Installing Windows7 x64 on a Santa Rosa, *without* superDrive / DVD

[tanyia]

Hi,

I would like to install a BootCamp partition on a Santa Rosa MBP, but I've been encountering every problem ever reported, I believe... I can successfully install Leopard, but as soon as I get to Windows, it's impossible to go further. Note that I have a legit license of Windows7, but not the original DVD (hidden in boxes in another country...).

Basically, at first my SuperDrive seemed not to be able to read burnt DVD, but I opened it and cleaned it. Now, it can read anything, and when under Leopard, I can copy all the files from my Windows DVD to my hdd without any problem.

However, when creating a bootcamp partition and restarting to install Windows, the installation process hangs at 'expanding files 0%...'. In this case, the previous 'Copying files' was instant from 0% to 100%, which is not really normal if I remember correctly. I basically tried *everything* I have been able to find on internet, without success. Note that the .iso files and the DVD are built so they are bootable, which works indeed

It seem I can't boot from any usb device, because the santa rosa firmware does not permit it. I get the classical Refit message:

Starting legacy loader
Using load option 'USB'
Error: Not Found returned from legacy loader
...

I'm then trying to install it from a virtual machine, directly on a bootcamp partition, as advised on several posts... like this one :
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/601414/

However, after the terminal commands, I indeed get two .vmdk created, but I can't select them. I'm using VMWare Fusion 3 with the one month trial license. Is this problem related to the version (since the thread seems to be 2yr old) ? I haven't seen any limitation for the 'trial' version, but the 30-days period.

I'm now really desperate, I really need Windows 7 to be working, and if I can't install it, I'm going to have to buy a new machine...

Any advice welcome ! Thanks !
Cheers,

Tan

 

[balamw]

Consider the other approach from that thread. Dedicate an internal NTFS partition large enough to hold the contents of your ISO to the installer and boot from that to install to the larger NTFS partition.

B

 

[tanyia]

I'm currently trying to do this, but I don't find any way in VMWare Fusion 3 to add any physical disk to my virtual machine. Hence, in the diskpart utility, I see only the virtual machine disk drive, and can't make my 4GB partition bootable :/
Only options I've got when adding a disk drive is adding a 'virtual' one, already existing or newly created. Is there an advanced option hidden anywhere ? (like previous vmware versions).

Also, if using the vmware-rawdiskCreator, the .vmdk files are still greyed and can't be selected to be added to the virtual machine :/

Thanks !

Thanks Infrared!

Here are the steps I took:

1) Using Disk Utility, I created a 4 GB FAT32 partition on my Macintosh HDD for the Setup files and named it WIN7INSTALL.
2) I also created a 50 GB FAT32 partition on my Macintosh HDD and called it BOOTCAMP.
3) I booted into the Windows 7 Recovery Console using a Windows 7 Startup CD and opened up the Command Prompt.
4) I typed the following commands in the Command Prompt:


5) Still inside the Command Prompt, I copied the Windows 7 Setup files from a USB flash drive to the WIN7INSTALL partition I created earlier by using the following command:

6) Since I was unable to successfully use the bootrec.exe command from within the Windows Recovery Environment, I had to use the following command to rewrite the boot sector of the WIN7INSTALL partition:

7) I booted off the WIN7INSTALL partition by pressing the ALT button during the boot sequence and ran the installer.

Source1
Source2
Source3

 

[tanyia]

Edit: I'm still stuck during the installation at 'expanding files', after an instant 'Copying files'. I'm booting on a 4GB partition, formatted to NTFS, with all the windows installation files on it. I'm using refit to boot on it. I don't really have any other ideas...

I have to check again, but I seem to still have the same problem, even with files from a partition (not a CD). I workaround the use of the virtual machine recovery disk because my super drive is not totally dead yet, but if it was the case, I wouldn't know how to do (i.e. feel free to give me your opinion on my previous question )

'copying files' takes 0 seconds, then stuck at 'expanding files'. However, I've noticed that if I restart the installation, Windows does not want to install into the same partition, because of a 'unsupported version of the NTFS', despite I just formated it at the beginning of the previous installation try... Could be a problem maybe.

I'm currently trying to format using diskpart and see if I get the same message.

 

[tomllama]

FWIW, I had no success trying to load Win7 x64 on my Santa Rosa MBP. I did get the 32 bit version loaded without significant issues. My MP (2009) runs x64 fine (just not the MBP).

It would seem to be a lot less effort to add the ODD back in to load Windows and/or buy a new Win7 DVD.

 

[tanyia]

I'm sorry for you In the end, I managed to make it work, even if I'm not really sure what happened... I think I sort of mixed the 'classical' installation with CD and with booting from disk, to solve the bootmgr issue... not really sure. Anyway, I'm going to do a backup of everything so I don't need to 'install it' again.

I believe that doing a backup with winclone allows you to skip the install phase of windows when you restore it, without any major issue with the booting. I'll see

Thanks for the advice

Cheers!

Tan