Unable to boot from DVD after Windows reinstallation

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Hello,

I am the very happy owner of a late 2009 27inch iMac (model 11,1). I installed bootcamp and Windows 7 a year ago. I upgraded to Windows 10 this year. Following a software install issue, I had to reinstall W10. This never succeeded. Since then I did many tests to no avail and ended by deleting all partitions in the hope of starting anew. But now I am stuck, it still refuse to start up (grey/black screen after the initial white screen). The situation is the following :
- If I boot with the "C" key pressed (boot from Windows DVD), the iMac enters a cycle of Windows 10 diagnostic and reparation that concludes with a reboot after a few screens and questions, and then back to square one with the grey/black screen
- If I boot with the "D" key pressed (Hardware Diagnostics), nothing happens. I tried to boot (D) from the Apple Application Disk in order to launch the Hardware Diagnostics, nothing happens
- If I boot with "Alt" key pressed, the only option displayed by the Startup Manager is "EFI Boot". If I insert my Windows install disk or my Mac OS install disk they do not appear as boot options
- Nothing happens when I try to boot with Verbose mode, Safe mode, etc. I believe that I tried all of Mac OS boot options without any success

I thought that my hard drive was faulty and therefore replaced it yesterday with a new SSD drive. I booted from my Windows DVD and it installed successfully up until a reboot which concluded with the same grey/black screen. The situation has not changed at all...

So a few questions:
1/ Is it possible to install Windows without Mac OS being installed ? I do not use Mac OS at all but maybe I need to install Mac OS first then bootcamp then Windows rather than having only Windows. I did some research on Internet but could not find the answer to this question
2/ How is it possible that my iMac does not see my Snow Leopard installation disk (original Apple disc) when I boot with "Alt" ? Could it be that there is some firmware corrupted that I would need to restore but then where could I get it and how should I proceed : the only thing I could find were an EFI update and a SMC Update on Apple support site but it seems that this can only be updated when your iMac is operational, which is not my case.

Next step for me is to replace the memory cards just in case (although I doubt very much that this will accomplish anything).

My main problem at this time is that I have absolutely no clue to what could be the cause of my issue. It does not seem to be a hardware issue (power, display, HDD seem fine? I have no way at this point to run any diagnostick to check the motherboard or other components), it rather seems to be a software issue to me but I need some guidance here, I am out if ideas...

Any help welcome

Thanks

Philippe
 
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Problem solved ! The issue was that the DVD device was not working anymore. I connected an external DVD drive and my iMac successfully booted from my Snow Leopard installation DVD (and refused to boot from my Windows 7/10 installation disks).

I can also conclude that one can not install Windows without installing Mac OS prior to it.
 

pigoo3

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...(and refused to boot from my Windows 7/10 installation disks).

I'm not a Windows expert. But I've heard it mentioned that as a security measure…booting externally from Windows is not allowed/possible.

- Nick
 

Slydude

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AFAIK that's true Nick. I certainly haven't seen a way to do it. Seen a few reports that it will run on an external drive only if it is run as a virtual machine. Haven't tried this so I can't say for sure.
 

pigoo3

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AFAIK that's true Nick.

Good deal.:) I've only done "Windows Stuff" on my Mac's internally (bootcamp or Parallels).

- Nick
 

Slydude

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Windows is so picky about that I had a real battle trying to BootCamp Win 7 on my 2008 MacBook Pro. I couldn't get it to use the external DVD to do the install. It know that my machine originally has an internal DVD drive. Win 7 installed fine from the external DVD in Fusion.
 

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