Q: Problem installing Windows (7, 8.0, 8.1) on BOOTCAMP - Mavericks

Hallo guys,

First I want to say thanks a lot to Christopher Murphy, because one and a half years ago I was having problems the same like the 1st post on that topic and with the instructions from Christopher I was able to get back my BOOTCAMP with Windows 7. Now I think that the commands from the 1st post changed something that is making my current problem appear. All was working like a charm till few days ago when I was get a decision to update to Mavericks.

Previously I was with Mountain Lion 10.8 and with Windows 7 on Bootcamp. The hardware is iMac Late 2010 27'' with 1Tb SATA HDD.

Few days ago I have deleted the BOOTCAMP partition and resized the disk to only 1 partition (with Bootcamp wizzard). Then I made a boot usb stick with Mavericks and then started the installation of Mavericks from my USB Stick. I have deleted all partitions and created a new one when the installation asked me to choose a partition. So everything was fine and Mavericks is ok and working great. Now the problematic part.

I have created a Bootable USB Stick with Windows 8.1 first. I used some windows program to made it which I was using before and never had a problems on normal Computers (PC, not Apple) to boot and installing that windows from the same USB Flash Stick and the same Windows 8.1 and so on. I started Bootcamp Wizzard on my new Mavericks and than I notice that I have only 2 options there:

1. Download drivers

2. Install windows 7 or later version

I have already the bootcamp software support drivers downloaded before and I have leave only the second tick checked.

I tried to press Continue, but the Wizzard told me that it doesn't recognize a Windows DVD and cannot continue. Asked me to insert a Windows DVD and to continue.

Now it's time to say that my DVD device is not working and I cannot use it.

So I was thinking that the problem is coming from my USB Stick and tried few other programs to make a bootable usb stick with windows. That doesn't help.

I started to read and googling the internet. I tried few options from some guys with a close problems. Reset with Options+CMD+P+R, to format USB Stick fully etc. Then I found that if I install daemon tools and mount a Windows 8.1 ISO the Bootcamp Assistant will continue on the next step and will build the BOOTCAMP partition. I made that and restarted the computer with the USB Stick plugged in. I got a message that there're no system disk and to insert one and to press any key to continue (or something like this). Then I made a hard restart and tried to hold the ALT (Option) key after the startup chime. I got the list of bootable devices, but the usb stick wasn't there Only Mavericks partition and HD Recovery one. Tried few more things with no luck.

Then I found a topic where a few guys explaining how to get the 1st option on Bootcamp Wizzard (Create a Windows 7 or later version install disk). I changed the plist file in Bootcamp Assistant, then signed the app with xcode tools and yahoo, I got that option enabled.

I made again a bootable usb stick with windows 8.1 from ISO with the Bootcamp Assistant 1st option. Then when I restarted the Mac keeping the ALT pressed it was a surprise that the USB stick with windows 8.1 showed up. I started Windows 8.1 setup, entered the serial number and then I selected the BOOTCAMP partition and the Next button wasn't active and error message was written that:

"Windows cannot be installed to this disk. The selected disk has an MBR partition table. On EFI systems, Windows can only be installed to GPT disks."

I tried format, delete partition, create new etc with no luck. Then I tried to recreate the bootcamp partition with Disk Utility, but with ExtFAT format and again no luck. I found another topic on internet where some guys are talking that only Windows 7 can be installed in that way on Mavericks BOOTCAMP. I don't know that this is true or not, but I tried with Windows 8.1, Windows 8.0 and now I'm going to get a Windows 7 from a friend these days, but I don't think that it will work.

Is there someone who can help me out somehow or to tell me some tips or opinions what to do next?

Here are few infos:

Julians-iMac:~ julianstefanov$ df -h

Filesystem      Size   Used  Avail Capacity  iused     ifree %iused  Mounted on

/dev/disk0s2   558Gi   53Gi  505Gi    10% 13861731 132462763    9%   /

devfs          191Ki  191Ki    0Bi   100%      661         0  100%   /dev

map -hosts       0Bi    0Bi    0Bi   100%        0         0  100%   /net

map auto_home    0Bi    0Bi    0Bi   100%        0         0  100%   /home

/dev/disk0s4   372Gi  2.7Mi  372Gi     1%        0         0  100%   /Volumes/BOOTCAMP

Julians-iMac:~ julianstefanov$

Julians-iMac:~ julianstefanov$ diskutil list

/dev/disk0

   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER

   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *1.0 TB     disk0

   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1

   2:                  Apple_HFS iMac                    599.3 GB   disk0s2

   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3

   4:       Microsoft Basic Data BOOTCAMP                400.0 GB   disk0s4

Julians-iMac:~ julianstefanov$

Julians-iMac:~ julianstefanov$ diskutil cs list

No CoreStorage logical volume groups found

Julians-iMac:~ julianstefanov$

Julians-iMac:~ julianstefanov$ sudo gpt -vv -r show /dev/disk0

gpt show: /dev/disk0: mediasize=1000204886016; sectorsize=512; blocks=1953525168

gpt show: /dev/disk0: Suspicious MBR at sector 0

gpt show: /dev/disk0: Pri GPT at sector 1

gpt show: /dev/disk0: Sec GPT at sector 1953525167

       start        size  index  contents

           0           1         MBR

           1           1         Pri GPT header

           2          32         Pri GPT table

          34           6        

          40      409600      1  GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B

      409640  1170595968      2  GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC

  1171005608     1269536      3  GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC

  1172275144          56        

  1172275200   781248512      4  GPT part - EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7

  1953523712        1423        

  1953525135          32         Sec GPT table

  1953525167           1         Sec GPT header

Julians-iMac:~ julianstefanov$

Julians-iMac:~ julianstefanov$ sudo fdisk /dev/disk0

Disk: /dev/disk0 geometry: 121601/255/63 [1953525168 sectors]

Signature: 0xAA55

         Starting       Ending

#: id  cyl  hd sec -  cyl  hd sec [     start -       size]

------------------------------------------------------------------------

1: EE 1023 254  63 - 1023 254  63 [         1 -     409639] <Unknown ID>

2: AF 1023 254  63 - 1023 254  63 [    409640 - 1170595968] HFS+       

3: AB 1023 254  63 - 1023 254  63 [1171005608 -    1269536] Darwin Boot

4: 0B 1023 254  63 - 1023 254  63 [1172275200 -  781248512] Win95 FAT-32

Julians-iMac:~ julianstefanov$

Julians-iMac:~ julianstefanov$ sudo dd if=/dev/rdisk0 count=1 2>/dev/null | hexdump -C

00000000  33 c0 8e d0 bc 00 7c 8e  c0 8e d8 be 00 7c bf 00  |3.....|......|..|

00000010  06 b9 00 02 fc f3 a4 50  68 1c 06 cb fb b9 04 00  |.......Ph.......|

00000020  bd be 07 80 7e 00 00 7c  0b 0f 85 0e 01 83 c5 10  |....~..|........|

00000030  e2 f1 cd 18 88 56 00 55  c6 46 11 05 c6 46 10 00  |.....V.U.F...F..|

00000040  b4 41 bb aa 55 cd 13 5d  72 0f 81 fb 55 aa 75 09  |.A..U..]r...U.u.|

00000050  f7 c1 01 00 74 03 fe 46  10 66 60 80 7e 10 00 74  |....t..F.f`.~..t|

00000060  26 66 68 00 00 00 00 66  ff 76 08 68 00 00 68 00  |&fh....f.v.h..h.|

00000070  7c 68 01 00 68 10 00 b4  42 8a 56 00 8b f4 cd 13  ||h..h...B.V.....|

00000080  9f 83 c4 10 9e eb 14 b8  01 02 bb 00 7c 8a 56 00  |............|.V.|

00000090  8a 76 01 8a 4e 02 8a 6e  03 cd 13 66 61 73 1c fe  |.v..N..n...fas..|

000000a0  4e 11 75 0c 80 7e 00 80  0f 84 8a 00 b2 80 eb 84  |N.u..~..........|

000000b0  55 32 e4 8a 56 00 cd 13  5d eb 9e 81 3e fe 7d 55  |U2..V...]...>.}U|

000000c0  aa 75 6e ff 76 00 e8 8d  00 75 17 fa b0 d1 e6 64  |.un.v....u.....d|

000000d0  e8 83 00 b0 df e6 60 e8  7c 00 b0 ff e6 64 e8 75  |......`.|....d.u|

000000e0  00 fb b8 00 bb cd 1a 66  23 c0 75 3b 66 81 fb 54  |.......f#.u;f..T|

000000f0  43 50 41 75 32 81 f9 02  01 72 2c 66 68 07 bb 00  |CPAu2....r,fh...|

00000100  00 66 68 00 02 00 00 66  68 08 00 00 00 66 53 66  |.fh....fh....fSf|

00000110  53 66 55 66 68 00 00 00  00 66 68 00 7c 00 00 66  |SfUfh....fh.|..f|

00000120  61 68 00 00 07 cd 1a 5a  32 f6 ea 00 7c 00 00 cd  |ah.....Z2...|...|

00000130  18 a0 b7 07 eb 08 a0 b6  07 eb 03 a0 b5 07 32 e4  |..............2.|

00000140  05 00 07 8b f0 ac 3c 00  74 09 bb 07 00 b4 0e cd  |......<.t.......|

00000150  10 eb f2 f4 eb fd 2b c9  e4 64 eb 00 24 02 e0 f8  |......+..d..$...|

00000160  24 02 c3 49 6e 76 61 6c  69 64 20 70 61 72 74 69  |$..Invalid parti|

00000170  74 69 6f 6e 20 74 61 62  6c 65 00 45 72 72 6f 72  |tion table.Error|

00000180  20 6c 6f 61 64 69 6e 67  20 6f 70 65 72 61 74 69  | loading operati|

00000190  6e 67 20 73 79 73 74 65  6d 00 4d 69 73 73 69 6e  |ng system.Missin|

000001a0  67 20 6f 70 65 72 61 74  69 6e 67 20 73 79 73 74  |g operating syst|

000001b0  65 6d 00 00 00 63 7b 9a  af 3c b0 3c 00 00 00 fe  |em...c{..<.<....|

000001c0  ff ff ee fe ff ff 01 00  00 00 27 40 06 00 00 fe  |..........'@....|

000001d0  ff ff af fe ff ff 28 40  06 00 80 e0 c5 45 00 fe  |......(@.....E..|

000001e0  ff ff ab fe ff ff a8 20  cc 45 20 5f 13 00 00 fe  |....... .E _....|

000001f0  ff ff 0b fe ff ff 00 80  df 45 00 e8 90 2e 55 aa  |.........E....U.|

00000200

Julians-iMac:~ julianstefanov$

Thanks in advance!

Julian