bootcamp on air/mbp retina?

[RichieZ]

Has anybody been able to install bootcamp/windows 7 on their air or mbp retina?

I picked up a retina this weekend and can't windows installed, I'm using bootcamp assitant to create the USB install image and partition the HD. Once it reboots I just get a message that says: "No bootable device -- insert boot disk and press any key"

Its almost like windows can't see anything connected to USB, I've tried this both with a USB flash drive and a USB hard drive...

 

[vailr]

Doesn't the Retina MacBook use the Z77 chipset?
May need to somehow provide an Intel USB 3.0 driver, once you see the Windows setup "Provide Driver" notice, since there's no USB 2.0 ports available in the Retina MacBook.
Either: copy (while booted in OSX) the Windows USB 3.0 driver to a FAT32 HD partition, or maybe the SD card slot would work for that purpose.
Windows 8 has the Intel USB 3.0 driver already built in (probably).

 

[ChAoTiCpInOy]

Anand was able to.

 

[vailr]

Anand was able to.

I'm guessing: Anand probably installed Windows 8 first, then installed Windows 7 while running under Windows 8.

 

[RichieZ]

ok so I used a CF card to USB adapter to save the image on to, I think its just really picky about what devices it'll detect. windows 7 now all setup

 

[vailr]

@RichieZ: are there any "yellowed out" items in Windows Device Manager?
A (detailed listing) Device Manager screen shot might be interesting to look at.
Also: what exactly is a "CF card to USB adapter"? Link?

 

[RichieZ]

@RichieZ: are there any "yellowed out" items in Windows Device Manager?
A (detailed listing) Device Manager screen shot might be interesting to look at.
Also: what exactly is a "CF card to USB adapter"? Link?

there are no yellowed out items, apple released bootcamp drivers for the MBPR on sat or sunday

I used a 8GB compact flash card in a USB reader to store the windows image, think of a media reader. i think the computer is just picky about the devices that'll work, but that might have something to do with the devices I tried before this:
* 1TB USB3 HD, I didn't even know you could format a 1TB drive in FAT(32?)
* 4GB partitioned on my iphone as USB mass storage, this was done via a jailbreak app

 

[TheStu]

there are no yellowed out items, apple released bootcamp drivers for the MBPR on sat or sunday

I used a 8GB compact flash card in a USB reader to store the windows image, think of a media reader. i think the computer is just picky about the devices that'll work, but that might have something to do with the devices I tried before this:
* 1TB USB3 HD, I didn't even know you could format a 1TB drive in FAT(32?)
* 4GB partitioned on my iphone as USB mass storage, this was done via a jailbreak app

Post XP SP2, you could format drives above 127GB in FAT32. That said, I wonder if exFAT would have been a better option, or if it would have worked at all.

But hey, it's installed, cool.

 

[RichieZ]

Post XP SP2, you could format drives above 127GB in FAT32. That said, I wonder if exFAT would have been a better option, or if it would have worked at all.

But hey, it's installed, cool.

its not a user option, bootcamp assitant takes the windows 7 iso and puts it onto a flash drive. during this process they format the drive and make it bootable.

 

[FiLeZz]

Installing win7 on my retina MBP now

 

[TheStu]

its not a user option, bootcamp assitant takes the windows 7 iso and puts it onto a flash drive. during this process they format the drive and make it bootable.

Yea, that was a feature they introduced with the 2011 Airs that was then not properly backported to the 2010 Airs. The option is there in BCA, but you can't use it. At least you couldn't last time I tried (about 6 months or so ago).

 

[vailr]

@RichieZ: what's the driver version for the nvidia 650M Display Adapter?
And the driver version for the Intel USB 3.0 controller?

 

[nockawa]

Anybody could run Crystal Disk Mark on Windows and put the results?
I would also like to know if AHCI (then TRIM) is enabled because I read somewhere else that SSD were not performing well under Windows because of the AHCI not being an option in the BIOS.
I wouldn't want the SSD performances to deteriorate through time...
Thanks for testing!

 

[RichieZ]

@richiez: What's the driver version for the nvidia 650m display adapter?
And the driver version for the intel usb 3.0 controller?

650m: 8.17.12.9649
usb3: 9.3.0.1011

 

[wesman246]

Has anybody been able to install bootcamp/windows 7 on their air or mbp retina?

I picked up a retina this weekend and can't windows installed, I'm using bootcamp assitant to create the USB install image and partition the HD. Once it reboots I just get a message that says: "No bootable device -- insert boot disk and press any key"

Its almost like windows can't see anything connected to USB, I've tried this both with a USB flash drive and a USB hard drive...

I had the same exact problem on my new MacBook Pro w/ Retina Display...

I saw in a tutorial video that the Boot Camp setup process was supposed to continue after partitioning the hard drive, not restart and give me a black screen with "No bootable device -- insert boot disk and press any key" afterwards...

After reading on a forum or two, I found the solution.

If you're still stuck at the black screen, reboot and force boot back into OS X by holding down the "Option" key, then select "Macintosh HD". Then, once booted, restart normally. Then hold down the option key again as soon as screen lights up white again. At this point, since I had an external DVD drive, my machine recognized the DVD and I booted into it.

Now, if you're using your USB, it should probably recognize it.

Also, you may encounter another problem with an incorrectly formatted partition. If your partition is larger than (I think) 20Gb, maybe 30Gb, Windows has to install onto an NTFS partition, and Boot Camp automatically has it set to FAT. To format it, select the BOOTCAMP partition, then hit Advanced among the options below the partitions, then select Format.

Hope this all helps!!

 

[TheStu]

I had the same exact problem on my new MacBook Pro w/ Retina Display...

I saw in a tutorial video that the Boot Camp setup process was supposed to continue after partitioning the hard drive, not restart and give me a black screen with "No bootable device -- insert boot disk and press any key" afterwards...

After reading on a forum or two, I found the solution.

If you're still stuck at the black screen, reboot and force boot back into OS X by holding down the "Option" key, then select "Macintosh HD". Then, once booted, restart normally. Then hold down the option key again as soon as screen lights up white again. At this point, since I had an external DVD drive, my machine recognized the DVD and I booted into it.

Now, if you're using your USB, it should probably recognize it.

Also, you may encounter another problem with an incorrectly formatted partition. If your partition is larger than (I think) 20Gb, maybe 30Gb, Windows has to install onto an NTFS partition, and Boot Camp automatically has it set to FAT. To format it, select the BOOTCAMP partition, then hit Advanced among the options below the partitions, then select Format.

Hope this all helps!!

Well you should really be installing onto NTFS regardless of the partition size. But since OS X cannot format NTFS, the re-formatting step should always be performed.