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Windows 7 /Bootcamp Blues - 2011 iMac

R

rosewoodltd

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 13, 2011
5
0
It's a long story, but I'll try to be brief.
Recently rec'd my 2011 27" iMac, hotrodded by OWC with 480 GB SSD, 2TB Hitatchi HDD and eSATA port.

The original intent was going to be to get Win 7 Professional 64 Bit on a Seagate Momentus XT hooked to the eSATA port. I was prepared to clone the drive from an internal bootcamp install if necessary.

Problem 1 - Bootcamp absolutely refuses to work with the install DVDs for either the 32 or 64 bit installs. No problems setting up internal FAT32 partitions on either the SSD or the Hitatchi, but when restarting for the first time, all I get is a blank screen with a flashing cursor in the upper left corner, not moveable.

Apple doesn't have a freakin' clue why their superdrive won't read the DVD - total time spent with senior tech advisors is in excess of 2 hours.

Never mind that you can no longer use XP with Lion and bootcamp, how is it that a computer that is supposed to be able to ONLY use Win7 in conjunction with bootcamp can't deal with regular retail install DVDs? Shame on you, Apple!

Okay, rant off.

Problem 2 - went the route of making a bootable USB stick. Was able to successfully install 32 Bit Win 7 Pro in VirtualBox and after much thrashing around with getting access to the USB stick, I then downloaded the 64 Bit iso file and copied it to the USB stick with the Windows official USB/DVD installer software. SO far, so good.

Installed rEFIt w/o problems, comes up nice as pie with option boot and gives me a full menu of bootable devices, I think.

When I go to the boot options inside rEFIt, it lists my bootable OS X drives and I see three other options:

One is a "Windows on partition 1" choice with an associated orange square icon.

The other two are "legacy OS on HD" options.

All three produce "No operating system found" windows errors when selected as boot options.

Inspecting the files on the USB stick reveals all of the goodies needed for booting.

Why dosn't the USB device show up as such? Given the content of the stick and the absence of any errors or problems with the Microsoft USB/DVD installer software, what in tarnation is going on here?

While I'm not ready to take a foaming bite out of my carpet yet, I'mgetting pretty close. I'm fairly sure from some searches I've already done that I'm not the only one having this problem, but I have yet to see a successful workaround for the inability to use the retail install discs.

Thanks to all in advance,

Russ
 
How about download an IOS version of Windows 7 and buring it to a DVD RW disk. Do this on a windows machine and see if this methold works.

Also why are you using FAT32 and not NTFS for Windows?
 
I'm not sure I see how this would be something "new" to try. Perhaps I'm missing something. In what way would a burned iso disk be different from my regular install DVDs?

Thanks, Russ
 
I also had problem install Win7 from retail installation disk a year ago on my home build PC, not sure why but the above methold worked for me.
 
I'll give it a whirl. Going to need to figure out how to get the iso file out of my VirtualBox VM first, though.

Thanks,

Russ
 
Hmmm, that's very interesting. I did not have any of these issues on my 2010. I've installed Bootcamp on the internal drive, connected a Windows 7 install from my ASUS to the esata port and it booted. Had to uninstall all the ASUS bits but it worked. Bootcamp of obviously on the efi OS X drive but the ASUS drive is partitioned MBR. What's very strange is the lack of boot for your Windows 7 DVD. I tested that on the internal Superdrive and a USB connected external Blu-ray and Windows install DVD boots.

Is the architecture of the 2011 iMac that much different?

Cheers,
 
are you using an external dvd drive?

I tried to install Win7 on my iMac with stock 1TB HD and SSD in the optical bay with no luck, the windows disks where never recognized

This was in my original thread about mi issue:

"I have a 2010 iMac with a SSD where the superdrive used to be, I'm trying to install Windows to play some games but when the Mac restarts to install the OS all I get is the apple logo that flashes between this:"


images


and this:

ProhibitorySign.png
 
The optical drive is stock and appears fully functional for everything else I want to do.
 
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