MBPr & bootcamp

well, first you only get about 499gb with a 512 drive...if you run bootamp assistant does it give you the option to make the partition? because you need to do that first and for most. After that it should give you the option of installing windows, where it will reboot and start the setup from the disk, at that point you need to choose your bootcamp partition and format it. hope that helps.

 

See above. Also, I have installed Bootcamp three times on this machine (for various reasons). On each occasion the rMBP crashed at least twice, sometimes three times. When first booting into Windows it went grey and stopped. When first shutting down Windows during the installation it died on the blue "shutting down screen". And somewhere else I can't remember. On each occasion, once I had left it a minute or two to keel over I powered off (holding down the power button) and it carried on fine after powering on. Windows is working fine now. Note that there are HUNDREDS of updates to install depending on how up to date your Win7 disk is.

 

I wonder if the CD is corrupt somehow.

 

A couple things:

The 499 gb is normal. That's your actual capacity, not 512 gb.

It sounds like your partitioning improperly, and by that I mean you're making the partition yourself and then trying to install Windows onto it.

You should follow BootCamp instructions exactly, and by that I mean starting with a completely unpartitioned hard drive.

Start with a single unpartitioned hard drive, and run Boot Camp Assistant with your Windows install disk ready to go. Follow the instructions step by step, and then report and problems.

It sounds like the drive isn't being formatted for NTFS, because in order to format the partition in that storage type a Windows disk has to be present. It will automatically do the proper (NTFS) type if you follow Boot Camp instructions.

Also, IIRC, it must be a legitimate Window's disk or you will not be able to format NTFS.

If the issue persists, you do have options.

You can actually create your own partition outside of Boot Camp that is NTFS, but you have to install Paragon NTFS for mac, as you have Lion. Lion no longer allows you to make NTFS paritions (Snow Leopard did), which is probably why you are having the problem you are having. This option should only be tried after the normal method has been employed. It will require you to make sure that the partition is in NTFS format, which sounds like it may be over your specific skill level (no offense meant).

Side note: you may encounter some trouble even when following the appropriate methods of BootCamp, such as coming to a screen that says no boot disk available, if that is the case, just restart your computer holding down the ALT key. This will allow you to select the Windows partition to continue installation, or perhaps select the Mac partition in order to try again.