MBP 2011 Mavericks Bootcamp installation problem

Ok so I have a 2011 MBP and 10.9.3 Mavericks. I also got rid of my cd drive and replaced it with a hard drive.

So basically I was able to download the drivers to a usb, partition my drive and with my external cd drive I was able to burn the win 7 ISO perfectly (This is the SAME ISO I bought and used on this same machine back when I was on Lion or Mountain Lion, I had no issues installing)

So once it was burning I can see my BOOTCAMP partition+external drive works and detects the dvd

So once I restart, I hold option key and I can pick EFI, Windows Disk, Mac, Recovery

BUT once I go on the Windows, I hear the disk "load" and the screen goes black and you see a blinking _ or underscore. Nothing happens after that


So I even tried using a bootable USB drive and it wouldn't show up when I hold option (I did the method where you edit info.plist which enables you to create a usb bootable drive with a ISO

I even tried burning it on a whole new disk AND still won't get past the beeping _

What do you think is the reason for this?

Which drive are you trying to install Windows on, the main drive or the drive you placed in the optical drive bay? Windows will normally only install to the main drive.

chscag said:

Which drive are you trying to install Windows on, the main drive or the drive you placed in the optical drive bay? Windows will normally only install to the main drive.

Click to expand...

the main drive, could it be the optical bay drive that's giving problems because its getting detected?

Yes that is it. BootCamp will only install from the DVD for a computer with an optical drive. And Microsoft anti-piracy measures prevent install on external hard drive. You may be able to burn the .iso to an external thumb drive and try that. This will help but the author states you need Toast Titanium to burn the .iso to DVD. Maybe the free application Burn will help:-

http://thenextweb.com/lifehacks/2012/08/05/install-windows-7-boot-camp-no-optical-drive/


Make sure you download the 64bit version of Burn:-


http://burn-osx.sourceforge.net/Pages/English/home.html

Thanks for the reminder about that guys. I'm planning to shift from XP to Win 7 soon but I'll be faced with something similar. The DVD drive in my MacBook Pro was failing so I installed an SSD and moved a hard drive to the optical bay. The hard drive in the optical bay has XP and that is where I was planning to put Win 7.

Guess it's time to devise a plan B.