Aerohplane

Q: Bootcamp - No bootable device??? iMac Mid 2010 21.5"

hey!

so i have been trying to install windows 7 on my Mid 2010 21.5" iMac 3.06Ghz i3.

I have had a few errors through the night, firstly with there being no usb install button in bootcamp, so with a lot of research i finally 'recoded' the .plist file so that my mac and id etc etc were in the accepted file list. so i got windows 7 successfully put onto the usb i wish to use, and then went about trying to partition my hard drive, which was a pain as well because i had to fix the 'disk could not be partitioned error'... but i prevailed and i finally got it partitioned. And now we come to my issue. whenever the partition is done it goes into the presumed boot for windows, but up comes a black screen with text on it, presumably a CLI. It reads ' No bootable device' ...... I have tried the recommended troubleshooting i have seen from other posts here, with people recommending using disk utility and verifying and repairing the hard drive, a simple restart etc. Another thing that is odd about this is that whenever i go into the disk utility it says that there is a partitioned part of the hard drive named bootcamp, which is to be expected, but whenever i launch my iMac, holding down the options key there are only two options, Macintosh HD and a recovery of the Macintosh HD. I find this odd how disk utility can realise there is a partitioned hard drive for bootcamp but yet the boot files are not.

I have tried a lot of things, so please please don't just refer me to the things i mentioned above with me trying to fix it.

I have seen some people getting their problems fixed by showing a terminal command, and giving the information out and letting some people decipher it, so if you need anything like that or additional information please feel free to ask. This bootcamp windows partition is very high priority as i will be needing it for my school coursework, so i would find it extremely helpful if i could get an informative reply.

Thanks very much, Mark

OS X Mavericks (10.9.1)

Posted on Sep 9, 2015 12:58 PM

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Q: Bootcamp - No bootable device??? iMac Mid 2010 21.5"

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  • by Aerohplane,

    Aerohplane Aerohplane Sep 12, 2015 11:52 AM in response to Aerohplane
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Sep 12, 2015 11:52 AM in response to Aerohplane

    still no reply

    - anyone else experiencing this and/or know how to fix it? or would it just be worthwhile contacting apple. i here that its something to do with the hdd, and iv tried verifying and repairing the hdd but no luck. i just find it so weird that mac acknowledge that it is there as a hdd partition and that my usb is formatted to win install but yet on the windows boot where i should be put through a wizard to install it it just says 'no bootable device found'.

    Any help would be fantastic

  • by Loner T,

    Loner T Loner T Sep 12, 2015 12:03 PM in response to Aerohplane
    Level 7 (24,409 points)
    Safari
    Sep 12, 2015 12:03 PM in response to Aerohplane

    Aerohplane wrote:

     

    I have had a few errors through the night, firstly with there being no usb install button in bootcamp, so with a lot of research i finally 'recoded' the .plist file so that my mac and id etc etc were in the accepted file list. so i got windows 7 successfully put onto the usb i wish to use, and then went about trying to partition my hard drive, which was a pain as well because i had to fix the 'disk could not be partitioned error'... but i prevailed and i finally got it partitioned. And now we come to my issue. whenever the partition is done it goes into the presumed boot for windows, but up comes a black screen with text on it, presumably a CLI. It reads ' No bootable device' ...... I have tried the recommended troubleshooting i have seen from other posts here, with people recommending using disk utility and verifying and repairing the hard drive, a simple restart etc.

    1. Your Mac does not support USB booting. No amount of modification to .plist are going to help you. The black screen is one example of the problems you will face.

    2. Please be aware of Boot Camp: iMac displays a black screen during installation of Windows 7 - Apple Support as well.

    3. The disk partitioning error is typically due to lack of contiguous disk space.

     

    Another thing that is odd about this is that whenever i go into the disk utility it says that there is a partitioned part of the hard drive named bootcamp, which is to be expected, but whenever i launch my iMac, holding down the options key there are only two options, Macintosh HD and a recovery of the Macintosh HD. I find this odd how disk utility can realise there is a partitioned hard drive for bootcamp but yet the boot files are not.

    You Windows installation has not started yet, so no files exist in that partition. OS X can read FAT and NTFS, both. You can check for files in OS X finder. The way BCA knows is but looking at a Hybrid MBR that exists on your disk.

     

    I have tried a lot of things, so please please don't just refer me to the things i mentioned above with me trying to fix it.

    I have seen some people getting their problems fixed by showing a terminal command, and giving the information out and letting some people decipher it, so if you need anything like that or additional information please feel free to ask. This bootcamp windows partition is very high priority as i will be needing it for my school coursework, so i would find it extremely helpful if i could get an informative reply.

    What is wrong with your built-in Optical drive?