How to get BootCamp onto a 5K iMac with an SSD

[roadkill401]

It seems that apple support is just stuck up people who don't really want to come up with solutions to problems they made.

I didn't make the hardware, Apple did. But they seem to not want to support it in so far as getting their BootCamp installer process to work. I had done it fine with my mac mini and even with an iMac 5K but with a fusion hard drive.

What I get if I try and run it with my 5K iMac with SSD, the BootCamp assistant makes a partition and the USB for me, but after the reboot it comes back with an error that no boot media is detected.

If you reboot the system and hold the option key you can see the usb drive and boot it into the windows install, but you have no keyboard or mouse support. Even plugging in a USB mouse or keyboard does not work.

Apple says that you need to talk to Microsoft. Microsoft says that they no longer support Win7, and anyways it's apples hardware so they need to support you. The user feels pretty ticked off that neither party wants to help out and solve the issue.

Has anyone with a 5K iMac that has just an SSD drive gotten bootcamp to work? and if you did, how did you go about doing it?

 

[torana355]

Im pretty sure you don't need any bootcamp driver for basic usb mouse and keyboard support, Try plugging a usb2 hub into the imac then plug the keyboard and mouse into that, it could be a usb3 issue.

 

[roadkill401]

That is the issue.. bootcamp does not load the correct drivers into the usb drive to have the support for usb3 in the install. So it doesn't see a usb keyboard or a mouse if they are plugged in.

Try to tell the apple support person that and they just don't get it.

 

[torana355]

That is the issue.. bootcamp does not load the correct drivers into the usb drive to have the support for usb3 in the install. So it doesn't see a usb keyboard or a mouse if they are plugged in.

Try to tell the apple support person that and they just don't get it.

Just get a usb2 hub and your problem will be solved.

 

[roadkill401]

how will a usb hub help at all? if the install does not see the usb3 chips then it can't load in any drivers to support it regardless of what is plugged into it.. or at least that was my understanding of it

 

[WilliamG]

Weird. I used Boot Camp assistant to make a Windows 8.1 bootable USB 3.0 stick, and I was able to install the OS with my mouse/USB 3.0 stick working just fine on my 5K iMac..

 

[Rass]

Weird. I used Boot Camp assistant to make a Windows 8.1 bootable USB 3.0 stick, and I was able to install the OS with my mouse/USB 3.0 stick working just fine on my 5K iMac..

I did similar. Apple wired keyboard, Generic USB mouse, 16gig USB2 Flash drive with Windows 8.1. worked like a charm.

Edit -Perhaps Win7 does not support the hardware properly? Is there a slipstreamed version that you can get which is fully patched? Try a different USB drive, I've seen ones which are not bootable for whatever reason.

 

[yjchua95]

It seems that apple support is just stuck up people who don't really want to come up with solutions to problems they made.

I didn't make the hardware, Apple did. But they seem to not want to support it in so far as getting their BootCamp installer process to work. I had done it fine with my mac mini and even with an iMac 5K but with a fusion hard drive.

What I get if I try and run it with my 5K iMac with SSD, the BootCamp assistant makes a partition and the USB for me, but after the reboot it comes back with an error that no boot media is detected.

If you reboot the system and hold the option key you can see the usb drive and boot it into the windows install, but you have no keyboard or mouse support. Even plugging in a USB mouse or keyboard does not work.

Apple says that you need to talk to Microsoft. Microsoft says that they no longer support Win7, and anyways it's apples hardware so they need to support you. The user feels pretty ticked off that neither party wants to help out and solve the issue.

Has anyone with a 5K iMac that has just an SSD drive gotten bootcamp to work? and if you did, how did you go about doing it?

Windows 7 does not support USB 3, and since it's Microsoft's product, you can't expect Apple to solve it for you. Hardware and software vendors are separate and not related to each other.

Just use Windows 8.1, it's flawless.

Besides, if you tried to install Windows 7 on any other PC with only USB 3 ports, you'd get the same outcome.

There is NO WAY to get Windows 7 running on USB 3.

Besides, Windows 7 no longer receives mainstream support from Microsoft. In order for the installation to proceed, USB 3 drivers must exist within the OS installer itself. Since the Windows 7 installer doesn't have USB 3 drivers in the first place, and Microsoft has ceased mainstream support for the OS, you're screwed.

And you cannot expect Apple to come up with a solution. There is absolutely no way for Apple to modify the Windows 7 installer to inject USB 3 drivers into it. Doing so would violate the Microsoft EULA anyway.

 

[WilliamG]

Windows 7 does not support USB 3, and since it's Microsoft's product, you can't expect Apple to solve it for you. Hardware and software vendors are separate and not related to each other.

Just use Windows 8.1, it's flawless.

Besides, if you tried to install Windows 7 on any other PC with only USB 3 ports, you'd get the same outcome.

There is NO WAY to get Windows 7 running on USB 3.

Besides, Windows 7 no longer receives mainstream support from Microsoft. In order for the installation to proceed, USB 3 drivers must exist within the OS installer itself. Since the Windows 7 installer doesn't have USB 3 drivers in the first place, and Microsoft has ceased mainstream support for the OS, you're screwed.

And you cannot expect Apple to come up with a solution. There is absolutely no way for Apple to modify the Windows 7 installer to inject USB 3 drivers into it. Doing so would violate the Microsoft EULA anyway.

I can't speak for the 5K iMac, but I had Windows 7 installed on my 2012 iMac, and USB 3.0 definitely worked...

 

[Nermal]

Apple's support table lists Windows 7 as compatible with that machine. Something's gone screwy (unfortunately I can't make any suggestions though).

 

[AppleNewton]

Yep, you're gonna have to get Windows 8.1 - Windows 7 does not have built in USB 3.0 support (once its installed you can get drivers for it, but no go with the current hardware).

 

[yjchua95]

I can't speak for the 5K iMac, but I had Windows 7 installed on my 2012 iMac, and USB 3.0 definitely worked...

This was because the 2012 Ivy Bridge iMac installed Boot Camp using emulated BIOS, and the emulated BIOS could make the OS talk to the USB ports.

However, the Haswell and later Macs install Boot Camp using native UEFI. And we all know that Windows 7 is finicky when it comes to UEFI. So somehow, in UEFI, Windows 7 couldn't talk to the ports.

 

[WilliamG]

This was because the 2012 Ivy Bridge iMac installed Boot Camp using emulated BIOS, and the emulated BIOS could make the OS talk to the USB ports.

However, the Haswell and later Macs install Boot Camp using native UEFI. And we all know that Windows 7 is finicky when it comes to UEFI. So somehow, in UEFI, Windows 7 couldn't talk to the ports.

That makes sense.

 

[playaproved]

This was because the 2012 Ivy Bridge iMac installed Boot Camp using emulated BIOS, and the emulated BIOS could make the OS talk to the USB ports.

However, the Haswell and later Macs install Boot Camp using native UEFI. And we all know that Windows 7 is finicky when it comes to UEFI. So somehow, in UEFI, Windows 7 couldn't talk to the ports.

There's some really smart people on this site. One of the reason I love coming here.

 

[roadkill401]

got it working. After racking my head on why this machine didn't work when I had it work on a different iMac 5K that i had before. Then i found a Silicon Power USB drive that I used that time and it had the Windows 7 install still on it.

I gave that one a try and it worked. I guess it was something that was funky with my Kingston Datatraveler 111 that stopped it from working.

I just wanted to know if it was possible. And to repsond to the no USB3. The installer by microsoft doesn't have usb3 support by default but it does have a method to pre-load drivers for those devices that it does not support. That is the way you can get it to recognize hardware raid controllers, nic cards, you name it.

The part that was not happening with my install was when BootCamp rebooted into it's special bios mode to let Windows installer load, it was not recognizing the usb flash drive at all. so it could not boot. Once trading to a different flash drive (the silicon power one) that worked before, it seemed to go fine.

Thanks for all the help that was offered.