Windows 7 64 Pro hangs on Starting Windows screen Bootcamp

[estraulino]

Hi everyone, newbie here,

I have a MacBook Pro 13" Early 2011 with OSX Yosemite 10.10.5 and installed Windows 7 Pro via Bootcamp. It all worked fine until I decided to run Windows on Virtual Box. When I got Windows running on the VM, accessing it via Bootcamp became impossible. I can boot in Safe mode, with networking and with command prompt, but I was not able to fix it via the Bootrec.exe /fixMbr command on the command Prompt, it tells me the command doesn't exist. So I tried with a Windows 7 Boot USB that wasn't recognized (I installed windows 7 with a bootable USB; I had to make lot of modifications which included creating a Virtual Drive with virtual box and activating the usb boot option in the mac that was disabled in some macs with an optical Drive) and I just burned a Windows 7 Pro DVD and tried setting it as the startup disk to access the system repair in windows, but it didn't boot to the windows repair/install menu, and now the mac reads the DVD as a blank one and spits it out when booting. The drive was recognized as a Windows boot dvd before, and my pc can read it perfectly.

So... I've searched high and low and I haven't found an answer. I would like to get the bootcamp partition back, even if I can't use it as a VM. What can I do?

The Bootcamp partition is recognized in Disk Utility, but verifying and repairing are grayed out.

So, I'll make a little "timeline" to give a little context:

1. Updated to Yosemite
2. Installed Windows 7 Pro 64 via Bootcamp with a USB, but had to enable USB boot (disabled on macs with an optical drive) make some weird sudo deep things in terminal, and created a Virtual Disk with virtual box to help bootcamp install windows. (I might be able to find the guides again)
3. Windows 7 worked in bootcamp.
4. Created a Virtual Machine in VirtualBox to access Windows 7. The process included unmounting the bootcamp partition some other stuff (Should I put a link with the guide?)
5. The Windows 7 VM works perfectly. I Just have to unmount the bootcamp partition from OSX to let Virtual Box access it.
6. Bootcamp wont load. Stuck at starting windows. I am able to enter safe mode on 3 different modes.

And... well. That's it. I am a bit stuck, this is far from my "googling for answers" ability. I am completely open to suggestions.

Virtual Box version is 4.3.30

Thanks in advance.

 

[chscag]

You documented everything real well. And welcome to the Mac-Forums.

Just a short answer here... VirtualBox unlike Parallels or Fusion is not designed to use a Boot Camp partition as a VM so I have no idea what it did to the Win 7 boot sector. If you were booting EFI only, (can't do it with a 2011 model) it may have been possible. I'm not sure but your only option for repair may be to start over.

 

[estraulino]

Dang it...

I was starting to think that could be the only option... Anything else you could recommend?

 

[chscag]

Dang it...

I was starting to think that could be the only option... Anything else you could recommend?

Nothing that I can think of. But you may want to try to preserve your Windows partition by using WinClone. That should save you some time if you decide to go the reinstall route.