MBA Haswell Bootcamp nightmare

[Yixian]

I am having an absolute nightmare trying to get Windows 7 onto my new MBA Haswell.

I don't even know where to begin with the problems, they may even be multi-factorial.

Bootcamp Assistant doesn't recognise my standard Windows 7 ISO.

I can't even restore my ISOs (I have got multiple now, thinking mine was corrupted) to anything.. Not to SSD partitions, not to flash drives, nothing. I have tried both Disc Utility and SuperDuper, not luck. All I get is error 264 or invalid argument.

I burnt one to disc and booted to it via. an external drive, it loads the installer and then.. Either freezes or the keyboard and trackpad suddenly die. External wired keyboard doesn't work either.

For the love of god... I have spent about 4 hours on this and have gotten nowhere, this isn't how I wanted to christen my new Mac :/

 

[Yixian]

Putting the restore issue aside, perhaps the keyboard and trackpad don't work because Win 7 has no native USB3 support?

 

[fenderbass146]

Putting the restore issue aside, perhaps the keyboard and trackpad don't work because Win 7 has no native USB3 support?

I responded to you in my other post when I had these problems, but the key was for me was to allow bootcamp to make the flash/external drive with a windows image ( I found my windows 7 ultimate image off of microsofts website) I also have bootcamp download the windows support software.

Example is when you open bootcamp assitant it has three check boxes,
1 create windows boot disc
2 download windows support software
3 create partitoin, or something I forget what the last one is exactly

Make sure those are all selected.

 

[Yixian]

I responded to you in my other post when I had these problems, but the key was for me was to allow bootcamp to make the flash/external drive with a windows image ( I found my windows 7 ultimate image off of microsofts website) I also have bootcamp download the windows support software.

Example is when you open bootcamp assitant it has three check boxes,
1 create windows boot disc
2 download windows support software
3 create partitoin, or something I forget what the last one is exactly

Make sure those are all selected.

Ah now that you mention it i think I copied the support software onto the flash drive, perhaps there are some hidden ones that were missing, I'll try that, thanks.

 

[Yixian]

Yeah that didn't work lol.

 

[duervo]

Download this tool, and use it to create your Windows 7 USB flash drive. (You will need to have access to a PC to do it.) http://images2.store.microsoft.com/prod/clustera/framework/w7udt/1.0/en-us/Windows7-USB-DVD-tool.exe

(FWIW, I've used this tool successfully to create USB Flash Drives for installing Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows Server 2008R2, and Windows Server 2012. Works like a charm, every time.)

Then, download the BootCamp Support package from Apple, and put that onto a directory that you create on that same flash drive (should be enough space on the drive for it.) http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1638

Put the flash drive in your MBA, then reboot and hold Option down until you see the boot selection menu, then choose the USB Flash Drive.

The rest should be fairly self-explanatory.

NOTE: I'm assuming that you've already created a partition on the MBA for the Windows install. If you didn't, then do that first (use BCA to just create the partition. Skip the other options.)

If that doesn't work, then like fenderbass146 suggested, tell BCA to download the BootCamp support files for you and to create the bootable flash drive. It's most likely slipstreaming the drivers that you'd need into the Windows install image that it's going to copy on the USB drive. In which case, just copying the drivers to the flash drive yourself probably isn't going to do it.

 

[V-l-a-d-i-m-i-r]

@Yixian: Could you please tell me how exactly does the Mid-2013 MBA download "Windows Support" software? Does it just create "Windows Support" folder on the flash drive, as usual?

I am developing alternate (better) drivers for Boot Camp-enabled Macbooks... if you or anybody else who owns Haswell MBA could just zip the "Windows Support" folder and share with me, that would speed up making my drivers available for the Haswell update.

My topic here at MacRumors: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1497761/