehow this just isn't working for me. I definitely do power on the Windows 8.1 installation with the thunderbolt enclosure already attached, and yet it is not recognized. Perhaps if I attached some other thunderbolt device to trigger installation of the thunderbolt drivers, this would shake something loose?

If someone can advise me of a Thunderbolt sled that definitely works, and perhaps even has Windows drivers, and I would be willing to buy it just to get this going. It's been a long road trying to get this working.

shahidhaque said:

It's very strange, because somehow this just isn't working for me. I definitely do power on the Windows 8.1 installation with the thunderbolt enclosure already attached, and yet it is not recognized. Perhaps if I attached some other thunderbolt device to trigger installation of the thunderbolt drivers, this would shake something loose?

If someone can advise me of a Thunderbolt sled that definitely works, and perhaps even has Windows drivers, and I would be willing to buy it just to get this going. It's been a long road trying to get this working.

Click to expand...

I know I am able to boot Windows via Thunderbolt with the Seagate "Thunderbolt Adapter" and the LaCie "Rugged TB/USB3" enclosures on my iMac, Mac Mini, and Macbook Pro (I don't have a nMP, just a cMP without Thunderbolt).

I feel guilty cos I've done 7 bootcamp setups with 8/8.1 and not a single hitch. First couple I had to go 8.0 first via external DVD but the rest have all been fine with a usb install.

The 8th is week after next. Mind you these are all on the PCIe internal, used as silent windows workstations.

hfg said:

I know I am able to boot Windows via Thunderbolt with the Seagate "Thunderbolt Adapter" and the LaCie "Rugged TB/USB3" enclosures on my iMac, Mac Mini, and Macbook Pro (I don't have a nMP, just a cMP without Thunderbolt).

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Well, I'm happy to report that the Seagate Thunderbolt Adapter was recognized and it works fine. I simply took one of the hard drives out of my other enclosure and placed it into that one. This solved my problem for now. I'm not trying to boot off the drive, but I created a small internal partition for that and I'm using it for all my storage.

shahidhaque said:

Well, I'm happy to report that the Seagate Thunderbolt Adapter was recognized and it works fine. I simply took one of the hard drives out of my other enclosure and placed it into that one. This solved my problem for now. I'm not trying to boot off the drive, but I created a small internal partition for that and I'm using it for all my storage.

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Glad that you got it working for you!

I probably mentioned it before, but you can get GoFlex shells on eBay to put your SSD in for a finished look without cannibalizing an existing drive.

Installing Windows 8.1 and Bootcamp on 2013 nMP 6,1

Now that I'm up and running, would it be too much to ask for a few tips on optimizing the drivers for the GPUs (in my case the dial D500s). I have read some mixed messages about whether it's a good idea to uninstall the Boot Camp drivers and install the latest catalyst center and drivers from AMD. What have you guys done?

The reason I ask is because I was doing some testing on the video card performance in Boot Camp, and noticed some tearing and stuttering and some games when running at 4K resolution. I didn't see the same when running in Mavericks.

shahidhaque said:

So, I'm coming back to trying to make Windows 8.1 work on my Mac Pro (Late 2013). I know I won't be able to boot from an external Thunderbolt expansion enclosure, like my OWC Thunderbay IV. I can live with that, and I've gone ahead and just created a 60 GB internal BootCamp partition. So, I'm up and running.

Click to expand...

I have the OWC thunder bay IV (TB 2.0 version). I just put bootcamp using Winclone onto one of the SSD in the enclosure and it boots fine.

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shahidhaque said:

Now that I'm up and running, would it be too much to ask for a few tips on optimizing the drivers for the GPUs (in my case the dial D500s). I have read some mixed messages about whether it's a good idea to uninstall the Boot Camp drivers and install the latest catalyst center and drivers from AMD. What have you guys done?

The reason I ask is because I was doing some testing on the video card performance in Boot Camp, and noticed some tearing and stuttering and some games when running at 4K resolution. I didn't see the same when running in Mavericks.

Click to expand...

Use this link to get the latest driver when running windows.

http://support.amd.com/en-us/download/auto-detect-tool


For my D500 it suggested a mobile driver. It seems to work.

Einz said:

I have the OWC thunder bay IV (TB 2.0 version). I just put bootcamp using Winclone onto one of the SSD in the enclosure and it boots fine.

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That is crazy, I am completely baffled as to why it would work for you and not me. Oh well, I suppose all's well that ends well. The seagate thunderbolt adapter works for me and now I am up and running.

Just sharing my experience on this thread - I was able to use the instructions here - Install Windows 7 or 8 on an external USB3 or Thunderbolt drive without using bootcamp and used the StarTech Thunderbolt Dual Hard Drive Enclosure. The enclosure has two SSDs, one dedicated for Windows and the other that's my storage drive for OSX. I can boot off the enclosure by holding the option key and selecting the Windows drive. Seems to be working fine.

Lumpydog said:

I used all Apple wireless equipment - keyboard and mouse during this process.

Once in Windows, to get the mouse to register, you just need to click and hold for a few seconds - then unclick. That's enough to get Windows to see the mouse. Otherwise, nothing unordinary at all. Very easy

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So during the initial setup of Windows (entering the product code and everything), the wireless keyboard will work? Just confirming as I'm installing it tomorrow.