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Mac Pro 5,1 Bootcamp Rant

Zaithe

Zaithe

macrumors member
Original poster
Jun 27, 2016
78
11
So it looks like bootcamp for the Mac pro 5,1 doesn't support booting from usb, OS's greater than windows 7 and doesn't support software or hardware raids. Why is this? Is there a way around this? Seems strange considering windows 10 has very good support for older hardware and raids. Booting from a usb drive has been around almost as long as usb drives have been around. Seems like it has more to do with lazy programming from apple in regards to the EFI? Is there any hardware raid cards that people have gotten to work with bootcamp? Overall looking for any feedback to create a solid bootcamp experience.
 
I have a dedicated drive for it. I copied an existing windows 10 backup and installed the bootcamp drivers. It freezes and gets BSOD. But mac pro 5,1 only supports windows 7 and below hence the BSOD.
 
Zaithe said:
I have a dedicated drive for it. I copied an existing windows 10 backup and installed the bootcamp drivers. It freezes and gets BSOD. But mac pro 5,1 only supports windows 7 and below hence the BSOD.
Click to expand...

Plenty of us are using Windows 10. I am on a 5,1. It's fine.

You can't copy Windows from one computer to another like you can with OS X. Blue screens are expected:
http://www.howtogeek.com/239815/why-cant-you-move-a-windows-installation-to-another-computer/

You need to do a fresh install.
 
Last edited:
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Win10 64-bit EFI working perfectly on a dedicated drive, 5,1 Mac Pro here.

I'd suggest doing a clean install from a USB drive using Microsoft's media creation tool. Yanking all the Mac drives from the machine beforehand is a good idea so the Windows installer doesn't mess with them (have only your "C" drive physically in the Mac during the install).
 
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After you do a clean install of Windows, install BootCamp 5 drivers. Although Boot Camp 5 is for Windows through 8.1, all of the drivers work in Windows 10.

The exception are the HFS+ drivers, so you need to get those from Boot Camp 6:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/apple-hfs-windows-driver-download.1368010/

I don't think most people know about that last bit. If you don't get that updated driver, VSS is broken, and you won't be able to use Windows Backup/Restore and you won't be able to make or use System Restore Points.
 
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s
ActionableMango said:
Although Boot Camp 5 is for Windows through 8.1, all of the drivers work in Windows 10.
Click to expand...
Why is it that Windows gets version independent kernel code so much better than any of the UNIX variants?

Very simple - Windows doesn't use .h files to define APIs.

My Windows 10 system run some drivers from 2006 - because the APIs are opaque.
 
Thanks everyone for the feedback. I saw on the apple site and around other places that anything above windows 7 isn't supported. People who got BSOD were told to install windows 7 instead.
 
Good to know, i really don't want to lose my installation though. Anybody try and succeed at migrating windows from pc to bootcamp?
 
Install a new OS on it, copy the profile data from one computer to the other for the files and reinstall any software you need.

Windows loves clean installs. As does OSX, iOS... Computers love clean installs.
 
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ActionableMango said:
Plenty of us are using Windows 10. I am on a 5,1. It's fine.

You can't copy Windows from one computer to another like you can with OS X. Blue screens are expected:
http://www.howtogeek.com/239815/why-cant-you-move-a-windows-installation-to-another-computer/

You need to do a fresh install.
Click to expand...
I’m sure that’s what I did actually. Installed on a ‘real’ PC. Installed all Windows updates and Bootcamp drivers, (took an age), and popped the drive in a Mac and all is well. But maybe I was lucky?
 
prvt.donut said:
Install a new OS on it, copy the profile data from one computer to the other for the files and reinstall any software you need.

Windows loves clean installs. As does OSX, iOS... Computers love clean installs.
Click to expand...

This. There is also a built-in migration tool that can move your data/userprofile over after a clean install.
 
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Try legacy boot if EFI boot doesn't work. I have a delicate SSD pluged into one of the native SATA port. But can never install in EFI mode, even boot the installation disk to EFI will cause BSOD.

And the bootcamp 5 Apple HFS driver is fine for Win 10. In my experience, the exception is the current insider preview break the HFS driver (both bootcamp 5 and 6).
 
Zaithe said:
So it looks like bootcamp for the Mac pro 5,1 doesn't support booting from usb, OS's greater than windows 7 and doesn't support software or hardware raids. Why is this? Is there a way around this? Seems strange considering windows 10 has very good support for older hardware and raids. Booting from a usb drive has been around almost as long as usb drives have been around. Seems like it has more to do with lazy programming from apple in regards to the EFI? Is there any hardware raid cards that people have gotten to work with bootcamp? Overall looking for any feedback to create a solid bootcamp experience.
Click to expand...
You need to post your specs to get an informed answer. Update your signature and then we can better help.
A GTX680 Mac Edition will not run Windows in EFI mode for example. It'll boot fine and as soon as nvidia driver gets installed, BAM, black screen.
 
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Squuiid said:
You need to post your specs to get an informed answer. Update your signature and then we can better help.
A GTX680 Mac Edition will not run Windows in EFI mode for example. It'll boot fine and as soon as nvidia driver gets installed, BAM, black screen.
Click to expand...
zrZzTQe.png
 
H2SO4 said:
I’m sure that’s what I did actually. Installed on a ‘real’ PC. Installed all Windows updates and Bootcamp drivers, (took an age), and popped the drive in a Mac and all is well. But maybe I was lucky?
Click to expand...

Wow, that is very lucky and almost beyond my ability to imagine. Maybe if the PC had an Intel chipset on the motherboard from the same family. From what I understand, the chipset is usually the hangup.
 
My Mac Pro is Killing me in Bootcamp: I am trying to install, but it seems bootcamp does not take USB Sticks on the 5,1? I also can't boot into the Windows 10 Stick I created with the MS Media Creation Tool via Win 10 in VMWare. What is the best way to get Windows running on there?
 
jannikmeissner said:
My Mac Pro is Killing me in Bootcamp: I am trying to install, but it seems bootcamp does not take USB Sticks on the 5,1? I also can't boot into the Windows 10 Stick I created with the MS Media Creation Tool via Win 10 in VMWare. What is the best way to get Windows running on there?
Click to expand...
Yeah I even edited bootcamp assistant to allow me to make a usb drive. It's not possible. After spending two days trying to get it to work i decided it was time to buy some blank dvd's.
[doublepost=1468989014][/doublepost]For everyone else is it possible to get a pcie raid setup working in bootcamp? Right now this Sata 2 factor is killing me! Perhaps by use of a high end pcie hardware raid controller card?
 
Zaithe said:
Yeah I even edited bootcamp assistant to allow me to make a usb drive. It's not possible. After spending two days trying to get it to work i decided it was time to buy some blank dvd's.
[doublepost=1468989014][/doublepost]For everyone else is it possible to get a pcie raid setup working in bootcamp? Right now this Sata 2 factor is killing me! Perhaps by use of a high end pcie hardware raid controller card?
Click to expand...

For me it is less than the creation, it is the fact it won't even boot of the USB I already created in Windows running on a VM!
 
Use DVD is so much easier on this old Machine.
[doublepost=1468991093][/doublepost]
Zaithe said:
For everyone else is it possible to get a pcie raid setup working in bootcamp? Right now this Sata 2 factor is killing me! Perhaps by use of a high end pcie hardware raid controller card?
Click to expand...

You mean Windows is running very slow with HDD? That's nothing to do with SATA, get a SSD will eliminate the bottleneck.

Hardware RAID should work fine, but the Apple software RAID will not, and so far no one reported that he run Windows from a PCIe SSD with proof.
 
jannikmeissner said:
For me it is less than the creation, it is the fact it won't even boot of the USB I already created in Windows running on a VM!
Click to expand...

You plug that into the native USB port, right? From memory, some guys can do that here. I have plenty of DVD, but no spare USB stick, so, it's much easier for me to burn the disk, and I didn't try the USB method yet.
 
ActionableMango said:
Wow, that is very lucky and almost beyond my ability to imagine. Maybe if the PC had an Intel chipset on the motherboard from the same family. From what I understand, the chipset is usually the hangup.
Click to expand...
I don’t know how it worked, but I’m happy it did. I tried it because I had a problem going the official route strangely enough. That same install I have upgraded all the way to the latest Win10.
I did have to phone MS at one stage though as I got a small message that told me my OS wasn’t genuine when it was.
 
I did use a native port. I now got a disk and the installation stalled half way and every time it reboots it goes back to OS X… I will try tomorrow again and hope it will work better
 
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