Bootcamp - Black Screen and Blinking Cursor

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Bootcamp - Black Screen and Blinking Cursor

Dear World,

Searched all over the net but to no avail.. hopefully someone here can shed some light!

Overview -

Trying to Instal Windows 8 x64 via Bootcamp on my Macbook Pro running Lion 10.7.5.. Finish creating the partition, Mac reboots, then just hangs on the black screen with a blinking cursor. Need to hold power button to shut down.

System Deails-

Early 2011, 13" Macbook Pro, running Lion 10.7.5

2.7ghz, i7, 8gb ram

250gb Sandisk Extreme SSD in Bay 1

500gb standard HDD in old DVD bay

External DVD connect via USB

Workflow

- I get to the 'select your partition size' screen, proceed to partion SSD 100gb for Windows

- Mac Reboots

- Hangs on Black Screen with Blinking Cursor and nothing happens.

Troubleshooting

- Tried deleting and re-partitioning multiple times, same problem.

- Tried to boot straight to Windows Disk via holding ALT at startup -> Same blinking cursor problem

- Tried copying windows disk to USB, then re-bootcamping, wouldn't work

- Tried copying drivers and .xml from the bootcamp disk, to the bootcamp partition, then rebooting to windows disk, still wouldn't work.

Anyone who has solved the same problem, or has any info, would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you in advance!

Matt

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.5)

Posted on Feb 7, 2013 4:33 PM

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Answer 1

arthur72

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Feb 7, 2013 6:19 PM in response to uxomk

Try turning your mac off and holding command+alt+p+r while rebooting

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Answer 2

uxomk Author

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Feb 7, 2013 6:44 PM in response to arthur72

Hi Arthur,

No luck.

As advised, tried holding command+alt+p+r while rebooting, it wen't into Mac OS, I then restarted and tried to boot from Windows Disk, same problem, black screen and blinking cursor.

Thanks for the reply though.

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Answer 3

uxomk Author

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Feb 7, 2013 10:06 PM in response to uxomk

SOLVED!!!

Windows 8 installed successfully.

In a nutshell -

The external DVD drive is the problem.

Details-

After alot of reading, I decided Windows Installation wasn't recognizing the external DVD drive.

So I went through the annoying task of removing a HDD and replacing the DVD drive in the original location.

Startup + ALT, boot to Windows Disk, and BOOM!!! It worked. Completed whole Windows Installation flawlessly.

Made sure it worked properly, then turned off computer, removed DVD drive, reinserted spare 500gb HDD, and everything was back to normal, but with Windows installed.

If you don't know how to replace your DVD drive, you can check out a good walkthrough here

http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Installing-MacBook-Pro-13-Inch-Unibody-Late-2011-Opt ical-Drive/7662/1

Hope this info helps someone out there!!

Cheers,
Matt

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Answer 4

Feb 11, 2013 7:49 PM in response to uxomk

I had the same problem. My solution was to unplug all peripheral devices (even though they weren't on). Once that was done able to boot into Windows 8 Pro

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