Macbook Pro with bootcamp cannot boot to windows 10 after updating to Big Sur
I have a MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2014), with a Windows 10 bootcamp installation. It has been working fine for years.
Then I update the Mac OS to Big Sur 11.6.5, and then I couldn't boot to Windows any more, even if I hold down the alt/option key during startup - the boot options did show up (at first), but after I select the Windows Diamond icon, it just freezes. Sometimes, holding the alt key just won't bring up the boot option screen.
To be precise, at the beginning I tried and failed to boot to Windows. On the next day, it can boot straight to Windows. When I thought the problem was solved, after a few reboots I can't get to Windows any more.
I am able to set the startup disk as the bootcamp volume in "System Preferences", but it didn't help. I did grant the Full Disk Access right to System Preferences.
The "diskutil mount diskXsX" and "diskutil unmount diskXsX", plus holding alt and reboot several times thing, also didn't work.
I mount the EFI partition and in the EFI folder, I can only see APPLE, but not MICROSOFT, is this reflecting the exact root of the problem?
On the plus side, booting into Mac, I can still see the files of Windows in Finder.
Also, doing gdisk, gpt and fdisk (all through sudo) on /dev/disk0 won't work:
fdisk: /dev/rdisk0: Operation not permitted
GPT fdisk (gdisk) version 1.0.4
Problem opening /dev/disk0 for reading! Error is 1.
Output of diskutil list:
/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *500.3 GB disk0
1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk0s1
2: Apple_APFS Container disk1 81.4 GB disk0s2
3: Microsoft Basic Data BOOTCAMP 418.7 GB disk0s3
/dev/disk1 (synthesized):
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: APFS Container Scheme - +81.4 GB disk1
Physical Store disk0s2
1: APFS Volume Macintosh HD - Data ... 19.4 GB disk1s1
2: APFS Volume Preboot 312.5 MB disk1s2
3: APFS Volume Recovery 623.5 MB disk1s3
4: APFS Volume VM 1.1 GB disk1s4
5: APFS Volume Macintosh HD - Data ... 15.3 GB disk1s5
6: APFS Snapshot com.apple.os.update-... 15.3 GB disk1s5s1
/dev/disk2 (external, physical):
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *2.0 TB disk2
1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk2s1
2: Apple_HFS bak bootcamp 214.0 GB disk2s2
(free space) 134.9 MB -
3: Microsoft Basic Data BTCM_DRIVER 6.0 GB disk2s3
4: Microsoft Basic Data NTFSVOL 1.8 TB disk2s4
(free space) 134.3 MB -
To provide more information, the bootcamp did broke down once by me trying to enlarge one of the partitions. Although it was fixed at the end, I noticed a few errors during the /fixboot and /rebuildbcd commands, don't know if these cause the problem (please refer to the last page):
Cannot boot to boot camp Windows after sh… - Apple Community
I need to use the Windows OS to work soon and hope that this problem can be solved asap. Many thanks!
Windows, Windows 10