Bootcamp help- black screen/ blinking cursor

[vrsixer]

Can anybody help with a bootcamp problem? A friend of mine has a late 2011 15" Macbook Pro that shows a blank screen with a top left blinking cursor whenever she boots into Win7. I've tried booting into the Windows cd to do a system repair, but no joy. I've updated the latest OSX firmware, didn't help. I've looked around the forums and couldn't find a definitive answer to this problem. It seems to me there's a problem with the boot partition for Windows, but if there's any way to fix without having to reload, I would greatly appreciate it. TIA

 

[vrsixer]

This fix worked for me.

From another forum:

"1. Put the Windows 7 installation disc in the disc drive, and then start your computer.
2. Hold down Option key till all available disks are displayed and select DVD. Press a key when you are prompted.
3. Select a language, a time, a currency, a keyboard or an input method, and then 4. click Next.
5. Click Repair your computer.
6. Click the operating system that you want to repair, and then click Next.
7.In the System Recovery Options dialog box, click Command Prompt.

Type (these commands are safe)
Code: Bootrec.exe /FixMbr
Code: Bootrec.exe /FixBoot
Code: Bootrec.exe /RebuildBcd
*Press ENTER after each command.*
*Restart your computer.* "

 

[ichoppryde]

This fix worked for me.

From another forum:

"1. Put the Windows 7 installation disc in the disc drive, and then start your computer.
2. Hold down Option key till all available disks are displayed and select DVD. Press a key when you are prompted.
3. Select a language, a time, a currency, a keyboard or an input method, and then 4. click Next.
5. Click Repair your computer.
6. Click the operating system that you want to repair, and then click Next.
7.In the System Recovery Options dialog box, click Command Prompt.

Type (these commands are safe)
Code: Bootrec.exe /FixMbr
Code: Bootrec.exe /FixBoot
Code: Bootrec.exe /RebuildBcd
*Press ENTER after each command.*
*Restart your computer.* "

I dont understand how this part works, when I hold the option key 3 options are available HD, Recovery and the DVD which says Windows. I click the DVD that says Windows on it and after that the DVD starts to spin and I am stuck At the black screen with blinking cursor again?

I dont see anything that says for me to click something after this part?

 

[phyrexia]

Prediction: Your friend has removed her optical drive in favor of an optibay, yes?

edit: Is this a previously successful installation of Windows that has now been borked somehow, or is this an attempt to perform a fresh installation of Windows?

I dont understand how this part works, when I hold the option key 3 options are available HD, Recovery and the DVD which says Windows. I click the DVD that says Windows on it and after that the DVD starts to spin and I am stuck At the black screen with blinking cursor again?

I dont see anything that says for me to click something after this part?

Yeah, you are not getting far enough in the process. You get stuck between step 2 and step 3.

 

[ratamaq]

phyrexia,

Good prediction. That is the boat I am in anyway.

ichoppryde,

I ran into the same problem with the CD just spinning. In my situation I didn't have time to troubleshoot the problem with my Bootcamp S2K8 not booting so I just kept booting off of the DVD. At one point it stopped working, it was after I unplugged the super drive with the disk in it.

The only think I did to allow myself to boot again was plug the drive back in while booted into OS X, Eject the disk, reinsert the disk then from the startup disk option in setting choosing the DVD to boot from, then restart. After that I was back in the windows machine.

vrsixer,

Thanks for your post. I will try this and post back if it corrects the issue.

 

[japasneezemonk]

This fix worked for me.

From another forum:

"1. Put the Windows 7 installation disc in the disc drive, and then start your computer.
2. Hold down Option key till all available disks are displayed and select DVD. Press a key when you are prompted.
3. Select a language, a time, a currency, a keyboard or an input method, and then 4. click Next.
5. Click Repair your computer.
6. Click the operating system that you want to repair, and then click Next.
7.In the System Recovery Options dialog box, click Command Prompt.

Type (these commands are safe)
Code: Bootrec.exe /FixMbr
Code: Bootrec.exe /FixBoot
Code: Bootrec.exe /RebuildBcd
*Press ENTER after each command.*
*Restart your computer.* "

thankyou. this worked for me.
I was able to install windows 7 on a mac mini server after all. Just used disk utility to erase the HD, then installed Lion on the 1st HD and Windows 7 on the 2nd HD using bootcamp. I then installed the drivers with and old Snow Leopard DVD I had laying around.

 

[genesound]

Worked here too, thanks. Now I wish I hadn't reinstalled. I used the same bootcamp partition via bootcamp, reinstalled, and it didn't fix the bcd apparently so I still had the blinking cursor

I had a lot of software already loaded in Win7 in a new install before, but the blinking cursor would blink about 180 times, then it would go. Now it's fixed though, cursor blinks about 4 times. But of course I need to install everything in this installation now.