Windows 8.1 install fails on new 2013 Retina MacBook

JC Bond wrote:

Look at my post a couple of pages back and you will see the solution...

...

Hi JC Bond - it's not a solution if it doesn't work for everyone... :-)

I'm glad that your steps worked for you.

I followed the exact same steps on my rMBP (before I returned it) and it didn't work.

However, with my new (replaced) rMBP, EFI install worked without needing to follow any special steps - I just let BootCamp do all the work, and EFI boot/install worked fine.

So I think the thing is here that there's no specific set of steps that will work for everyone - it seems dependent on the rMBP, version of windows, order of install, USB options, etc.

But definitely worth people trying your steps to see if it works for them.

Thanks!

I guess a moderator is deleting, hiding our messages...

TroelsL said:

Just to make sure I understand you now.

1. Boot windows 8.1 installer from EFI Boot option

2. Delete all partitions

3. Reboot into Internet Recovery

4. Create 120GB partition for OS X.

5. Install OSX

6. Update etc. (rest of your guide)

Correct...

Interesting that it did not work for you. I posted this here just to help others. If it works for them great. Otherwise they should replace the rMBP.

TroelsL wrote:

Has anyone heard from Apple regarding this issue? So far, I've spent 5 hours getting Windows 8.1 onto my machine. Right now, I'm trying to upgrade Windows 7 to Windows 8.

Any news in Iris support?

So for Iris support, you have to edit your EFI Firmware settings.

By default, when booting into a non-OSX OS, the rMBP disables Iris, and only enables the nVidia GPU.

There have been people who have gotten the integrated GPU working via changing some of the firmware settings (you have to boot into an EFI shell, which you'd need to install e.g. rEFIt has one).

But you won't be able to get the IrisPro AND nVidia working together - that's because Apple have their own mechanism for getting these 2 GPUs to work together that is not using the nVidia Optimus method, and so far Apple haven't released Windows drivers for their mechanism - i wouldn't imagien they would in all truthfulness.

So it's one or the other for now.

But getting IrisPro working in Windows (and disabling the nVidia GPU) should mean much better battery life.

There's a big long thread about gettign Intel HDGraphics 4000 going on older rMBPs, I'll see if I can find it - it's fairly technical though.

Also I was just going to add:

Would it be possible for y'all to put your specific Mac Model in your signature please?
or at least put it in your post?

e.g.

MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Late 2013), MacBook Pro11,3, ME294xx/A

Most of the issues I've seen so far are with the 15" Late-2013 MacBookPro with Retina.

There was an EFI update for the 13" Late-2013 MacBookPro with Retina which apparently fixed the issue (EFI Update v1.3), but no such update (yet) for the 15".

If you're on an older rMBP, your mileage may vary.

JC Bond wrote:

Interesting that it did not work for you. I posted this here just to help others. If it works for them great. Otherwise they should replace the rMBP.

It's great that you did post your steps, especially if they work for people.

Did you install the EFI Update 1.2 by any chance?

When I got my new replacement rMBP I left it at EFI v1.1.

My rMBP is an:

Late 2013 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display

2.6GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7, Turbo Boost up to 3.8GHz

16GB 1600MHz DDR3L SDRAM

1TB PCIe-based Flash Storage

No Firmware update is available for this unit yet.

robygen wrote:

Thank you very much! I'm in UEFI mode (rMBP late 2013).

Still confirm that integrated IRIS pro Graphic is not "seen" by system...

Still have problems with some application, such as Chrome, that looks very blurry

Hi robygen - Chrome will look blurry by default as Chrome doesn't support the retina screen in Windows (i.e. doesn't auto-scale for high DPI screens).

There's a hidden mode to turn it on, although it breaks lots of other things in Chrome (e.g. drop down lists will appear in odd places, etc). But it makes Chrome look crystal-sharp (esp font rendering).

Or you can use IE or Firefox (I think) which have support for HiDPI.

To turn it on: type in chrome://flags in the address bar and press Enter. Then do a CTRL-F and search for "DPI" (without quotes) - there's an option called Experimental HiDPI mode or similar. Set that option to enabled, and restart Chrome.

Hopefully they'll sort out HiDPI mode in Windows soon - they had to do it when OSX moved to retina as well, but I guess it's a lower priority for Windows as we're only just now starting to see HiDPI displays on Windows laptops.

Hope this helps.

Dourn, thank you for suggestion about AppleCare replacement. Before I try that, did you do boot camp install with OS X as-is on it? I'm asking because I have a habit of downloading clean OS X via Internet Recovery, and I wonder if that's something I should avoid with replacement.

I downloaded a clean version of OSX unsing internet recovery.

Hi!

Since there are several recipies in this thread for solving the problem, then I wonder if anyone has had problems getting Windows 7 installed via BootCamp on their late 2013 rMBP? When I read through this thread (some weeks ago now), I saw that several people had taken the Win7 route (just following the BootCamp instructions) and then upgrading to 8 and 8.1 afterwards. I wonder if this is a universal workaround that would work for everybody?

I would not recommend people to delete all partions, play with fdisk like programs, mounting and copying boot paritions etc unless they know what they are doing, especially if the Win7 route is a universial workaround....

JC Bond wrote:

I downloaded a clean version of OSX unsing internet recovery.

OK - if AppStore shows no EFI update available, you're probably on EFI Update v1.2 (although you can check this via System Profiler).

Also, to respond to archivist08 (for some reason this forum is hiding/deleting some recent posts):

On my old rMBP (the non replacement one) I tried everything - installing using the vanilla OSX install, and reinstalling OSX via Internet Recovery (about 6 times from memory).

I also installed the EFI Update 1.2.

On my new (replacement) rMBP, I originally installed Windows Server 2012 R2, and then wanted to get rid of it, so decided to do another Internet Recovery, so reinstalled OSX that way, and EFI install still worked.

Right now, I have OSX and three separate Win 8.1 install on my rMBP, all 4 of them bootable.

Cheers,

Dourn

15" rMBP Late-2013 (Haswell), 512GB, 16GB, 2.3 GHz, nVidia 750M, MacBookPro 11,3

SteinarD wrote:

Hi!

Since there are several recipies in this thread for solving the problem, then I wonder if anyone has had problems getting Windows 7 installed via BootCamp on their late 2013 rMBP? When I read through this thread (some weeks ago now), I saw that several people had taken the Win7 route (just following the BootCamp instructions) and then upgrading to 8 and 8.1 afterwards. I wonder if this is a universal workaround that would work for everybody?

I would not recommend people to delete all partions, play with fdisk like programs, mounting and copying boot paritions etc unless they know what they are doing, especially if the Win7 route is a universial workaround....

Windows 7 doesn't support EFI boot properly - you may be able to use it as a way to get Win 8 and Win 8.1 installed via EFI, but I haven't seen many people that have had success with this route.

Also, would need to be x64 version of Windows 7, as no 32-bit support for EFI in windows.

archivist08 wrote:

Dourn, thank you for suggestion about AppleCare replacement. Before I try that, did you do boot camp install with OS X as-is on it? I'm asking because I have a habit of downloading clean OS X via Internet Recovery, and I wonder if that's something I should avoid with replacement.

On my old rMBP (the non replacement one) I tried everything - installing using the vanilla OSX install, and reinstalling OSX via Internet Recovery (about 6 times from memory).

I also installed the EFI Update 1.2.

On my new (replacement) rMBP, I originally installed Windows Server 2012 R2, and then wanted to get rid of it, so decided to do another Internet Recovery, so reinstalled OSX that way, and EFI install still worked. I didn't install the EFI Update 1.2 though (App Store still nags me about it whenever I boot into OSX!).

Right now, I have OSX and three separate Win 8.1 install on my rMBP, all 4 of them bootable.

TroelsL wrote:

Just cleaned my macbook, did all the things JC suggested, and I still get the error at the end.

I'm getting pretty sick of this. What are the disadvantages of just running BIOS legacy mode?

So running in BIOS mode means:

1) The partitions are a hybrid-MBR partition which (I've heard) means for slightly slower disk access

2) You don't get the full hardware support (i.e. not all hardware is available)

3) Longer boot times

4) Takes longer to wake from sleep

5) You can only have one Window partition e.g. you can't have multiple versions of windows installed like I do

Other than that, it's all good!! :-)

Note that EFI boot is only supported with 64-bit editions of Windows.