Hi,
I have been trying for 2 days now to try and install Windows 10 on a friends iMac (27-inch, Mid 2011) running El Capitan version 10.11.3 and bootcamp version 6.0.1, but every time I try I will get a black screen with a blinking cursor after bootcamp has finished creating the Mac drivers to USB and partitioning the drive. (a 1TB drive in total that is only using approx 20GB for OSX, and I partitioned 300GB for the Windows area in bootcamp leaving plenty of room for OSX)
Please note that the DVD drive on the machine isn't working so I am using an external one I use for work. Also, I was informed that the Mid 2011 version of this computer doesn't support booting of USB's. Not that this is the issue as the external DVD drive works fine.
No matter how many times I attempt this, I will get the same result. However, if I hold the Option Key on boot which will then give me a choice of what to boot to, it will show the Mac HD, the Recovery area, the Windows disk and an EFI. If I select the Windows disk, I get the same result as above, but if I select the EFI icon it will actually start the install of Windows 10, but it will fail at the part where you choose which partition to install to.
Once I am at this window, I notice that there is an alert, and when I expand the alert to read it, it will state that 'The selected disk has an MBR partition table. On EFI systems, Windows can only be installed to GPT disks'. As well as, 'Windows cannot be installed to this hard disk space. Windows must be installed to a partition formatted as NTFS'.
I figure that this is what the article (an official one from Apple) is referring to and why they say to hit Format, so I select the Bootcamp partition and hit Format. It will then format the partition. (I thought Bootcamp would have done this already?) However, this will still fail, and the alert message at the bottom will now state, (same as the alert message before, but it seems to have at least formatted the disk to NTFS now) 'The selected disk has an MBR partition table. On EFI systems, Windows can only be installed to GPT disks'.
The strange this is with Bootcamp 6.0.1, is that when I first start the procedure, it will give me the option to install Windows 7 or later. I thought that Bootcamp 6 didn't support Windows 7 installs and was only for Windows 8.1 and Windows 10? I will gladly install Windows 7 instead if I am able to, and then upgrade to 10 later if my friend wishes to.
I will also say that this is the first time that I have used a Mac as I normally work with Windows based systems, but if there is anything you would like me to do on the Mac, just let me know as I would really like to get this solved if I can. I have now removed the Bootcamp partition via Bootcamp so the Mac drive is whole again. I am more than willing to try whatever you think may help.
Regards,
Richard
I am in the UK, so if I don't reply immediately, please know I will. It was 00:30hrs when I posted this and I have to be on-site tomorrow very early.
I have been trying for 2 days now to try and install Windows 10 on a friends iMac (27-inch, Mid 2011) running El Capitan version 10.11.3 and bootcamp version 6.0.1, but every time I try I will get a black screen with a blinking cursor after bootcamp has finished creating the Mac drivers to USB and partitioning the drive. (a 1TB drive in total that is only using approx 20GB for OSX, and I partitioned 300GB for the Windows area in bootcamp leaving plenty of room for OSX)
Please note that the DVD drive on the machine isn't working so I am using an external one I use for work. Also, I was informed that the Mid 2011 version of this computer doesn't support booting of USB's. Not that this is the issue as the external DVD drive works fine.
No matter how many times I attempt this, I will get the same result. However, if I hold the Option Key on boot which will then give me a choice of what to boot to, it will show the Mac HD, the Recovery area, the Windows disk and an EFI. If I select the Windows disk, I get the same result as above, but if I select the EFI icon it will actually start the install of Windows 10, but it will fail at the part where you choose which partition to install to.
Once I am at this window, I notice that there is an alert, and when I expand the alert to read it, it will state that 'The selected disk has an MBR partition table. On EFI systems, Windows can only be installed to GPT disks'. As well as, 'Windows cannot be installed to this hard disk space. Windows must be installed to a partition formatted as NTFS'.
I figure that this is what the article (an official one from Apple) is referring to and why they say to hit Format, so I select the Bootcamp partition and hit Format. It will then format the partition. (I thought Bootcamp would have done this already?) However, this will still fail, and the alert message at the bottom will now state, (same as the alert message before, but it seems to have at least formatted the disk to NTFS now) 'The selected disk has an MBR partition table. On EFI systems, Windows can only be installed to GPT disks'.
The strange this is with Bootcamp 6.0.1, is that when I first start the procedure, it will give me the option to install Windows 7 or later. I thought that Bootcamp 6 didn't support Windows 7 installs and was only for Windows 8.1 and Windows 10? I will gladly install Windows 7 instead if I am able to, and then upgrade to 10 later if my friend wishes to.
I will also say that this is the first time that I have used a Mac as I normally work with Windows based systems, but if there is anything you would like me to do on the Mac, just let me know as I would really like to get this solved if I can. I have now removed the Bootcamp partition via Bootcamp so the Mac drive is whole again. I am more than willing to try whatever you think may help.
Regards,
Richard
I am in the UK, so if I don't reply immediately, please know I will. It was 00:30hrs when I posted this and I have to be on-site tomorrow very early.
Last edited:
