Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Bootcamp on the new MBAs

Y

Yixian

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jun 2, 2007
1,483
135
Europe
Anyone managed it?!

I'm trying to install Win 7 and oh my GOD this has been the most frustrating Bootcamp attempt in my entire life, and that's saying something.

I have two ISOs, one of my full Windows installation, the other of a stripped down version. Neither of them are recognised by the Bootcamp Assistant, both of them give "error 254" and "invalid argument" when attempting to restore them to a USB stick. However this happens when trying to restore those ISOs on my old MBA, and my iMac!

I tried burning them to a DVD and plugging in an external drive, but the drive powers down during the installation process and freezes.

Restoring to an MS-FAT partition of my SSD also results in "error 254".

I'm going mad, I can't think of anything else to try.
 
just replied to your other thread.. but yea, from what i recall.. it was just gathering the drivers into a usb, plug my external with my ISO copy of Win7, format the partition (don't think I even needed a Fat partition), and then install from external. once set up.. plug the usb stick with the drivers.
 
Yixian said:
Anyone managed it?!

I'm trying to install Win 7 and oh my GOD this has been the most frustrating Bootcamp attempt in my entire life, and that's saying something.

I have two ISOs, one of my full Windows installation, the other of a stripped down version. Neither of them are recognised by the Bootcamp Assistant, both of them give "error 254" and "invalid argument" when attempting to restore them to a USB stick. However this happens when trying to restore those ISOs on my old MBA, and my iMac!

I tried burning them to a DVD and plugging in an external drive, but the drive powers down during the installation process and freezes.

Restoring to an MS-FAT partition of my SSD also results in "error 254".

I'm going mad, I can't think of anything else to try.
Click to expand...

Where did you buy Windows 7 from? If you got the official download I don't see why it wouldn't work. I just installed Windows 8 and I didn't run into any errors. Try a legitimate ISO, it may be the case that whatever ISOs you downloaded have problems.
 
One is my own legit ISO, the other is one I made a while back with some utility to strip it down and make it small.

They both work when booted from DVD, the only problem is that my external DVD drive is USB powered and just turns off during the installation process.

The error is somewhere else... Something to do with the ISOs I think, because I have tried multiple flash drives.
 
Tried downloading another different ISO, still no luck. Same errors: invalid argument or error -254.

I can't even find an explanation online as to what these errors even mean.
 
I'm gonna try a legit iso of Win 8 tonight I get from school. I'll post back my results.

Edit: Looks like it worked. I haven't actually installed it yet, but I got to the point when I can which it seems is further than you guys have got to. I'm just not sure if I want to use it as a VM or as a separate partition so I haven't installed yet.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back