Helllpp.. need bootcamp driver :-(

Hello everyone,

Yesterday I was trying to install a windows 7 on my wife's MacBook Air (bought at sept 2011, 11" screen, i5, 4GB RAM, 125 HDD, OS Lion). I followed the Bootcamp guideline to create a bootable thumbdrive using ISO image of win 7. However, bootcamp assistant could not download the drivers (perhaps due to unstable internet connection of my wifi). Nevertheless, I continue doing partitioning on local HDD and allocate 30 GB for Win 7. After this process, I install the Windows 7 successfully and go to windows drive management and unmount the partition for Mac by removing a drive letter assign to it. The nightmare comes after this as I couldn't go back to original OS and the Win7 is running without any driver :-((

After searching for the driver for hours without luck, I finally gave up and posting this thread hoping to get someone help on getting the windowsupport files of bootcamp for the abovemention model, post them on the net for me. Pleaasee...

Shut the machine down, turn it back on and immediately press and hold the Option key. Continue holding until you get the Startup Disk selection screen. Choose Macintosh HD as the partition to boot from. It should now boot normally.

Go back into Boot Camp Assistant, have your thumb drive handy. Choose the option to create the Boot Camp Support media and have it write the files to your thumb drive.

Then, simply reboot the machine into Windows, plug the flash drive in and install the software from it.

Note that you can always toggle between OSes by using the Option key at startup. You can set your default startup disk, by going into System Preferences in OS X and choosing "Startup Disk" or in Windows, going to Control Panel => Boot Camp and the Startup Disk tab.

I have tried the following ways with no success.
1. Hold the Option key to bring up Boot Selection Screen. The screen shows only the Windows HD. The Macintosh HD is now shown.
2. Hold the combined key of Command-R to bring up the Mac OS X Utilities pane. The pane did not appear
3. Hold the combined key of Command-Option-R to access the Mac OS X Utilities software from the Internet (I use USB-LAN Port adapter and ethernet cable instead of through wifi). After about half an hour the spinning globe become static; an exclamation mark was shown on top of the globe; a text states "apple.com/support -3400F" was shown below the globe. However, some network activities probably still going on as the LED indicator on switch is sometimes dimmed. Currently I decided to leave it that way and continue to work on my PC digging for more online information.

Is there any other way to restore the original OS X?

On Window 7 side, I am still hoping that someone could send me a link to get the windowsupport files which can be created using Pre-installed Bootcamp on similar MacBook Air.

It certainly sounds as though you deleted your OS X partition during Windows setup (just a note - if you end up doing this again, you can completely skip the formatting stage next time as Boot Camp fully preps the partition for you).

If it were my machine, I'd boot with Command + R. Since the recovery partition is gone, you'll need to do Internet recovery - that means either connecting it to a wireless network or hooking up an Ethernet cable directly to the machine. When the recovery options screen comes up, you'll need to run Disk Utility to remove all existing partitions and create one single partition. Then install OS X to it.

When that's all done, you can then run through Boot Camp Assistant - but this time, I'd highly recommend printing the documentation when you're prompted to do so - and run through it verbatim. You'll be prompted to burn your drivers disc (or USB flash drive) with the Windows support software.

Unfortunately, Apple doesn't make the Windows support software publicly available for Boot Camp 4.0 - and I'd be surprised if anyone here has the means to share it with you as it's roughly 700MB in size.

I've tried the Internet recovery process by hooking up the machine through ethernet. The result is the error text "apple/support -3400F" shown after about half an hour. Though I left as it is since last night (it has been about 6 hours now), nothing seems happened. Strangely, I couldn't find the explanation on error code -3400F so far, but I suspect that it is related to unstable internet connection. I'll get it done from Singapore next month using a better internet connectivity.

I just hope that someone could help by sharing the windowsupport files. Perhaps it's too much to ask for....

Thank you for prompt reply anyway, at least other viewer of this thread can learn from my case to avoid similar painful process.

Regards,
Inus

Link for windows support files - Bootcamp 4.0

After trying for many times and hours, I finally come up with the this link "http://www.trackpadcontrol.com/blog/25-bootcamp-40-drivers.html" which allow me to extract drivers for Window 7.

The sad story is that I still couldn't restore the Lion, so for the moment I erase all Mac partitions and use the space for data storage. This condition makes my wife (this MacBook Air is her birthday present) lost her opportunity to get familiar with Mac :-(. Anyway, she is still prefer to use Windows over Mac.

Someday I shall re-install the Lion, perhaps using a purchased Disc instead of rely on internet connection.

Thank you for all reply on this thread.
Regards,
Inus