Hi Folks,
after upgrading and reinstalling catalina from scratch my Windows 7 was left unbootable.
I need to boot from USB, but my iso is for Windows 7 and Bootcamp Assistant for Catalina is asking for Windows 10 ISO or newer.
Is it possible to download an older version of Bootcamp Assitant in order to create the Win7 installer?
MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 10.15
@Loner T.
Don't worry. DiskUtility destroyed that partition as seen in the picture. So I reached the no-return point. Is gone. I think it has to do with the 128Mb left unused by DiskUtility, not sure.
I downloaded Catalina in my other macbook, createInstallMedia with it, and reinstalled from scratch one more. Now with more knowledge. After that I created a Bootable USB for Windows 7 using Rufus from a Win7 installed in a VirtualMachine of Parallels and placed inside the correct Bootcamp drivers which worked fine this time.
Some recommendations for others:
_ Do not use Bootcamp Assistant for Windows 7. Use Rufus instead from a Virtual Machine with windows on it.
Apple does not provide normal installers for Sierra to create bootable USB. They provide only updaters.
Bootcamp of Sierra from a VirtualMachine or a newer MacOS have to be hacked on "info.plist" in order to accept Win7. Otherwise it demands to buy Win10. Or finally if you are decided ro rebuild your OS in your old Mac, you can use Alt+Cmd+R to boot a Recovery mode that installs the initial MacOS that came with that MacBook. This of course implies removing Catalina just to get the correct Bootcamp Assistant working.
_ Do not use DiskUtility for advanced stuff or precise tasks it may re-build your design and your plans will go otherwise as expected. It doesn't handle unused-areas. It will leave unused areas after macs partitions like HFS about 128MB. If a 3rd-party software removes that free-space, by for-example resizing windows partition, then be aware that DiskUtility could destroy something else like your HFS or APFS partition. I am not sure about that diagnostic but that behavior happened to me.
_ Besides BOOTCAMP partition, create another "DataStore" partition in exFAT so that you don't use 3rd-party NTFS drivers. I had corrupted NTFS boot sector once ago when I used to boot from Parallels Desktop as well. You can't create more than 4 Primary partitions because old-MBR restrictions or Windows will not install.
_ If you have an spinning disk HDD, reduce the size of the new mandatory APFS partition since it is not fragmentation-aware because it is strictly designed for SDD. This will reduce chances of getting slow disk access in the future and requirement to reinstall everything !!! (I gave it 100Gb). Set Bootcamp to an small NTFS partition (I gave it 50Gb), and store data in another DataStore partition (I gave it the remaining 350Gb).
_ If you don't care about gaming performance, consider installing Windows 10 LTSC.
Is a reduced oficial release of Windows 10 which has more performance than other releases of Windows 10 but this depends of course in drivers optimization which may not be the case for deprecated hardware.
_ Dont delete Windows Startup Rescue ISOs, they may not be re-downloadable easily. For example for win7, Microsoft has dropped support and sold the license of distribution and they can be downloaded for a price.
@Loner T.
Don't worry. DiskUtility destroyed that partition as seen in the picture. So I reached the no-return point. Is gone. I think it has to do with the 128Mb left unused by DiskUtility, not sure.
I downloaded Catalina in my other macbook, createInstallMedia with it, and reinstalled from scratch one more. Now with more knowledge. After that I created a Bootable USB for Windows 7 using Rufus from a Win7 installed in a VirtualMachine of Parallels and placed inside the correct Bootcamp drivers which worked fine this time.
Some recommendations for others:
_ Do not use Bootcamp Assistant for Windows 7. Use Rufus instead from a Virtual Machine with windows on it.
Apple does not provide normal installers for Sierra to create bootable USB. They provide only updaters.
Bootcamp of Sierra from a VirtualMachine or a newer MacOS have to be hacked on "info.plist" in order to accept Win7. Otherwise it demands to buy Win10. Or finally if you are decided ro rebuild your OS in your old Mac, you can use Alt+Cmd+R to boot a Recovery mode that installs the initial MacOS that came with that MacBook. This of course implies removing Catalina just to get the correct Bootcamp Assistant working.
_ Do not use DiskUtility for advanced stuff or precise tasks it may re-build your design and your plans will go otherwise as expected. It doesn't handle unused-areas. It will leave unused areas after macs partitions like HFS about 128MB. If a 3rd-party software removes that free-space, by for-example resizing windows partition, then be aware that DiskUtility could destroy something else like your HFS or APFS partition. I am not sure about that diagnostic but that behavior happened to me.
_ Besides BOOTCAMP partition, create another "DataStore" partition in exFAT so that you don't use 3rd-party NTFS drivers. I had corrupted NTFS boot sector once ago when I used to boot from Parallels Desktop as well. You can't create more than 4 Primary partitions because old-MBR restrictions or Windows will not install.
_ If you have an spinning disk HDD, reduce the size of the new mandatory APFS partition since it is not fragmentation-aware because it is strictly designed for SDD. This will reduce chances of getting slow disk access in the future and requirement to reinstall everything !!! (I gave it 100Gb). Set Bootcamp to an small NTFS partition (I gave it 50Gb), and store data in another DataStore partition (I gave it the remaining 350Gb).
_ If you don't care about gaming performance, consider installing Windows 10 LTSC.
Is a reduced oficial release of Windows 10 which has more performance than other releases of Windows 10 but this depends of course in drivers optimization which may not be the case for deprecated hardware.
_ Dont delete Windows Startup Rescue ISOs, they may not be re-downloadable easily. For example for win7, Microsoft has dropped support and sold the license of distribution and they can be downloaded for a price.
diego.rg wrote:
One is MBP Mid-2012,
For this Mac, Recovery can be started using Command+R or Command+Opt+R. Does this boot with Command+Opt+R?
and the other is MBP Retina Early-2013.
The first one has the unbootable win7. The second continues to have it, until any-reinstall attempt occurs.
If this Mac had Sierra or older initially during W7 installation, and then you upgraded to High Sierra or newer, W7 cannot be repaired, unless you Build your own Windows 10 Bootcamp USB In… - Apple Community.
Both have Catalina now.
Once Catalina is installed, Command+R will always reinstall Catalina.
I could have used the Time Machine recovery. But there were alternatives to not go back, and actually there isn't technical reasons why Windows7 cant live with Catalina, it is all about bootcamp assistant version.
Command+R Could have an option to let me pick and older version available for this model, after all, it has to download the installer again, but no, it doesn't.
Both are from years of Win7. So Win7 is the natural candidate and was working well.
I do can install Win10, or Win11 with bootcamp5 drivers as they are suuported.
But I am afraid of loosing performance as the only reason to have it installed is for gaming and some other heavy profesional tools. Nothing else. Benchmarks suggest that win7 is worst on newer hardware and old-macbooks hardware wont change.
MBP Retina Early-2013 -> Long time ago I had a boto issue regarding corrupted NTFS because of using Parallels with Bootcamp, I fixed it by using Mid-2012 to create a bootable Win7 disk again. At that Time this macbook had HighSierra and I refused to upgrade because of being an old model and my lack of time to resolve issues. This HighSierra wasn't installed from scratch as now I am trying but was an upgrade which comes initially from El Capitan (I think).
MBP Mid-2012 -> I now decided to upgrade to Catalina. I forgot to create again a Win7 reinstall disk and forgot that bootcamp assistant gets upgraded too without backguards compatibility. I wasn't expecting the boot sector to be overriden and there wasn't a warning about it. I thought it was only an upgrade.
OS X reinstallers -> Downloaded from here https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT211683
Sierra images and older ARE NOT images. They can't be installed in a VM or a USB stick.
OS X USB reinstall media -> Following instructions of https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201372
Sierra an older you dont have a .app to find a createInstallMedia inside.
This very referenced helppage is also wrong in content: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205016, its unmaintained but it also doesn't points to a maintained page. It should require to have "Leopard to Sierra only". It does however shows that bootcamp_support_software_v5 is supported for my mac model.
This oficial information is wrong.
diego.rg wrote:
Also, to add a bit more info. The windows 10 installer also complains about the same. It can't be installed in the BOOTCAMP partition disk0s5.
Hybrid MBR is an overlay on a GPT partition table and is limited to 4 entries. You have 5 partitions. Hence none of the installers will work properly.
You are missing an important factor here. macOS installed in a VM (Parallels/VirtualBox) does not the Mac Model Identifier of the VM. BC Assistant uses the Model Identifier to identify and provide options.
I have manually built USB Flash drive W7 installer and installed Windows on many 2012-2014 models.
diego.rg wrote:
The question is WHY. BC shouldn't care at all.
Look at Bootcamp Info.plist file for the reason.
SO, I tested the approach of " Build your own Windows 10 Bootcamp USB In… - Apple Community ", but didn't worked.
After rebooting there is no USB stick shown.
A USB3 device will not work. You must use a USB2 Flash drive. I use a SanDisk Cruzer USB2.
Just formating in FAT32 is not enough to make a usbstick bootable. Something is missing.
lso, If you see at the screenshot below, there is one file of difference between your sshot for win10 and my sshots for win7.
Its bootmgr.efi.
W7 is only supported on Macs using legacy BIOS boot. This is one of the reasons it is not supported on W=2015 and later Macs, because there is not BIOS emulation (CSM-BIOS) on such models.
Reboot and hold Alt/Option. Do you see any entries from the USB?
diego.rg wrote:
So, I found the way to edit Info.plist of Bootcamp inside the VM, where the model of the MacBook Pro is called "Parallels14,1".
With this I was successful to have a bootable USBstick for windows7 that I will keep as gold.
👏
This was/is clearly a bad design of Bootcamp. What difference would it make if it allows you to create the installer independently of the Mac running bootcamp?
No. The Model Identifier provides the ability to support multiple Mac models using a single software codebase. In your specific situation, saving the original installer as 'gold' also addresses your issue. You plan to do this now.
Sadly is not enough. The installer now is able to show the partition table. It never suggest a repair method.
It seems that Bootcamp got numbered disk0partition5, while it wasn't 5 before.
This may be because I resized the APFS partition to make a new one in FAT32 for data transferring between OSes.
Bootcamp does not support resizing partitions after Windows is installed on a Mac. From Install Windows 10 on your Mac with Boot Camp Assistant - Apple Support, Set a partition size that meets your needs, because you can't change its size later.
It seems that Diskutils hasn't kept the old partition table as it was, instead it fully revamped.
Disk Utility and BC Assistant manage partitions differently. What you have is normal and expected behavior.
The new error says that Windows can't be installed in a partition table with GPT style.
I guess now that MBR is completely gone. Thanks DiskUtils !
Is there any fix for that?
Yes, if you install GPT Fdisk.
Loner T wrote:
Hybrid MBR is an overlay on a GPT partition table and is limited to 4 entries. You have 5 partitions. Hence none of the installers will work properly.
****, that limitation !! We are all talking about 4 Primary partitions in MBR instead of extended ones.
And now I think about it, at the time of partitioning I didn't took into account the EFI partition.
Then this could be the answer.
Is probably also the reason why Bootcamp lost bootability?
I mean, if I didn't created MacData as and outsider partition of APFS, then Bootcamp would remain bootable.
I could combine disk0s3 and disk0s4 into one single partition.
I guess that I am forced to format it with exFAT.
If this fixes the issue, then it IS possible to give Windows more diskspace.
diego.rg wrote:
sh-3.2# diskutil list
/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *500.1 GB disk0
1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk0s1
2: Apple_APFS Container disk1 100.0 GB disk0s2
3: Apple_HFS MacData 299.5 GB disk0s3
4: Microsoft Basic Data exFAT 50.2 GB disk0s4
5: Microsoft Basic Data BOOTCAMP 50.0 GB disk0s5
These two partitions broke the Hybrid MBR.
diego.rg wrote:
I have been struggling more. Sadly a reinstall of Windows was forced.
It should not be necessary.
I was able to install windows directly after combining "BOOTCAMP"+"exFAT" partition into one single of 100Gb, which is the 4th partition in the table.
The exFAT partition should be converted to Free Space, and then GParted should be used to extend the 50Gb NTFS to make it a 100GB NTFS.
Sadly Win7 can only be installed and booted on NTFS, while win8 and newer do can, therefore I had to move MacDATA to exFAT in order to not have the requirement of an NTFS driver on MAC to transfer files. That was the main reason to change partition scheme.
With a MBR supporting 4 entries, once you extend NTFS, you will have EFI, APFS, MacDATA and Windows (100GB). This will correctly fit the MBR and allow you to 'share' MacDATA between Windows and macOS, without any further changes.
Now, I find awful that bootcamp drivers don't get installed with the windows installation.... what's is bootcamp assistant function after all.
BCA creates the installer and an AutoUnattend.xml. The AutoUnattend.xml allows it to install drivers in $WinPEDriver$ for WinPE to work correctly. Once Windows is installed, AutoUnattend.xml instructs Windows installer to run Bootcamp setup.exe, which installer the drivers.
I get a Windows installed without USB, Ethernet, Wifi, bluetooth, mouse, etc.... nothing I can't give it any files or install the drivers manually because the lack of preinstalled drivers. Years ago I did it with a license of Paragon NTFS, now I am creating an exFAT partition to accomplish the same task.
You still do the same, using a trial version of Paragon NTFS, since the USB drivers are not installed yet.
Why aren't drivers located in $WinPEDriver$ and Bootcamp folders not installed at all ? Is this known?
See the AutoUnattend.xml discussion earlier.
Did you look at Build your own Windows 10 Bootcamp USB In… - Apple Community that I have previously posted?
diego.rg wrote:
Is it possible to download an older version of Bootcamp Assitant in order to create the Win7 installer?
No. macOS Sierra and older support W7/W8.1. macOS High Sierra and newer versions only support W10. You can either restore macOS Sierra and try to re-install/repair W7, or use macOS Catalina and install W10, after removing the current W7.
I wrongly remembered to have created an startup disk on HighSierra some time ago, this was probably because of wrong text in Bootcamp Assistant. If you see the screenshots it is missleading as it says Create Windows 7 disk.... ¿maybe a translation error? I guess that it doesnt matters anymore
I have downloaded 5.22 Gb of High Sierra, installed it in a virtual machine, got the ISO inside and then.... error, only Win10.
Now I am downloading Sierra
This is the page with the links.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT211683
I dont understand how is this so complicated.
It was quite easy to download HighSierra and run it from Parallels.
However Sierra is not the same. It downloads 5 Gb of a file called InstallOS.dmg, which inside has an InstallOS.pkg which requires a working OS to be running. Therefore, I can't use it to create a Virtual Machine.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201372
I tried with Parallels and with VirtualBox. I couldn't figure this out.
I only need an old version of bootcamp assistant.
Can someone help me?
NEW UPDATES: I managed to get the ISO into a old-bootcamp by using a downloaded virtual machine disk for Vmware. It had a Sierra installer inside that runned when executed with VirtualBox. So I have a VM now with Sierra installed and I managed to transfer the ISO inside the VMdisk.
Now VirtualBox hangs when transferring files through USB and USB disconnects.... it seems a bug.
Parallels is able to convert the VMdisk into its own format (it wasn't able to convert the downloaded because Sierra wasn't installed but there was an installer, ODD!!).
Once converted and started Bootcamp DOESNT ALLOWS TO CREATE THE WIN7 USB DRIVE !!!
Same bootcamp version but different results..... ARGGHHHH!! I AM SO CLOSE !!!
Parallels shows second option gray out, install option for Win10 only, while MacBook Pro Retinaetc is a copy of the host, and it won't allow to create a Win7 disk.
VirtualBox identifies the PC just as MacBook Pro, nothing copied, I have all options mentioning Win7 and above and IT DOES allows to make the USB installer, BUT it fails transferring due some virtualization bug.
See pictures attached below.
PD: I would really like to know what bootcamp really does. All I see is Win7-installer alone won't see the disk partition, while if bootcamp creates the installer, then it will. I guess that it injects a driver, which is an operation that could be performed by hand.
Bootcamp Assistant of Catalina asks for Win10, but win7 is needed for Recovery issues
