Q: Windows 10 upgrade fail 80073B92-20009 Fusion Drive iMac

Officially on Windows 10, and it was about time. I wanna thank John Raymonds for posting his findings on this thread, I did the exact same thing except I used Parallels Desktop and contrary to what I had said earlier. Funnily VMWare didn't boot from bootcamp for me so I did some further reading and found out that Parallels Desktop could boot from hard drive. Long story short, I booted my bootcamp partition through PD, updated to windows 10 through the USB Installation Media, took almost 2 hours and didn't flash the windows 10 update circle for a second before restarting in windows 8 again!

Only difference for me is after updating and when I booted directly I had to reinstall bootcamp 6 (technically i started the bootcamp installation and it only gave me the option to repair the installation which is what i selected). Once that was done everything was back and up and running like it used to, only complain i have is usually booting windows 8 would take me less than 3 mins but now it takes me a good 2 extra minute which is upsetting a little but I don't know if there is any maintenance I can do to reduce startup time. Besides that, windows 10 is up and running and thanks to John Raymonds once again. Hopefully people with this issue stumble onto this thread and use this fix, meanwhile hopefully Microsoft fixes this issue on their end too.

While I am glad to hear that Parallels & VMWare are possible solutions to work around the problem, I'm wondering if Apple Care offers any support for this. Has anyone tried calling them, or will I be the first?

I'm not sure I want to open my iMac to disconnect the HDD on my Fusion Drive -- still under warranty and all.

What I am about to say will hopefully answer some common errors (and maybe even this one completely, but most likely not ). What I will first mention will have to do with formatting errors (in-case anyone is trying to format and can't) or this also may go for any other errors anyone may have.

If any errors occur, make sure that no external devices are plugged in. Only the installation disk. For example, lets say your installation disk is on the USB and your external hard drive is plugged then. Then make sure to eject it before continuing the installation. If you are trying to format and can't, then exit the installation, boot up Mac OS X, eject the other connected devices, then restart the Mac and hold down the option key. You should then see something like WINNINSTALL. Select it and once again... continue the installation. Hope this helps anyone with those errors!

Btw, if your installation window screen resolution is too small, then make sure to chose a bigger partition size next time. However, usually with a small resolution, you can still click on stuff.... it just might be hard to read the text though. Make sure to do not re-size the partition later on though. It will break the Windows OS (or cause some sort of damage).

I just tried John's method; although, I used Parallels just like fhn95 did.  Even when installing off the USB media within Win 8.1 Pro (Parallels), I get blocked the the activation problem (Windows 8.1 Pro thinks its on a different machine now thanks to Parallels).  I called Microsoft Support (per Parallels support)... Microsoft doesn't hand out new keys. 

I sure hope MS and/or Apple fix this Windows 10 < > Fusion Drive mess.

I have a DIY Fusion drive and Bootcamp on the SSD (not the typical HDD setup that Apple BCA creates). I cannot see what is being sent to Microsoft in the Activation sequence, but it consistently fails for this setup. My suspicion is that the hardware signatures being sent to Microsoft contain 2 disks, compared to a typical single-disk PC/Mac, which are not being handled correctly on the Microsoft end.

As far as Apple is concerned, the second disk is another disk on the same PCI/SATA bus. If external USB/FW/TB disks can be ignored in activations, use the disk on which Windows is actually installed, rather than the environment which happens to have a second disk on the same bus.

If external USB/FW/TB disks can be ignored in activations, use the disk on which Windows is actually installed, rather than the environment which happens to have a second disk on the same bus.

Hi, Loner T & thank you.

1st ... for anyone trying to re-activate Windows in a VM, be sure to get to the Activate Windows screen and try the phone activation again. I finally got Windows re-activated within the VM.

Afterwards, if you boot directly into Windows using Boot Camp, you'll have to re-enter your original activation key to, once again, re-activate Windows. What a mess. haha.

2nd @Loner T, it looks like I will have to reconsider your input throughout these forums about self-installing Windows rather than using Boot Camp.  I don't recall how large the SSD is on these iMacs (mid 2013).

Now, in Windows (both in VM & in Boot Camp), Windows shows me only one (1) drive: BOOTCAMP (C:).  So, as far as I can tell, I am trying to upgrade on the disk on which Windows is actually installed.  I just wish MS would update the installer to ignore the offending hardware.  :-\

butcherbird190 wrote:

... it looks like I will have to reconsider your input throughout these forums about self-installing Windows rather than using Boot Camp.  I don't recall how large the SSD is on these iMacs (mid 2013).

 

Now, in Windows (both in VM & in Boot Camp), Windows shows me only one (1) drive: BOOTCAMP (C:).  So, as far as I can tell, I am trying to upgrade on the disk on which Windows is actually installed.  I just wish MS would update the installer to ignore the offending hardware.  :-\

The MBR that is created in most Fusion cases, has four entries (a typical case) and C: is a part of the HDD. The SSD in Apple Fusion drives is typically 120GB and you can see both disks in System Report -> SATA or diskutil list. In case of 3TB fusion drives, the disk space after 2TB is not included in the MBR, because there is no MBR utility which can address address beyond 2TB. If you trick it using an offset, it can go beyond 2TB as long as the size of the partition is less than 2TB.

The C: disk is part of the larger physical disk, and has it's own UUID as shown by diskpart or GPT utilities. Here is an example.

sudo gdisk /dev/disk0

Password:

GPT fdisk (gdisk) version 1.0.0

 

Warning: Devices opened with shared lock will not have their

partition table automatically reloaded!

Partition table scan:

  MBR: hybrid

  BSD: not present

  APM: not present

  GPT: present

 

Found valid GPT with hybrid MBR; using GPT.

 

Command (? for help): p

Disk /dev/disk0: 1954210120 sectors, 931.8 GiB

Logical sector size: 512 bytes

Disk identifier (GUID): 6ED0C429-00D1-4759-B50E-04B6FB80D0E3

Partition table holds up to 128 entries

First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 1954210086

Partitions will be aligned on 8-sector boundaries

Total free space is 2013 sectors (1006.5 KiB)

 

Number  Start (sector)    End (sector)  Size       Code  Name

   1              40          409639   200.0 MiB   EF00  EFI System Partition

   2          409640      1449034287   690.8 GiB   AF00  Customer

   3      1449034288      1450303823   619.9 MiB   AB00  Recovery HD

   4      1450305536      1954209791   240.3 GiB   0700  BOOTCAMP

 

Command (? for help): i

Partition number (1-4): 4

Partition GUID code: EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7 (Microsoft basic data)

Partition unique GUID: E6321CFF-5EDE-4E0A-9E14-8D937CEE5FBF

First sector: 1450305536 (at 691.6 GiB)

Last sector: 1954209791 (at 931.8 GiB)

Partition size: 503904256 sectors (240.3 GiB)

Attribute flags: 0000000000000000

Partition name: 'BOOTCAMP'

 

An example from a Fusion drive Mac.

diskutil list

/dev/disk0

   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER

   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *256.1 GB   disk0

   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1

   2:          Apple_CoreStorage                         128.0 GB   disk0s2

   3:                 Apple_Boot Boot OS X               134.2 MB   disk0s3

   4:       Microsoft Basic Data BOOTCAMP                127.7 GB   disk0s4

/dev/disk1

   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER

   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *1.0 TB     disk1

   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk1s1

   2:          Apple_CoreStorage                         999.3 GB   disk1s2

   3:                 Apple_Boot Boot OS X               650.0 MB   disk1s3

/dev/disk2

   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER

   0:                  Apple_HFS OSX-FusionHD           *1.1 TB     disk2

 

sudo gdisk /dev/disk0

Password:

GPT fdisk (gdisk) version 0.8.9

 

Warning: Devices opened with shared lock will not have their

partition table automatically reloaded!

Partition table scan:

  MBR: hybrid

  BSD: not present

  APM: not present

  GPT: present

 

Found valid GPT with hybrid MBR; using GPT.

 

Command (? for help): p

Disk /dev/disk0: 500118192 sectors, 238.5 GiB

Logical sector size: 512 bytes

Disk identifier (GUID): 8E6C1E68-0984-4689-83AA-FE0378B454E0

Partition table holds up to 128 entries

First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 500118158

Partitions will be aligned on 8-sector boundaries

Total free space is 2325 sectors (1.1 MiB)

 

Number  Start (sector)    End (sector)  Size       Code  Name

   1              40          409639   200.0 MiB   EF00  EFI System Partition

   2          409640       250468735   119.2 GiB   AF05  OSX-FusionHD

   3       250468736       250730879   128.0 MiB   AB00  Booter

   4       250732544       500117503   118.9 GiB   0700  BOOTCAMP

 

Command (? for help): i

Partition number (1-4): 4

Partition GUID code: EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7 (Microsoft basic data)

Partition unique GUID: 550C9ACC-1F95-4856-AD49-22C2D7BBA275

First sector: 250732544 (at 119.6 GiB)

Last sector: 500117503 (at 238.5 GiB)

Partition size: 249384960 sectors (118.9 GiB)

Attribute flags: 0000000000000000

Partition name: 'BOOTCAMP'

This solve my problem! Thanks a lot!

Hi,

I had same issue with my Imac(fusion drive) running windows 8.1 with boot camp. I tried lot of things and read few forums but didn't help much. I have at-least tried 4 times to upgrade and irritatingly windows downloads 2gb file every time:(

Finally below link from microsoft helped me

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/insider/wiki/insider_wintp-insider_install/ho w-to-a-list-of-things-to-do-if-windows-10-setup/eba3c864-d9fe-4f8e-9468-81b1f894 73ed

I installed windows 10 successfully!!! . Error 80073B92-20009 has nothing to do with fusion drive.

Steps I followed

1.Updated the boot camp version to 6 from 5.1.(Hint:Need to use boot camp assistant from mac OS)

2.Removed my blue tooth apple keyboard and mouse and used wired keyboard (Windows 10 upgrade notification showing errors with bluetooth devices)

3.Disabled antivirus firewall and auto protect.

I don't know which step did the trick, should be step 3 but the installation was successful after all and I am typing this message from windows 10 on imac.

How did you upgrade to bootcamp 6 - when I tried using a USB stick from Mac OS side, I get an error saying it can't find boot camp.msi even though it's there on the USB stick

Quai007 wrote:

 

How did you upgrade to bootcamp 6 - when I tried using a USB stick from Mac OS side, I get an error saying it can't find boot camp.msi even though it's there on the USB stick

Please see Solution for Bootcamp 6 error on Windows 10 .

I haven't got this error during boot camp update.  But just try this, Format your USB in ex-FAT format from windows before using boot camp assistant in mac

Unfortunately, I too have been dealing with errors preventing Win10 upgrade..

Have tried everything in this thread without success. Even had Microsoft support remote in; they tried for 3 hours a couple weeks ago without success. Some are saying that Fusion drive doesn't matter; not sure if that's true. Mine is iMac late 2012, 3 TB Fusion drive.

If anyone else has any ideas, it would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks loner T, got it to work. 8.1 on my fusion mac is finally upgrading to 10

Finally it seems to be installing. Took jar_kct advice, upgraded bootcamp to 6 using USB stick from Mac OS side (bootcamp assistant) and loner T link to get it to install in windows.

Then disconnected all bluetooth devices and used USB mouse and keyboard (we'll have to see if I can get the bluetooth to work once windows 10 installed). Disabled windows firewall and windows defender and finally it seems to be installing. Thanks for the advice guys.

Good luck with the installation. My bluetooth keyboard and mouse is not working since the upgrade. Let me know if you sort out that some how.