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Windows 7 takes ages to boot on Unibody Macbook

C

Cali3350

macrumors regular
Original poster
Feb 16, 2009
249
0
Installing the RC of Windows 7 on my Macbook and everything works perfectly fine however it takes ages to start up. The screen will stay at a black screen with a single blinking white cursor for around a minute when trying to start up the system. This is a windows download straight from MSDN so the windows operating system is clean and nothing fishy is going on.

Anyone else have this issue and/or found a way around it?

Thanks guys!
 
Cali3350 said:
Installing the RC of Windows 7 on my Macbook and everything works perfectly fine however it takes ages to start up. The screen will stay at a black screen with a single blinking white cursor for around a minute when trying to start up the system. This is a windows download straight from MSDN so the windows operating system is clean and nothing fishy is going on.

Anyone else have this issue and/or found a way around it?

Thanks guys!
Click to expand...

Same here. I'm running a copy of Windows 7 enterprise from Microsoft Licensing on a MacBook Pro Late 2008. I have tried partitioning using the boot camp assistant and by using diskutil at the command line. When Boot camp is used, Windows boots pretty much consistently after ~45sec of the blinking cursor. Using custom partitioning however, it takes much longer.
 
Using the last/latest RC 32-bit/64-bit versions before Microsoft stopped the download, Windows 7 booted pretty quick (on par with OS X). I know there was a thread here when someone asked the same question, why did it stay at the black screen with blinking cursor and the answer was because he downloaded one off a torrent and it was already hacked/activated.

Would you have Windows 7 RC that Microsoft released to the public through their download site? Maybe try that to see if it's the computer or Windows itself.
 
iLog.Genius said:
Using the last/latest RC 32-bit/64-bit versions before Microsoft stopped the download, Windows 7 booted pretty quick (on par with OS X). I know there was a thread here when someone asked the same question, why did it stay at the black screen with blinking cursor and the answer was because he downloaded one off a torrent and it was already hacked/activated.

Would you have Windows 7 RC that Microsoft released to the public through their download site? Maybe try that to see if it's the computer or Windows itself.
Click to expand...

hmmm. I'll try the RC, but the RTM one is one I got through work, since we're MS Software assurance customers, so I hope it doesn't have an activation hack on it :)
 
ergosteur said:
hmmm. I'll try the RC, but the RTM one is one I got through work, since we're MS Software assurance customers, so I hope it doesn't have an activation hack on it :)
Click to expand...

That's the only thing I could think of. If the RC version boots quick like it should and the RTM one doesn't, there has to be something different between the two versions, not necessarily meaning that one is activated through crack or whatever.
 
I'm pretty sure that's an issue where the bootloader isn't loading properly, I think because of the BIOS emulation... I wouldn't be too hasty to blame Windows, since they worked on boot time optimizations, and Apple loves to nerf Windows at every chance they get.
 
thejadedmonkey said:
I'm pretty sure that's an issue where the bootloader isn't loading properly, I think because of the BIOS emulation... I wouldn't be too hasty to blame Windows, since they worked on boot time optimizations, and Apple loves to nerf Windows at every chance they get.
Click to expand...

Hmm. But if RC boots fast and RTM doesn't, it would have to be Windows and not the bootloader?
 
Odd. I'm running the RTM Windows 7 x64 Professional. Boots up pretty fast, ie 35 seconds or so. I do have my 500gb drive partitioned 200/300 though. Also latest boot camp drivers. I had a really slow boot up after I installed AVG-free on it, ie my boot time over doubled. It sped up after I uninstalled it and just installed microsoft esentials for antivirus.
 
Check event viewer (Start > right-click My Computer > Manage). It sounds like a driver or device could be hanging? Is this before or after the loading logo?

My Win7 install (32bit RC1 from MS) loads pretty quickly on my first gen MacBok with just 1.25GB RAM, no blinking cursor here.

BTW, this needs to be moved to Windows on Mac (Software forum).
 
umiwangu said:
Check event viewer (Start > right-click My Computer > Manage). It sounds like a driver or device could be hanging? Is this before or after the loading logo?

My Win7 install (32bit RC1 from MS) loads pretty quickly on my first gen MacBok with just 1.25GB RAM, no blinking cursor here.

BTW, this needs to be moved to Windows on Mac (Software forum).
Click to expand...

OP problem occurs before the Windows/Windows 7 logo so it wouldn't be anything really hanging.
 
i have windows 7 installed on my late 2008 unibody macbook. i certainly don't get stuck at the 'blinking cursor' screen for more than a few seconds, let alone 45.
 
iLog.Genius said:
That's the only thing I could think of. If the RC version boots quick like it should and the RTM one doesn't, there has to be something different between the two versions, not necessarily meaning that one is activated through crack or whatever.
Click to expand...

Well turns out you're sort of right. I wasn't using the crack, however I was attempting to use Grub4Dos to boot Ubuntu. Grub4Dos has issues with GPT partition tables and that's what causes the problem. Apparently those Win7 activation cracks use a modified Grub4Dos.

I think I'm just going to run my other OSes in VirtualBox and not touch the physical partitions.
 
ergosteur said:
Well turns out you're sort of right. I wasn't using the crack, however I was attempting to use Grub4Dos to boot Ubuntu. Grub4Dos has issues with GPT partition tables and that's what causes the problem. Apparently those Win7 activation cracks use a modified Grub4Dos.

I think I'm just going to run my other OSes in VirtualBox and not touch the physical partitions.
Click to expand...

If you just need to triple boot Mac/Win/Ubuntu, just use Wubi with Bootcamp, pretty handy.
 
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