Installing Windows 7 with boot camp as whole partition on 2nd internal hard drive
Hi all,
I am unsure what is the recent changes with Apple boot camp. But when I used boot camp utilitiy on my Mac Pro (Mid 2010) to install windows 7 64 bits. It would not install and created a whole lot of problems.
After I initialise the process to install windows 7 using boot camp utilities, I chose the option to create a single partition to installl windows 7 on my secondary internal hard drive (1TB). After I restarted my Mac Pro and started the Windows 7 installation process, I was unable to install Windows 7 on the BOOTCAMP partition created by the boot camp utilitiy. I got an error something about Windows cannot be installed on the selected forum because the driver contained GPT details.
I tried to format the BOOTCAMP partition, but it ended up with errors. I tried to delete and recreate the BOOTCAMP partition in Windows setup, but failed with errors again. As I could not go any further with the Windows 7 installation, I had to hard reset my Mac Pro and tried to reboot back into Mac OS X Lion and that's when the nightmare begin.
Not only I could not boot into OS X, I could not use any of the startup key combinations (i.e. Hold option key to select start up disk, option + R to boot the lion recovery drive, not boot from any external firewire drive installed with OS X Lion). Basically none of the key combinations worked except for the holdingi F12 and mouse key to eject CD.
The only thing I could boot the Mac Pro with is the windows installation CD and Linux Ubuntu Raring Distro. I can install the ubuntu distro without any issue. However, I could not boot my mac pro back into OS X as Linux does not support bootcamp. The only way I could use Mac OS X Lion again is to delete the partition OS X Lion was installed on, and then I was be able to install Windows 7 without any issue.
After installing windows 7 I would have to download boot camp and then use the boot camp control panel to restart in the Mac Pro installation DVD and I will have to reinstall OS X again. After installing OS X, I went to System Preference and tried to select Windows 7 as startup disc. But I failed to as it says "Windows 7" Was installed via another utility. I would have to erase the partition and reinstall Windows 7 again using bootcamp utility. If I try to install windows 7 again, the horror I described above repeats again.
From my understanding, the Boot camp utility creates a new EFI bootrom with Master Boot Record (MBR) in FAT32 format. Therefore I could not boot back into Mac OS X without using boot camp in windows 7 as none of the boot combinations key worked.
I want to ask if anyone is experiencing the same issue as i do, and if there are any solutions to the problem I am experiencing. I never had such issue before. I was able to install Windows 7 on my 2ndary internal hard drive without issue using boot camp. I don't what has changed. I have googled for solution, I only found something related to XOM but nothing else.
If anyone can provide me with any help in regards to installing Windows 7 as a whole partition on a secondary internal hard drive. It'd be grealy appreciated. Thank you in advance.
Mac Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.8), 12 Cores, 8 GB DDR3 Ram, Dual 5770