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User profile for user: aruffell2
aruffell2 Author
User level: Level 1
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BSOD after startup with Win7

Hello,

After some difficulty I got Windows 7 installed on my Mac Pro. It worked until I installed Boot Camp off the Mac OS X Snow Leopard install DVD. Boot Camp installed, but once I rebooted, about 20-30 seconds after reboot I get a Blue Screen error which says something about a cache management error. It doesn't stay up long so I haven't had a lot of time to study it. On reboot the error report doesn't give a whole lot of info, calls the error "Bluescreen", but it did reference a couple files, I can try to copy them down if it's important (they were long and I only get a few seconds to look at them).

I even tried not logging in and just leaving it after startup, same result.

It's a totally fresh install of Windows 7 Ultimate on a dedicated 500GB hard drive. The only thing I've installed is Boot Camp. I've tried wiping it out and re-installing everything, same results. The first time I installed no Windows updates prior to Boot Camp, the second time I installed all available Windows updates first. Same results.

I'm not sure what could be causing this- it seems like a driver issue of some kind maybe, but it seems like if Boot Camp were inherently problematic with this hardware more people would be having this problem. I can't really think of any other factors that could be interfering... it sure seems like a conflict between boot camp and Windows 7, but I don't see how that should be the case. Despite all the trouble I've been having with this I'm normally a pretty advanced user, so I'm pretty sure I'm not doing anything wrong in the install process (I've done it at my work lots of times), but I know a lot more about macs than Windows.

My system:
Mac Pro 2.8 Ghz 8-core, early 2008 model
Memory: 10GB- 2x1GB stock from Apple, 4x2GB from Otherworldcomputing.com
Hard Drive: 2x1TB Western Digital in a striping raid, 500GB Seagate (the Windows drive), 1TB Western Digital.
Mac OS: 10.6.2 fully updated

I had the release candidate running for several days off this same drive with no issues back around when it came out (I erased it a while ago), and I don't think I've changed my hardware since then... although boot camp has been updated since. Perhaps somewhat ironically, Windows 7 was officially unsupported when I had the RC running, and now it's officially supported.

I'd appreciate any input, although the_hatter has already helped me out quite a bit... it seems like Windows really doesn't want to install for me! Just let me know if any more information is required.

Message was edited by: aruffell2

Mac Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.2), 2.8 Ghz 8-core

Posted on Mar 1, 2010 8:31 PM

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3 replies
User profile for user: Mike Boreham
Mike Boreham
User level: Level 4
2,096 points

Mar 26, 2010 10:55 AM in response to aruffell2

I have exactly the same problem, down to the last detail, except that I got there by a different route.

My history is that I initially installed Windows 7 x64 Home Premium on my 2006 Mac Pro using an EFI install disk I created using the methods detailed elsewhere in this forum. Installed Boot Camp 3.0 from the SL disk then updated to 3.1. Then did Upgrade Anytime to Ultimate. Everything worked wonderfully for three months.

Then I created some striped raid volumes involving three of the five HDs in my machine using SoftRaid. My boot drive (unlike you?) is not raid. Windows 7 Ultimate continued to work perfectly.

Then I wanted to move the Windows 7 partition to a different physical HD, by restoring a Paragon Image (which I have successfully done on my MacBook Pro previously). First oddness was that Boot Camp Assistant would not create a Boot Camp partition of the whole disk, as I wanted, it would only create a second partition, even with the all the raided HDs removed from the machine and uninstalling the Softraid driver. Odd? I put the HDs and driver back in and restored the Windows 7 image to the Boot Camp partition.

This had the same behaviour you described crashed to the Cache Manager blue screen after 20 seconds. It would boot stably in safe mode so I was able to run chkdsk but it didn't fix it.

Then I repeated the whole exercise but started with a restored Vista 32 bit, and reinstalled Windows 7 X64 as a fresh install, (had to start with Vista as my Windows 7 license is an upgrade), then did the Anytime Upgrade to Ultimate, then applied Boot Camp 3.0 from the SL disk. At this point it was completely stable. Then I did Boot Camp 3.1 via ASU and got the Cache_Manager blue screen exactly as before.

Can't find anything helpful with Google about Cache_Manager crashes except the suggestion that there is some kind of massive memory leak going on during the 20 seconds before it crashes.

I have now repeated the process back to Vista 32 bit which is completely stable, and plan to try again, but this time will install BC 3.0 and 3.1 at the Home Premium stage, which is when they were applied in the very original sequence. Also I can use my Home Premium install disk to try a repair install if problems occur again.

I am only trying to get back to a state which previously worked fine, ie with Raid present, Windows 7 x64 and BC 3.1. It should be possible. I know you can't have a Boot Camp partition on a raid array, but my experience is that it was previously OK on a partition on a non raid volume, even with raid elsewhere in the machine.

Don't think I have helped you at all, but it has sure helped me to write it down! Since you posted nearly four weeks ago you may have solved it anyway. In which case I would like to hear from you!
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BSOD after startup with Win7

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