Black Macbook 2008 Installing Windows

Hi all,

I had a perfect setup of OS X 10.6 and Windows 7 boot camp on my Macbook until I started doing a bunch of neglected Mac software updates.

After I had both my EFI and SuperDrive firmwares updated, I can't use my SuperDrive as a Windows installer source for Boot Camp.

The cursor just blinks on a blank screen, regardless of the Windows CD or DVD inserted. I also tried installing rEFIt and it gives me exactly the same problems as the Boot Camp Assistant.

Can anyone walk me through the process of installing Windows from a USB key or hard drive for Boot Camp?? I really need to figure out some way to have the SuperDrive ignored in the Windows Boot Camp boot order so I can get past its delay.

The strange thing is that the updated SuperDrive works perfectly in OS X and did in Windows while its Boot Camp partition was still there. And I know with a working Windows install, I can still boot the Boot Camp partition with this SuperDrive in my Macbook, just with the black screen for a minute or 2 while the DVD boot eventually times out.

Thanks!

Do you still have your Win 7 BC installation? if so, you should (from within Windows) update Boot Camp to version 3.2, either by clicking on the boot camp icon in the system tray or by manually downloading and installing it from the Apple download site (pick the correct version for your Win7). 3.2 is optimized for Win 7.

cheers

Thanks for the suggestion, but I screwed up by intentionally deleting the Boot Camp partition. Before, Windows 7 was installed OK with all the available Apple Software Updates.

I first noticed some very slow black boot screens at each Windows restart, and just assumed it had to do with a bad Windows install, so I decided to redo the entire Boot Camp setup process.

At this point, I'd be more than happy with the bootup delay if I could restart back into Windows at all. I think my last resort is to install from scratch from OS X with VMWare Fusion into the Boot Camp partition. Hopefully I can direct boot Windows later and rescan my Macbook's hardware devices.

I found this link that talks about exactly what I'm planning on doing to recover my Windows partition.

Hopefully this can also help someone else.