MBP halts when booting to Windows

Question

MBP halts when booting to Windows

This morning I reinstalled OS X from a USB stick after formatting my Mac partition in my Macbook Pro (15", mid-2009 model). The installation failed at first, but when I retried to install it, it went well. Also, I removed the faulty optical drive from the notebook.

Now the OS X in it runs well, but every time when I try to boot into Windows XP, which was originally there before the reinstallation of OS X, the laptop halts immediately after I choose the Windows option from the Boot Camp screen.

I'm suspecting that some programmes stored in the Mac partition for booting into Windows are missing.

Any suggestions on how to fix the problem?

Thanks.

Posted on Jun 13, 2011 7:27 AM

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Answer 1

Csound1

Level 9

59,973 points

Jun 13, 2011 7:31 AM in response to yurifrombrooklyn

Windows boots without assistance from the Mac side, there no programs on the Mac partition for that.

What does disk utility say about your windows partition? is it visible in Finder

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Answer 2

Jun 13, 2011 7:34 AM in response to Csound1

I can see the windows partition in Finder and the files are accessible.

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Answer 3

Csound1

Level 9

59,973 points

Jun 13, 2011 7:38 AM in response to yurifrombrooklyn

I'm no XP expert but Google "fixboot" or "fixmbr" for windows XP, it's possible the boot sector (XP) is corrupt, XP has some repair facilities but it has been a very long time since I used it.

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Answer 4

Jun 13, 2011 8:30 AM in response to Csound1

I don't know whether you are right, but I currently see no way of editing MBR code in OS X. I have no Windows and my optical drive is dead.

I ran rEFIt Inspector and it returned the following:

*** Report for internal hard disk ***

Current GPT partition table:

# Start LBA End LBA Type

1 40 409639 EFI System (FAT)

2 409640 910573607 Mac OS X HFS+

3 910837760 976773119 Basic Data

Current MBR partition table:

# A Start LBA End LBA Type

1 1 409639 ee EFI Protective

2 409640 910573607 af Mac OS X HFS+

3 * 910837760 976773119 07 NTFS/HPFS

MBR contents:

Boot Code: Unknown, but bootable

Partition at LBA 40:

Boot Code: None (Non-system disk message)

File System: FAT32

Listed in GPT as partition 1, type EFI System (FAT)

Partition at LBA 409640:

Boot Code: None

File System: HFS Extended (HFS+)

Listed in GPT as partition 2, type Mac OS X HFS+

Listed in MBR as partition 2, type af Mac OS X HFS+

Partition at LBA 910837760:

Boot Code: Windows NTLDR

File System: NTFS

Listed in GPT as partition 3, type Basic Data

Listed in MBR as partition 3, type 07 NTFS/HPFS, active

And after installing rEFIt, I still could not get into Windows.

I'm curious whether Boot Camp (and rEFIt) hands the system to the MBR code or the boot record in the partition. If the MBR codes are bypassed, I can be pretty sure the problem is with the booting code in the BOOTCAMP partition.

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Answer 5

The hatter

Level 9

60,990 points

Jun 13, 2011 8:47 AM in response to yurifrombrooklyn

Formatting - the only think Disk Utility offers is ERASE.

If you click on the raw total drive (WDxxxxx type name) that does wipe all partition tables and user volumes, sort of like Initialize or quick format.

Failed at first to me equals failed.

Whenever I see something like this, my advice: clone and keep multiple backups of both systems; you should never need to reinstall OS X again; and make a system image of Windows. Then, ideally, try a reformat and restore - before they are necessary.,

OS X can be repaired. May need more than just Apple Disk Utility, good system preventative maintenance.

GUID (GPT) supports an MBR. Sometimes an erase operation and reinstall does affect the Windows partition and abilty to use Windows, likely due to underlying errors with the partition tables, or even bad sector somewhere.

The best and often quicker, may seem harder and longer, but really is to do thorough job.

You also have more issues: optical drive; lack of Windows CD/DVD. And XP SP3 has been known to not install properly from CD (besides Vista SP1 goes EOL next month, XP already is).

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Answer 6

Jun 13, 2011 8:53 AM in response to yurifrombrooklyn

I've checked the MBR using a hex editor and have confirmed that it's intact. Hence problem is not related to Windows bootloader (ntldr), as the MBR would throw an error message if anything is wrong with it.

Then the problem is most probably with Boot Camp itself. Are there any tools to fix it?

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Answer 7

Csound1

Level 9

59,973 points

Jun 13, 2011 9:30 AM in response to yurifrombrooklyn

Boot Camp simply makes a partition to put windows on and provides drivers for windows to use to access devices, it is not BC stopping the boot, as you have no optical drive you can't use XP repair tools on the cd so:

Have you tried a (windows) safe boot?

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Answer 8

Jun 13, 2011 10:07 AM in response to yurifrombrooklyn

I've solved the problem.

What happened? Well, according to what I have read, when Mac boots into Windows, a simulated BIOS takes over the system, and continue booting from the MBR in the hard disk as in a normal PC. However, there seems to be some flaws in the simulated BIOS –– I believe it always check the HDD as well as the optical drive –– just like a normal PC's BIOS scans through all the drives. But what happens when the optical drive is absent? It halts. I guess that's because Apple doesn't expect you to remove the optical drive on your own.

So, all I did was to put the optical drive back –– and boom, Windows booted as normal.

Thank you all for your answers, anyway.

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