Windows 8.1 install fails on new 2013 Retina MacBook

Trying 10.9.1 now, will report my findings. If this doesn't work, I'll either ask for a replacement or a refund. I'm getting sick of this.

ETA:

Didn't make any difference with 10.9.1. I'll ask them for a replacement now, which will arrive january 2. If anyone needs to convince AppleCare that this is a real issue, my ticket number is 543128654 with AppleCare Denmark.

My solution that worked for my 11/2013 Macbook Pro Retina 15", 1tb SSD. It required (2) usb keys to do this - both were 8gb, but I'm certain you can get away with 4gb.

1. torrented a copy of Windows 7 Ultimate x64 (Nov 2013 Activated by 2generation) found on Bitsnoop. It was a hacktivated copy but did not matter b/c you can fresh install Windows 8.1 x64 Pro right on top of it.

2. used BOOTCAMP to ONLY make a usb bootable of Windows 7 Ultimate x64 - this took more than 35min

3. used BOOTCAMP to ONLY make a usb bootable of Windows 8.1 Pro x64 (my legit copy made from DVD purchased from NewEgg) - this took about 5min

4. used BOOTCAMP to install Windows 7 Ultimate from the usb key, tuned my partition slider to ~400gb for Windows, ~600gb for OSX

6. proceeded with installation

5. it reboots into windows install screen, I selected PARTITION 4: BOOTCAMP (~400gb) and formatted it

6. then highlighted PARTITION 4 and hit NEXT to begin installation

7. installed Windows 7

5. installed all drivers for Windows 7 from the boot key made by BOOTCAMP

6. celebrated that win7 installed without incident

7. shutdown macbook

8. removed win7 usb key

9. inserted win8.1pro usb key

10. turned on macbook while holding OPTION to bring up boot menu

11. selected my usb key to boot from

12. brings up Win8.1pro installation screen

13. highlighted PARTITION 4: BOOTCAMP and hit next to install (I don't think it needed a format again)

14. proceeded with Win8 installation

15. Win8.1pro automatically installs all BOOTCAMP drivers from the usb key.

16. complete success.

17. seriously.

*** Please note, the hactivated (2generation) copy of Windows 7 has embedded usb3.0 drivers... which may have contributed to its successful installation.

I just noticed there's a special download for 10.9.1 for the Retina MacBook Pro [1]. Has anybody tried installing a vanilla 10.9.1 upgrade, e.g.the combo one, and see if there's any special installs after that on a MBP?

[1] http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1712

I was able to get Windows 8.1 Pro (from ISO) to install successfully. The first time I tried installing, I got the same error by just following boot camp instructions. This time the only thing I did different was plug usb flash drive into left USB port, recently installed 10.9.1 update (which I really think didn't make a difference), and the main difference was that when Windows installer asked me to format the partition created by boot camp, I deleted it created a new partition that was 600MB smaller (based on what I saw in disk management later in windows, it might only need to be 2MB smaller. Everything just worked fine from there to my surprise.

I will write a more comprehensive report later tonight to explain step by step what I did but essentially resizing the boot camp partition and leaving unallocated space on hard drive seems to be the trick that work. I believe something similar to this has been posted on here about that.

I hope this helps.

Tried something based on that post, and here's the success story!

Only difference from default workflow is that I erased bootcamp partition where windows asks me to choose the drive, and then created new one right there from empty space.

15" late-2013 retina MBP, originally downloaded OS X Mavericks through recovery, and Bootcamp failed near the end of installation.

This time, I've also started with internet recovery (which gets 10.9.1), and followed steps as Bootcamp guided me. I've successfully installed Windows 8.1 from ISO. Don't think it matters, but it's USB 3.0 on left port, and this 8.1 was MSDN version.

Apologies for that "solution", i'm moving myself to the "sometimes it works and I don't know why" pile. Just to make sure previous steps really helped (msdn + partition erase in win 8 instaler), this time I used vanilla 8.1 iso from MS, and no extra partition stuff. I followed same simple process that failed last time.

This time, it worked! Vanilla 8.1 iso from MS store, 3.0 usb on left side, nothing else plugged in except power, followed all bootcamp regular steps. Started with internet restore mavericks, which now defaults to 10.9.1.

So, for me at least, MSDN version and manually erasing and re-adding partition and extra space weren't required.

Here's a follow up on what I posted yesterday. While I did have success installing Windows 8.1 via Boot Camp on my Late 2013 15" MacBook Pro with Retina Display (2.3 GHz, 16 GB, 512 GB flash SSD....the preconfigured model that's priced at $2599) running 10.9.1, I did run into some trouble that I stupidly created myself.

The method I used worked just perfectly for me and installed the EFI version. These are the basic guidelines I followed:

1. In Boot Camp, I selected all three check boxes.

2. I used a Windows 8.1 Pro iso file for Boot Camp to create the flash drive with all the necessary Apple drivers for Windows.

3. I selected my partition size just as Boot Camp instructed me.

4. When the Windows installation began and it asked me what partition I wanted to install it on, I deleted it and created a new one that was 600 MB (I don't think it needs to be this large but it work with no problems for me).

5. After I did that, the installation ran smoothly to my surpise, blowing by the place where it errored originally.

Everything worked perfectly well. Windows was very fast, especially it's boot speed. Mac OS X ran perfectly fine. I spent a few hours downloading Windows software and customizing the OS until I did something that wasn't too smart. I noticed that in Windows Disk Management that I had 599 MB left over as unallocated free space. So I figured that I might be able to merge that free space with either my Boot Camp partition or my Macintosh HD. I wanted to add more space to my smaller Boot Camp parition, so I downloaded AOMEI, a third party disk utility software. Merging the free space with my Boot Camp parition was simple and easy. Everything in Windows worked just fine until I tried to boot into Mac OS X. Apparently AOMEI automatically formatted my Macintosh HD partition in FAT format. This wasn't too bad because I fortunately had a backup. So I erased the drive, reinstalled Mac OS X 10.9.1. Both Windows and Mac OS X booted and ran just fine until I noticed that the old Recover 10.9 partition kept mounting on my desktop and I could see it in disk utility. The weird thing was that when I booted and held down option, it would shoud my Windows, Macintosh HD, Recovery 10.9, and Recovery 10.9.1 partitions. Obviously the Recovery 10.9 partition was never removed during reinstallation.

I called Apple Care last night because I was unable to find a way to delete it. They seemed pretty surprised that this would have happened and I was able to speak with a senior-level advisor. He spoke with 3 other senior advisors and they gave me three options. I took the one where I would completely format my hard drive and reinstall Mac OS X 10.9.1 with the promise that I call them back after I restored my Mac with my Time Machine backup. Since I didn't really want to delete Windows 8.1 after I got it to work, the senior advisor assured me that both he and other Apple engineers would assist me install Windows 8.1 via Boot Camp on Friday (he's not working today). He said they know workarounds, etc. The lower-level tech advisor before this guy also submitted and low-priority complaint to Apple engineers about the Boot Camp issue as I explained that a lot of other people are having issues.

So by the end of the day tomorrow I'll probably know of a somewhat Apple-official way of installing Windows 8.1 on Mavericks. Assuiming it works, I will document it and share it on it. In the meantime, try my original method (I would assume you can merge the extra free space with you Mac partition via Disk Utility, just don't try merging it with Windows like I did!).

mikereed36 wrote:

Here's a follow up on what I posted yesterday. While I did have success installing Windows 8.1 via Boot Camp on my Late 2013 15" MacBook Pro with Retina Display (2.3 GHz, 16 GB, 512 GB flash SSD....

Cheers Mike, that all sounds good.

Re. AOMEI re-formatting your OSX partition as FAT... are you sure? If there partition had no data on it after this, then yes that's what happened, but if you saw all the OSX data on it, but the partition type seems to be FAT, then what's happened is that AOMEI (or even Disk Manager, that's what did it for me) has changed the partition type code (a GUID that identifies the format of the partition)

Luckily, you can change it back, and then the Mac will see that as HFS again and be able to boot.

Although probably too late from the sounds of it...

You can use GPT fdisk to do this (http://sourceforge.net/projects/gptfdisk/).

mikereed36 wrote:

4. When the Windows installation began and it asked me what partition I wanted to install it on, I deleted it and created a new one that was 600 MB (I don't think it needs to be this large but it work with no problems for me).

You must have done more than just create a 600MB partition. Did you create an additional partition for Windows to install too?

I opened a case with AppleCare last week because I've been having problems installing Windows 8 with BootCamp. At one point I did get Windows 8 installed, but the upgrade to Windows 8.1 kept failing, so I removed my Windows 8 installation because I thought the initial work around was preventing the Windows 8.1 upgrade. My Windows 8 installation had succeeded by doing an MBR installation that I converted to a EFI installation.

Talking with AppleCare was frustrating. First level support quickly escalated my issue to second level support. Second level support did a really good job listening, but claimed no knowlege that there was a problem. Still, the support individual assigned to my case did take the information and say he would take the information to the engineers.

He called me this past Monday and gave the following instructions:

1. Restore Maverics with Internet Recovery, and then go through the normal process with BootCamp, then if that failed to...

2. Erase my disk, and restore Maverics again with Internet Recovery, and then go through the normal process with BootCamp.

In all cases, my installation has failed. In each case, Windows 8 gets about to the end and then reports, "Windows could not update the computer's boot configuration. Installation cannot proceed".

I'm not waiting for more suggestions, although I'm not sure what to expect from AppleCare at this point. As I've mentioned previously, I have about a two-week old 15" retina macbook pro ($2599 model). I'm trying to install using a Window 8 Pro OEM ISO that I created from a Windows 8 Pro DVD. I created the ISO with DiskUtil (created a .dmg file and changed the extension to .iso). The installation seems happy until the end stages of the Windows 8 installation.

iampastwitsend wrote:

I opened a case with AppleCare last week because I've been having problems installing Windows 8 with BootCamp. At one point I did get Windows 8 installed, but the upgrade to Windows 8.1 kept failing, so I removed my Windows 8 installation because I thought the initial work around was preventing the Windows 8.1 upgrade. My Windows 8 installation had succeeded by doing an MBR installation that I converted to a EFI installation....

Hiya!

Call AppleCare and say there appears to be a fault with your Mac and you'd like to replace it.

Be firm with them.

You can return your Mac up to ? 15 or 30 days anyway (if you bought it direct form Apple) so tell them you'd like to take advantage of this.

Bear in mind that all my problems were fixed by getting a replacement, so worth a try.

Plus I'd hope you're more likely to get them to log a fault if you ask for a replacement.

Good luck!

Is this an EFI install? Won't Applecare just tell you EFI Windows is not yet supported?

Number88 wrote:

Is this an EFI install? Won't Applecare just tell you EFI Windows is not yet supported?

The default installation with Windows 8 and BootCamp is an EFI installation.

Since when? The only default installation through Bootcamp is CSM (bios) mode afaik with the possible exception of the 2013 MacBook Air (though Apple don't admit to that being supported either).

Number88 wrote:

Since when? The only default installation through Bootcamp is CSM (bios) mode afaik with the possible exception of the 2013 MacBook Air (though Apple don't admit to that being supported either).

I don't know the answer to, "Since when?" -- but BootCamp 5.0 launches the Windows 8.0 EFI and not the MBR installation.