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Bootcamp install of Windows without using the super drive

Breakthrough! I have fixed everything now, and everything runs as it would normally.

So my keyboard and mouse were unresponsive. To fix it, I held down the F8 key at Windows start up and booted in Safe Mode, which provided me basic keyboard and mouse functions.

Next, I uninstalled the special Boot Camp Drivers for the keyboard, mouse, and trackpad in Control Panel. I then navigated through the Boot Camp Drivers directory and ran these two .exe's from /Drivers/Apple: AppleKeyboardInstaller.exe and AppleTrackpadInstaller.exe. Nothing happened after I clicked them, but after I restared in Normal Mode my keyboard and mouse behaved like a typical Mac one (volume control with the functions key, right-click with two fingers, etc.). So I'm inclined to believe that opening the .exe's made a difference.

Oh, and Parallels Tools attempted to auto-install at startup again, but I cancelled it and deleted the Parallels Folder in Program Files completely. No isssues after that. And if you have issues with the video drivers not installing properly like I did, then just navigate through the Boot Camps Drivers directory again and find Setup.exe at Drivers/Intel/Graphics/XP. The drivers installed properly after that.

So... that's it, I guess. clone the partition with Winclone and don't worry about Boot Camp installs through SuperDrive ever again! :) Much thanks to Melchior for discovering this method and thanks to ColinEC for his insight and streamlining.
 
ColinEC said:
I'm working on installing Windows 7 without a DVD (broken SuperDrive here) using VMWare Fusion and the instructions provided by melchior.[...]
Click to expand...

I installed Windows 7 without using a DVD. These are the steps I used.

(1) I created a 4GB FAT partition on my Leopard hard drive.
(2) I opened the Win7 ISO in Finder and copied the contents to that partition.
(3) The partition was made active and bootable.
(4) I booted off the partition and ran the installer.

Step 3 requires putting a Vista/Win7 compatible Volume Boot Record at
the head of the partition. You can do this in VMWare by using the Win7
ISO as a recovery disc (bootrec.exe /fixboot):

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927392

I already had Server 2008 installed on another disk. I created the FAT
partion from there using Disk Management, and made it active. Doing
that apparently set up the VBR correctly.
 
ColinEC said:
I'm working on installing Windows 7 without a DVD (broken SuperDrive here) using VMWare Fusion and the instructions provided by melchior.

I think I've figured out a way to make VMWare install Windows 7 to the Boot Camp partition.

I'll try and see if it works, and if it does I will post instructions.

Edit:

Great news, I got the Boot Camp partition to show up in VMWare Fusion when installing windows. I'm going to install it!

Here's what I did:

Step 1: Installed VMWare, opened up the application to make sure everything worked correctly, then quit.

Step 2: I created a folder in the root of my hard drive (Macintosh HD) entitled "Virtual Machines"

Step 3: I typed the following into Terminal:

Code: 
cd /Virtual\ Machines
Then..
Code: 
/Library/Application\ Support/VMware\ Fusion/vmware-rawdiskCreator print /dev/disk0
A list of my computer's partitions appeared, then I typed..
Code: 
/Library/Application\ Support/VMware\ Fusion/vmware-rawdiskCreator create /dev/disk0 3 windows7 ide

You can see a screenshot of Terminal after typing in these commands below.

After that, I opened up VMWare Fusion. I chose to make a new machine, I hit Continue Without Disc.

I chose Use existing virtual disk, then selected windows7.vmdk out of the Virtual Machines folder in root of Macintosh HD.

VMWare asked me if I wanted to convert the disk into an "updated" version, I chose not to convert the disk image.

After that, I unchecked "automatically open machine when VMWare starts", then hit finish. I opened up the settings for the newly created virtual machine, and changed the disc to point to my Windows 7 ISO file.

I started the machine, and VMWare successfully recognized my Boot Camp partition and I'm installing Windows 7 onto the partition right now.


Screenshot of Terminal after typing in commands:

picture4cx8.png


Update:

Setup completed successfully in VMWare and rebooted. I'm going to try and natively boot off of this, if it doesn't work I'll try winclone (I think winclone might set the partition to active when it copies the flies to the partition, that's why that "trick" causes the partition to become bootable again).

Side note: The reason why you type disk0 into Terminal instead of the actual ID of the Boot Camp partition (usually it's disk0s3) is because the VMWare Raw Disk Creator considers the Boot Camp partition a "special" partition and tags it with a 0 rather than using the usual disk0s3 stuff.
Click to expand...



Thank You Very Much!!!!!!!:)
Everything workout just perfect !!!!!!
You are Genius ;)
 
Servbot41 said:
ColinEC, you say that you're going to try and natively boot, did it work? Are your keyboard and mouse responsive?
Click to expand...

I wasn't able to natively boot into it, I'm going to check out what Infrared said to do and see if I can set the partition as active and bootable.

Edit:

I kept getting "Element not found" when trying to use bootrec.exe /fixboot command under VMWare.

I cloned the partition using WinClone, then used Boot Camp to delete the partition and create a new one, restored the WinClone image on that but I couldn't get Windows to appear on the boot menu.

Am I doing anything wrong?
 
Bump -

Has anyone been able to natively boot into their VMWare Fusion-installed Windows? I'm still not able to, I've been running the "bootrec.exe /fimbr" and fixboot option in Windows 7 via VMWare to see if that'll fix it, but nothing works.

I'll try WinClone to see if it sets the partition as bootable.
 
For something less intrusive (without partition your hard drive), I was thinking of something like this. This method is NOT tested, but it's an idea.

Windows XP trial on VHD for Virtual PC 2007

  1. Download a trial copy of Windows XP pre-installed on a VHD file for Virtual PC 2007. We will convert this VHD to something else.
  2. Download a trial copy of VMWare Fusion or Parallels.
  3. Convert the VHD to Fusion or Parallels format.
  4. No idea of this will work.
Let us know if anyone wants to try this...
 
Alright, I just tried to do that trick with Windows Server 2008 : That worked.
I didn't have to use the WinClone stuff, even though rEFIt was necessary to make the firmware detect that there were something bootable on the windows partition.

I tried before with XP, and I got the unsolvable blue screen of death.

So, since Server 2008 and Vista share the same core (am I right?), the trick should do it for Vista, and even for Windows 7, but since the beta finishes in august, I prefer to try it in vmware only…

Tips : The keyboard wasn't detected at first, so when you install Windows via VMWare, don't put a password too complicated since you'll have to type it with the on-screen keyboard.
 
External DVD drives don't work for Windows installation.

I found that you could create a PC in VMware fusion then clone it using Winclone, restore to the BOOTCAMP disk with Winclone to make it bootable and restart holding the option (alt) key to select to boot from the windows partition.

I have had success with Vista 32 SP2 and Windows 7 RC 64 bit, Boot Camp only works properly for Vista (even Boot Camp 3, though some drivers do). For Vista I had to use the onscreen keyboard to enter my password. Also having a wireless ethernet connection seemed to help get updates and drivers but it will probably work using ethernet, I have not tried this myself though. Probably will work for Vista SP2 64 bit.

Winclone http://twocanoes.com/winclone/
 
It is not really the medium at the end of the external interface that is the issue. For some reason windows boot on mac is not able to see the external drive, probably something to do with the mac efi firmware. I always go the same error "no bootable medium insert disk etc" regardless of if the device was attached or not. Just does not seem to be looking at the external device.

Perhaps booting into firmware and using the available commands would work.
 
Alan Stafford said:
It is not really the medium at the end of the external interface that is the issue. For some reason windows boot on mac is not able to see the external drive, probably something to do with the mac efi firmware. I always go the same error "no bootable medium insert disk etc" regardless of if the device was attached or not. Just does not seem to be looking at the external device.

Perhaps booting into firmware and using the available commands would work.
Click to expand...

Ii get the same problem, but a few people have managed to do it, including a friend of mine that I saw while isntalling.
 
I think it is not a problem for the usual person now since using a PC image (probably the free QEMU as well as VMWare or Parallels) restored to the BOOTCAMP partition using Winclone works. This is also the fastest method as i is working at hard disk speed and you can make the image with all the resources of your mac to hand. I usually run the PC through an emulator only switching to direct running for graphics intensive use so I need an emulator anyway.

A solution using an external device would be good for support people who have to do many installations.
 
I think you have to use a fixed size image in VMWare, otherwise you get a two volume disk (System Reserved and Untitled) but I have yet had the time to check, also don't install VMWare tools. Quit the PC building as soon as you have installed.

Also read that if you use an external drive it has to be set to Master, perhaps that is what is wrong with my external DVD.
 
Finally got it to boot natively on my MBA Rev1, after following the VMWare instructions. Only thing I did differently, after running WinClone, was installing rEFIt, which saw the BootCamp partition and let it boot.

However, I cannot get the Mouse/Keyboard working.
 
spencers said:
Finally got it to boot natively on my MBA Rev1, after following the VMWare instructions. Only thing I did differently, after running WinClone, was installing rEFIt, which saw the BootCamp partition and let it boot.

However, I cannot get the Mouse/Keyboard working.
Click to expand...

If you want to use WinClone, you can. But it's a complete waste
of time as it's unnecessary.

Note: it's always best to install natively. If you do it that way, it
is more likely that Windows will install the correct drivers for your
actual hardware, rather than the hardware in a virtual machine.

I'm not entirely sure you installed in a virtual environment first,
but if you did, that may be why your mouse and keyboard are
not working.
 
winclone

winclone just save me a lot of time
thanx for the info
by the way, i've donated :)

if you want to install windows nativly, try to do it from broken cd-drive or from network ...
by the way, you can preinstall windows in vmware or something similar and use it as source for image
it will be very native windows setup
 
Hi!
I used ColinEC´s VMware instructions to install Windows 7 rc 7100 64bit to my macbook air rev2. It seemed to work fine so I suspended the virtual machine and tried restarting. The machine did not find the windowsdrive when booting so I tried installing rEFIt and restarted again. This time it found the windowsdrive, but when I tried booting it, I got an errormessage saying there was a problem with the winlogon and that I had to repair it using the installdvd. Bummer!

I tried to use winclone to clone the bootcampdrive, but it could not complete the cloning and suggested that I had not shut off windows in the correct manner (Shees, suspending isn´t good enough?;)).

I tried opening the virtual machine in VMware, but it would not let me (because of some problem with the physical drive). So I said "What the hey, I´ll just delete everything and start all over". I deleted the virtual machine and repartitioned the bootcampdrive.

But now whenever I try to run a virtual machine VMware will simply state "Missing operating system" and leave it at that. I have tried un- and re-installing VMware (probably not clean) with no luck.

Does anyone have a clue to what I can do with my "missing operating system"?
 
Morning!

I opened the wmx file of the virtual machine using:
pico /Virtual\ Machines/Windows7.vmwarevm/Windows7.vmx

I can not see any reference to "ide0:3", only ide0:0.present = TRUE and ide0:0.filename = "/Virtual Machines/Windows7.vmdk"

Should they perhaps read:
ide0:3.present = "TRUE"
ide0:3.fileName = "/Virtual Machines/Windows7.vmdk"

If so, how do I change or add these lines (I am not very good with terminal)?
 
But now whenever I try to run a virtual machine VMware will simply state "Missing operating system" and leave it at that. I have tried un- and re-installing VMware (probably not clean) with no luck.

Does anyone have a clue to what I can do with my "missing operating system"?[/QUOTE]

I've ran into the same problem, after almost giving up and buy the external superdrive I tried uninstalling VMware, deleted all VMware folders in the libraries, then restart, removed the bootcamp partition then restart, repartition, then installed VMware again and did the 3 steps again and then it worked again, so keep trying

I can now boot into windows with rEFIt, but windows itself won't start. it stops at the blue screen or keeps rebooting, says something about "new harddrive install" or stops loading drivers d347.sys

im doing it all over again now without installing the bootcamp drivers first and will probably try to use my ipod to boot from too.
 
Rasmus-pq: I have tried doing that (a little too many times), but I still get the same "Missing operating system". However I don´t think I have managed to remove every single fusionrelated file because whenever I reinstall fusion it still remembers my previous settings (and yes, I have deleted the preferencefiles). Do you remember which files and folder you deleted?

Have you tried using winclone to solve yor problem?

Have somebody tried comparing performance between a boot camp installation and a virual machine (non bootcamp-partition) install?
 
Infrared said:
I installed Windows 7 without using a DVD. These are the steps I used.

(1) I created a 4GB FAT partition on my Leopard hard drive.
(2) I opened the Win7 ISO in Finder and copied the contents to that partition.
(3) The partition was made active and bootable.
(4) I booted off the partition and ran the installer.

Step 3 requires putting a Vista/Win7 compatible Volume Boot Record at
the head of the partition. You can do this in VMWare by using the Win7
ISO as a recovery disc (bootrec.exe /fixboot):

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927392

I already had Server 2008 installed on another disk. I created the FAT
partion from there using Disk Management, and made it active. Doing
that apparently set up the VBR correctly.
Click to expand...

I don't get step 3...
also, did you have to create a bootcamp partition?
 
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