Black screen with flashing cursor after inserting Windows XP.

Are all available firmware updates applied to your macbook pro?


Axel F.

Now that you have applied all the firmware updates, how about running bootcamp again and then deleting the windows partition and then run diskutility and repair the disk. Once that is complete then attempt to run boot camp again and install windows.

If you have done the above already then let me know so that I can do some more research on these forums and elsewhere.

Axel F.

hello,

I have the same problem. I can't descern if the problem come from Boot Camp, or XP install or disk. I'ts really strange. I'm looking through XP forums to see the troubleshootings with black screen BEFORE INSTALL.

I just picked up my MacBook Pro 2.5GHz 15" yesterday and experienced the same problem. As well, even when I uninstall (or remove) the Boot Camp partition, I still need to hold down ALT to manually send it to the Mac OS X start up disk; otherwise the disk holds at the black screen with flashing cursor.

This is frustrating, since I recently sold my 2.33GHz MBP (ATI X1600) partly because of Apple's refusal to resolve the problem of WinXP being unusable (due to a blue shimmers & artifacting) when they released the EFI 1.4 Firmware update for that machine.

Any insight would be greatly appreciated. I'll post what I find as well.

Cheers,

Rob

... sorry, I should probably add that I don't see any firmware updates for this new model and I have followed the above suggestion as well to no avail.

Oh yeah, and I'm using Leopard 10.5.2 (not Tiger as indicated in the footnote).

Thanks!

R

same for me, after running the bootcamp assistant and creating a windows partition, my Macbook pro stalled on a black window with a white cursor blinking. Anyone who can solve this issue?

I'm having this same issue, but with Vista. I posted about it here but no responses as of yet.

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1464025&tstart=0

I also have this problem on the latest Macbook Pro. Installing windows with bootcamp was the second thing I did after getting it out the box, with installing all updates the first thing (wanted to check graphics performance).. No solution yet.

Hello all ! I just received my new MacBook Pro (2,4 Ghz - 250Go - 2Go ram), it works woderfull but I have the same problem as you !
It's impossible to install any Windows on it with BootCamp.
I tried to install a "modified" version of Xp SP2, an original Xp SP2 and an original Vista Business ! Boot camp creates the partition, it reboots with the windows cd or dvd in it and then there is a black screen with a flashing cursor, and my mac is waiting.

I have to force the reboot and extract the cd. It seems to be a new problem with the new macboo and macbook pro. Here is a subject with a guy having the same problem with a macbook http://forum.macbidouille.com/index.php?showtopic=260845

This week I will call the Apple support, to have some explanations and have a fix of this problem.

Thanks all to help us 🙂

I found one solution:

1. Reboot on Leopard Install DVD
2. Repair Disk HD
3. Reboot
4. Recreate BootCamp Partition and Execute the install of Windows.

It worked for me but I had to reinstall XP two times.

I found another solution on this topic : http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1424348&tstart=60

So I create my partition of windows with boot camp then I reboot with my Xp SP2 cd in it. And I hold the option key (command) during the reboot, and my windows boot ! 🙂
Then, all the installation was successfull.

I tried holding the option key, and i have repaired my drive, and recreated the partition like 5 times, nothing is working, I still get the flashing cursor. Now im about to download an img of my install disc and try again with that, maybe my disc is corrupt or something. Any other ideas?

Same problem, I just bought a Mac and am trying to install Vista, got the black screen and blinking cursor. But, I kept on rebooting with the DVD in the slot and was trying to get it out. I was tapping on the "delete" key thinking I was hammering on the "eject" key, realized my error and started on the eject key. Then, a gray bar went across the screen and it said "windows loading files" or something. I doubt my key errors had anything to do with it.
I had to reformat the drive sector to NTFS, don't forget this, using the "advanced" options on the screen when it rejects your attempt to load the OS. From there on out it went well.