Bootcamp Windows 7 not booting to cd "no bootable device..."

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Bootcamp Windows 7 not booting to cd "no bootable device..."

I am trying to do a standerd dual boot windows 7 and OSX. I have a Macbook pro 2008 Aluminum. My first problem is this I have a the dvd drive is no longer keeping the cds in. It will push them out 30sec after inserting any dvd/cd. So I went out and bought a external dvd drive. its compatible with mac, i dont think thats the issue, it shows up in boot loader and I was able to install mac OSX 10.6 no problem with it.

So for installing windows 7 I went throughout all the normal steps (IE bootcamp assistant which is at 3.0.2 314). Which created the partition just fine. After I click start installation. It reboots like its suppose to. But then boots me in the a screen that says no "no bootable device -- instert a bootable disk and press any key". This is a legit windows 7 from Microsoft dvd, also tried windows xp disk, as well as a burnt copy of windows 7. All the same results. Installed rEFIt and made a bootable thumb drive same result. tried the suggestion of holding option with the disk not in there and then putting in the disk and try to boot from it still nothing. Cant get it to boot from the cd. I have been searching and working on this for 3 days now.

With rEFLt I went to partition tool at boot and updated the partition table, then i get missing operating system instead of the no bootable device.

I have had windows 7 macbook on this computer before. I re imaged the whole HDD to start fresh this year. Thats how I got to this spot.

Macbook Pro Late 2008, Mac OS X (10.6.5)

Posted on Jan 1, 2011 6:23 AM

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Answer 1

GerritVK Author

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Jan 1, 2011 9:03 AM in response to GerritVK

I have tried a few more things.

Burnt Disk at 4x speed-Same Result

Pressing Command,option,P,R at boot to reset PRAM/NVRAM- Same Result

Tried to make another copy of the thumb drive with "Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool" from http://store.microsoft.com/help/iso-tool -Same Result

Tried a linux live disk- Same Result

Put in mac osx disk to verfy dvd drive worked- Was able to boot into OSX installer no issue
Changed startup disk from system prefences to the dvd drive-Same result

Things I noticed:
When I restart and hold option it shows me only my macdrive unless i unplug the power to external dvd drive and plug it back in then i can see the dvd drive. After I select the drive flashes for 1 sec then stops it should keep flashing. Its like its not booting to the dvd drive at all. Thus my reason to try the thumb drive with rEFlt(like a stated before same result)

My fiance has a macbook I set it up in target disk mode and put the disk in(legit and burnt)- Same result

Note: I have all legit copies of software, I am holding the correct key to select boot device, I have read a lots of posts/instructions(please point me to one i havent). Just to cover some of the basis from all the posts i have read. 🙂

Thank you for the time to assist me!!

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Answer 2

GerritVK Author

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Jan 4, 2011 6:33 PM in response to GerritVK

Status update.

I spent 3 hours on the phone with apple. Very long story short. They told me that my mac does not support booting other operating systems via USB(External dvd drive or Thumb drive). So the only option they gave me was to fix internal drive.

I am Dutch I don’t spend money unless I have to. I know I could figure something out.

This is what i did to get Windows 7 on my bootcamp partition without having to boot to a DVD drive/USB.

•Create bootcamp partition using bootcamp assistance quit and install later
•Install rEFit from http://refit.sourceforge.net/
•Reboot 2 times to work. at the boot up you will see partition tool. It will ask if you want to change the MBR. click yes. Now the Bootcamp partition will show up as a drive when you hold option. You can always uninstall rEFit by deleting the efi folder from the root of you mac drive.
•Installed vmware fusion
•Install windows 7 in vmware as normal (I used ISO image). Once install is complete shutdown vm.
•In the vitrual machines folder under user documents right click and open with other... browse to "/library/Application Support/VMware Fusion/VMDKMounter". This will mount the VM
•Download/Install winclone from http://download.cnet.com/Winclone/3000-2242_4-172338.html
•In Winclone in the image tab you will see untitled as the source select it and create image
•Once image is completed in winclone under restore tab browse to that image you created above and for the partition select the bootcamp partition.
•Now reboot and hold option and select the windows partition.

If you need more details let me know but that’s the summary. There really wasn’t much to it, no command line stuff just a nice workaround.

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Answer 3

3tc

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Jan 21, 2011 2:28 AM in response to GerritVK

Thanks for the guide, Winclone is creating the image right now, hope it'll work.

I'd like to add 2 things:

1. make sure you check the MacFUSE entry in the "customize" menu when you install VMware Fusion, otherwise you won't be able to mount the virtual machine afterwards
2. Winclone offers you two untitled images/drives to choose from. You obviously have to select the "Untitled" (Size = some GB), not the "UNTITLED" one (just a few KB)

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Answer 4

miett

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Apr 25, 2011 3:39 PM in response to GerritVK

Thanks for the guide.
I was able to follow all the way up to where I created an image with Winclone but when I tried to restore that image to the bootcamp partition, it failed.

At the end of the log, it says;

"/Library/NTFSProgs/ntfsresize" -f -f "/dev/disk0s3"
return value of "/Library/NTFSProgs/ntfsresize" -f -f "/dev/disk0s3" is 256

ntfsresize v2.0.0 (libntfs 10:0:0)
ERROR(102): Opening '/dev/disk0s3' as NTFS failed: Operation not supported on socket
The NTFS journal file is unclean. Please shutdown Windows properly before
using this software! Note, if you have run chkdsk previously then boot
Windows again which will automatically initialize the journal correctly.
"/Library/NTFSProgs/ntfsresize" -f -f "/dev/disk0s3" did not complete successfully
cleaning up: Mounting Disk
Volume (null) on /dev/disk0s3 mounted

Can someone help me with this?

MacPro 1,1, Mac OS X (10.6.3)

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Answer 5

miett

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Apr 27, 2011 1:40 AM in response to miett

Just wanted to follow up as I got it working. Just like GerritVK says "Once install is complete shutdown vm". I never used VM so I was just quitting VM which suspends Windows 7, but make sure you shut it down.

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Answer 6

Dec 25, 2011 3:39 AM in response to 3tc

Oh crap... What if you forget to check MacFUSE when you instal??

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Answer 7

Elo228

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Jan 3, 2012 9:23 AM in response to GerritVK

thank you so much for this info.. i'm very close to making it i can feel it, but after doing all the steps and rebooting on the Windows partition it says Bootmgr is missing, which of couse *****.

Can you share a little on what windows version did you use, or when did you create the image? was it right after you installed windows 7 on vmware? did you install the vmware tools?

I'm just so frutrated, almost 3 nights of no sleep and this is the closest i've been to it..

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Answer 8

The hatter

Level 9

61,001 points

Jan 3, 2012 10:33 AM in response to Elo228

Congrats on reviving a year old thread!

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Answer 9

Jan 6, 2012 10:49 AM in response to GerritVK

Great solution! However i had to do some extra steps since i use Lion and VMware 4.0.

1. I had to shring the partition created by VMware http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/resize-a-partition-for-free-in-wind ows-vista/ (Bevause my bootcamp partition was only 30GB and image was 60GB)

2. I had to extract the VMDKMounter from a legacy Fusion 3.3 and install with Pacifist

3. I had to install OSXFUSE instead of MacFUSE

Many thanks again!

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Answer 10

ciferkey

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Jan 16, 2012 4:28 PM in response to Viggo Stenseth

How did you get around winclone not working on lion?

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Answer 11

Jan 16, 2012 5:13 PM in response to ciferkey

Well i didn´t have issues with winclone...

However my celebrations was a bit premature. When i pushed the clone onto my bootcap partition, i got the "bootmgr.exe is missing" message... I gave up after this and will use the internal sata connector to install the **** windows.

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Answer 12

Jan 31, 2012 12:21 PM in response to Viggo Stenseth

I got to the same point as viggo. bootmgr was missing after restoring the partition with winclone.

i fixed the bootrecord of the cloned partition like this:

1) create a windows system repair disk. you can do this in your virtual machine. since you cannot boot from cd. you need to create the repair disk directly into an iso file. windows only lets you choose an existing cdrw drives, so you need to simulate a cd burner. use TotalMounter for this. its free and does exactly what you need.

the following steps have been done with parallels. don't know if this works with vm fusion

2) Create a new parallels vm and use the cloned, broken bootcamp partition as its main drive (if you start it right now, you get the same "bootmgr is missing" message)

3) mount the previously created system repair disc as a cd rom

4) boot from the cd room

5) run systemrepair to fix the bootrecord

6) windows is now booting in parallels and it hopefully does so directly from disk :-)

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Answer 13

EytchKay

Level 1

4 points

Mar 6, 2012 8:15 PM in response to sideshowbob99

Thank you all for your help.

I got to the same point as viggo and you, sideshowbob99.

Following your steps, I went through a dead-end at step 5 : when booting on the repair disk iso file, some message displays, saying that Mac OS X prevented any change on the boot loader and that modifications would not be saved. Indeed, it repairs but rollbacks at reboot.

I did not find any way to get further.

Did any of you get this issue ? I'm feeling like only two inches are keeping me away from success !

Any help appreciated ! Thank you again for your patience, you guys.

PS : I tried to run parallels 7 (installed on purpose to follow your steps, as I'm usually running vmware) as root but same message.

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Answer 14

EytchKay

Level 1

4 points

Jun 22, 2012 2:12 AM in response to GerritVK

Here is a 100% functional tutorial. I followed the steps earlier this week, and it worked flawlessly.
English version : http://huguesval.com/blog/2012/02/installing-windows-7-on-a-mac-without-superdri ve-with-virtualbox/

French version : http://huguesval.com/blog/2012/01/installer-windows-7-sur-mac-sans-lecteur-dvd-a vec-virtualbox/

It works with both W7 and W8. Enjoy 🙂

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