01-19-2012, 12:20 PM

[Using Mac OS X 10.7.2 Lion]

Hi all! I've installed Windows 7 on a Mac many times but something has just happened that has never before occurred:

When I finished repartitioning the HD to make room for Windows and watched as Bootcamp Assistant tried to reboot into the Windows installer I also happened to notice that nothing happened upon reboot. There's just a blinking little underline in the top left corner of a black screen. It goes nowhere even after ten minutes, and there's no sign my machine is doing any data crunching. Even the disc drive eventually goes dead.

I tried rebooting back into OS X and then rebooting with "option" held down and choosing the Windows CD, but it does the same thing.

I then tried repartitioning the HD but this didn't solve the problem either.

I tried using the 32-bit version of Windows instead of the 64-bit version. That didn't work either.

I tried verifying and repairing both partitions on my HD but that solved nothing either (and no problems were found).

But now after all this another option shows up in the boot menu: "EFI Boot", whatever that is.

None of this has ever happened to me before! I'm even using the same machine, an early 2008 13" MacBook, that I've always used. The only difference is that I recently upgraded to a new, larger HD. Could something be wrong with the new HD? It seems fine and OS X's Disk Utility isn't telling me anything...

I did a little bit of research online but couldn't find someone else with the same issue.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

01-19-2012, 01:25 PM

How did you prepare the new hard drive replacement? Did you start out with a fresh install of OS X or did you clone the old drive to the new one?

Also take a look at the partition setup on the new drive. You should not be getting an option for "EFI Boot". If the drive has been partitioned correctly you should see your "MacIntosh HD" and the "Recovery" partition in addition to the Boot Camp partition you created.

01-19-2012, 01:41 PM

I get four options: "[My HD]", "Recovery", "Windows" and "EFI Boot". The latter two are CDs and the first two are hard drives.

I didn't do any cloning or any fancy restore stuff. I simply installed--like a dork--Leopard first, then after I kicked myself in the face I got Snow Leopard on there, and then Lion.

01-19-2012, 02:09 PM

OK, thanks for posting back. Before attempting any repairs, make a backup. Use Time Machine from your Recovery partition and backup to an external drive so as not to lose data.

Next, I would boot to the Recovery partition, enter Disk Utility, erase the drive, format it and reinstall Lion. ( Also make sure you remove any previously created BC partition if it exists.) Restore from Time Machine. If everything goes well, boot to Lion and create a BC partition and then install Windows 7.

That should get you up and running if there are no hangups along the way.

01-19-2012, 05:22 PM

Are you sure there's no other way?

I mean, I just got done doing all that before this happened...

01-21-2012, 11:21 AM

Okay, I'm now very frustrated. I just finished manually backing up my HD (because the only drive I have on which to back it up is NTFS and Time Machine won't use that), reformating/erasing, redownloading and reinstalling Lion, and manually getting everything back up and running just as before, and now when I try to use BC Assistant to create a BC partition I get the following message:

-------

The disk cannot be partitioned because some files cannot be moved.

Back up the disk and use Disk Utility to format it as a single Mac OS Extended (Journaled) volume. Restore your information to the disk and try using Boot Camp Assistant again.

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TEARS HAIR OUT, drive already a single volume of Mac OS Extended (Journaled), just gone done doing all that after hours in the process!

01-21-2012, 11:30 AM

Update: tried again and it worked. But... Windows still hangs in precisely the same manner that made me originally post this problem in the first place.

We're unfortunately back to square zero. I'm just going to leave the Windows partition there since in itself it doesn't seem to be the problem...

01-21-2012, 01:17 PM

The error you got (and this could be the cause of the whole problem) is that your disk is fragmented and there is not enough contiguous space for a successful windows install. You will either need to reformat the disk (as the message suggested) or purchase and use a third party defragmenting software such as iDefrag.

Frustrating, I understand, but I think now you know the root of the issue.

Good luck!

Cheers

01-21-2012, 03:26 PM

There didn't seem to be an option to reformat, only to erase and instill with a certain data system, and those are what I did. Where is the reformat option?

01-21-2012, 04:10 PM

Wiping the old Macintosh HD partition & creating a new one to re-install OS X on should - obviously - leave the disk completely un-fragmented... Maybe there is something wrong with the new HDD you put in?

01-21-2012, 04:30 PM

Yeah, it's gotta be the HD, but how? I mean, what could be the issue? Disk Utility isn't telling me that anything is wrong.

01-23-2012, 10:48 AM

Disk utility doesn't look for fragmentation - which is weird but that's the way it is. Either reinstall or use iDefrag - either will likely solve the problem. Obv. backup first!

Cheers