Black screen after installing Win7 on Macbook (tried many solutions!)

Hi, I have a problem with running Win7 on my MacBook, I've been working on this over 6 hours now and quite honestly I'm losing patience. I just installed Win7 on my gf's MacBook which is a year newer and everything works. I have a 13" 2009 MacBook. I do it through BootCamp and the problem that I keep on having is that after the 3rd or 4th restart (right after I set up the username and password) I just have a black screen and it doesn't proceed to anything. My software version is 10.5.8.

Here's what I've tried:

- installing both x64 & x86 versions
- I wanted to delete the at*.sys and/or the nv*.sys files in the drivers path but neither of them exist!
- resetting PRAM
- trying to install the newest BootCamp drivers from the Win7 cd setup where it gives you the option to "Load Drivers" but it says that it can't find any drivers
- tried to find updates to the BootCamp utility but that doesn't seem to exist


I'm running out of ideas, please if the knows the solution, HELP!

It sure sounds like a bad video driver or the incorrect one is being detected.

The only thing I could find to get around that problem was how to do it with an iMac. Take a look at what they suggest: LINK

You may have a more difficult time finding which drivers to delete. Hold on a minute here and let's see if I can find them for you. I have Win 7 installed but I'll need to bring up my Win 7 partition to see if I can zero in on the files....

This is what I found: /Windows/System32/drivers/en-US/atikmdag.sys.mui

Nothing for nVidia.

And, I'm not sure if the file above is even the correct one to delete or rename. What I suggest also trying is see if you can boot Windows 7 in safe mode. After the last restart when it's booting, hold down your F8 key. If you can get into Win 7 in safe mode you may be able to see what's going on with the drivers by going into the hardware tree via Control Panel.

Alright thanks man, I appreciate it. I guess I'll try installing it again now and try the safe mode thing, at least then I'd be able to install the most recent drivers properly which would hopefully solve the problem. And this time I'll look for a en-US folder in drivers cause I was only searching the drivers folder itself for that file since that's what was posted on most sites.

I'll post up what happened after I'm done, hopefully it'll work and this'll help other people save time.

Unfortunately, no luck. I did manage to find the atikmdag.sys.mui file in en-us and delete it but that didn't help. It doesn't want to go into safe mode either, all there is is a black screen and the blinking underline in the left corner...

So I tried installing Snow Leopard on my mac but when I do it from the hd, after I accept the terms and stuff, the installer vanishes and nothing happens and when I boot it from the cd, it says that "Mac OSX cannot be installed on this computer"

Anyone know what's up with that?

What kind of Snow Leopard disk set are you using? It either has to be the retail version or one that is specifically for your MacBook. The message you got indicates that the disk you used is not for your MacBook nor is it a retail version.

Yeah I was trying to be cunning and use my gf's cd haha. I have a retail now and I've already installed it. Currently, I have the problem that BootCamp doesn't wanna partition the HD so I'm repairing the permissions and what not to see if it'll help.

Thanks for posting back - that makes sense. For those who might be searching threads, there is a lesson here - follow Apple's instructions EXACTLY to get this done right. Don't get creative ... resistance is futile...

Cheers

As of right now, I can only create a 10GB (max.) Win. partition and I want a 20GB so from what I read I need to do a full defragmentation (quick one didn't help) so I downloaded iDefrag and Coriolis CDMaker to create a boot disc but it's being an extreme pain in the *** and the template fails to create itself. Guess I'll try a different defragmentation software but I'm too tired now so I'll probably do it tomorrow...

Well I tried using Disc Wizard, I booted it from the cd and repaired the HD, still nothing. I am completely out of ideas...

Looks like the only thing left is a complete reinstall of Snow Leopard (use your Time Machine backup) and then try to recreate the BC partition to the size you need. Sometimes that's the only thing that will work. A real pain, but it should work as long as your hard drive has the room.

Yeah I thought about it but the only external HD I have, and can use for a TM, is my 1TB on which I already have a lot of stuff and I don't wanna lose it so that sucks... Unless there's another way around it. I'm not too familiar with how TM works but if I have 83GB of used space, does that mean that this is approximately how much I need for the TM?

Time Machine is not going to use any more space than the size of what you have to backup. 83 GB is all it should use on the 1 TB drive. And, TM will not overwrite any previous data that's already on the drive.

Well I have a FAT32 1TB and when I insert it, it says that it has to format it to be able to use it as a TM, any way around that?

Unfortunately, not Time Machine nor any of the Mac cloning programs will work with FAT-32 or NTFS. It has to be HFS Extended Journaled. That means the 1 TB will have to be reformatted. Not good for you. Looks like you need another external hard drive, at least one that you can reformat and large enough for the backup.

Well I completely formatted my whole HD and made my 20GB partition and still the black screen :/ I'm pretty disappointed with my macbook at the moment... I have Snow Leopard, Boot Camp ver. 3.0. Only weird thing is that in the Boot Camp menu it says I can install WinXP or Win Vista, a week ago I installed Win7 on my gf's (newer) MacBook and the Boot Camp menu did have Win7 listed and I don't know what the cause of this may be... My one and only shot now, is to do a Mac OSX Update Combined that's about 1.04GB but I doubt that will have a newer Boot Camp version...

Keep trying to install Boot Camp 3.1 from within windows. That's all I can come up with here.

I couldn't get Windows running far enough to be able to install it. As of right now, I installed Parallels. Do I need an anti-virus to safely surf the net through Win in parallels?

MacFromPhilly said:

I couldn't get Windows running far enough to be able to install it. As of right now, I installed Parallels. Do I need an anti-virus to safely surf the net through Win in parallels?

Click to expand...

You bet. Download and install the free MSE (Microsoft Security Essentials).

^^Thanks.

Honestly I'm pleasantly surprised and happy with Parallels! They did a great job on the integrating part, visually it looks great and all I really needed it for was Dev C++ and Visual Studio and those work great so I guess this thread is somewhat solved.