Windows 8.1 install fails on new 2013 Retina MacBook

Interesting. That's the first I've heard of it.

It's long overdue in my opinion for EFI Windows to be supported but I've heard nothing of that. In fact when I've quizzed Apple about it they have flatly denied that it's supported. It certainly isn't on my mid 2012 rMBP even though the EFI installer can be launched, but it won't install EFI because Bootcamp creates a hybrid mbr (and that's Bootcamp 5).

Number88 wrote:

Interesting. That's the first I've heard of it.

It's long overdue in my opinion for EFI Windows to be supported but I've heard nothing of that. In fact when I've quizzed Apple about it they have flatly denied that it's supported. It certainly isn't on my mid 2012 rMBP even though the EFI installer can be launched, but it won't install EFI because Bootcamp creates a hybrid mbr (and that's Bootcamp 5).

I've been through so many iterations of getting things installed that I've lost track of which configurations I've tried. I do know there are things partitioning wise Windows isn't happy with, such as an MBR install with GPT partitions. Truth is, I'm tired of trying things. I just want it to work. It's possible the late-mode rMBP's are different from the prior generation.

Lol, I can appreciate that. I've installed Windows 8 and 8.1 in various methods about 60 times. I know what you're talking about 😁

And yes, it is very possible that there are firmware differences between the late 2013 rMBP and mine.

I'll keep my eyes open for further developments.

Dourn wrote:

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/).

As far as I know it was formatted in FAT, but I didn't spend too much time investigating it before this very inexperienced low-level tech support rep told me to just format the partition and reinstall OS X from Time Machine backup. What you're saying about that AOMEI changed the partition type code is probably correct now that I think of it. I know it doesn't take much time to erase a hard drive but the amount of time it took to merge the 599MB partition with the BOOTCAMP partition would have taken a little longer than a split second (then again who knows, this PCIe SSD is really quick). After all this happened I was able to see Macintosh HD partition in AOMEI like nothing had changed. Then when I booted back up with the option key pressed, I couldn't see Macintosh HD, so I went into disk utility in the Recovery 10.9 partition and this is where it was weird: the Macintosh HD (I can't remember if it retained its name or if it was something like disk0s1 regardless I knew it was it because it was 369 GB) kept flickering on and off in the left hand side where the drives are listed. Whenever I was able to select it, it stopped flickering and the format read as "MS-DOS (FAT)." Since it was flickering both I and the tech support rep thought it would be best to format the partition in case for whatever reason we couldn't find it again in Recovery.

I hope this answered your question and thanks for the link, it looks like good software and I plan on using it in the future!

iampastwitsend wrote:

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 apologize, that was a typo. I meant to say that I created a partition that was 600MB **smaller than the one Boot Camp created for me.** I just figured after reading other peoples' successes over the past 6 weeks that the idea of giving Windows installer some wiggle room with extra free/unallocated space would help, and it did!

Sorry for the confusion. Most of the time I write on here I'm in a hurry and don't always have time to proofread.

Hi mikereed36,

I tried your way 3 times but to no avail. It prompts that 'windows cannot update boot configuration data...' near the end of the installation. I leave128MB-700MB unallocated space for windows(windows will reserve 128MB space) when create new partition via windows installation program. None of them work. I also tryied another way suggested in the forum using gdisk and it indeed works. The only problem I noticed is Hyper-V will never be enabled and I dun know why. but I did get Hyper-V work in BIOS installation. BTW, can you help verify whether Hyper-V can be enabled/added in your installation method? Thanks.

Hey TeddyIsSam,

I'm sorry my method did not work for you. I'm not sure if you read my previous posts but Apple tech support never called me back, so I reinstalled windows 8.1 again the same exact way except this time I left 500MB free space. It worked this time just like it did the first time and I'm happy with how it performs. I'm just assuming, like all the other proposed methods, that this method might only appliy to a subset of recent rMBPs. My only question is if you've done a clean reinstall of 10.9.1 after formatting your HDD? That's probably the only thing that may be significant? Because other than leaving free space and also plugging my flash drive into the left usb socket, I've done nothing else different than the first time I failed to install.

In regards to hyper-V: when I try to enable it in the "Turn Windows Features on or off," I can't fully enable it. I can check the "Hyper-V management tools" which includes "hyper-v GUI management tools" and "hyper-v module for windows powershell," but I cannot check the box for "Hyper-V Platform" because its grayed out. When I mouse-over Hyper-V Platform it says "Hyper-V cannot be installed: virtualization support is disabled in the firmware."

I'm going to assume that Apple will eventually update the firmware in a few months whenever they officially support windows 8.1 but since I don't need it right now I'm not overly worried at this point. If you find a solution then post it, I'm interested.

Hopefully this helps.

TeddyIsSam wrote:

Hi mikereed36,

...The only problem I noticed is Hyper-V will never be enabled and I dun know why. but I did get Hyper-V work in BIOS installation. BTW, can you help verify whether Hyper-V can be enabled/added in your installation method? Thanks.

Just in case mikereed36 can't help, you won't get Hyper-V working with the EFI method at this time on a Haswell rMBP 15": Hyper-V requires that the virtualization bits (Intel VT-x) from the CPU be enabled in firmware, and Apple doesn't enable them when booting from EFI on teh new 15" rMBPs - so although the CPU supports Hyper-V, the EFI firmware doesn't (unsure about new 13" rMBPs).

I'm assuming that Apple will fix this with an updated EFI update when 8.1 is fully supported, but who knows - generally they release an updated EFI for this when there's an issue. Again, I'd raise an AppleCare support quest for this - they need to know about any issues there are with Windows on these new rMBP, and they won't release a fix until a significant number of people report a problem.

In the meantime, you can use Oracle's VirtualBox to boot Hyper-V images (which is what I do).

Having said that, given you can edit the firmware variables from the EFI shell, I wonder if it would be possible to write a script to do it (you'd have to set them each time as they get reset after a reboot).

Ah here we go, someone did this back in 2006 (assumes you've installed rEFIt to get the EFI Shell, but you can install rEFInd and just copy across the shell EFI app):

http://forum.parallels.com/showthread.php?3273-How-To-Enable-VT-(aka-VTX-or-VT-x )-with-rEFIt-and-vmx-var-set-efi

Although I haven't yet had a go testing as I just found it - I'll give it a go after Xmas...

mikereed36,

Thanks for your quick response. I am planning to do a clean install of 10.9.1. In view of the issue you are facing with Hyper-V, it looks it is same behivor with the one I tried before. Am kind of hesitating with EFI installation as virturalization is one key area I need it mostly. Probably I will go with Bios installation. Anyway Thanks a lot.

Merry Christmas!

Thanks. Dourn. it gives me clearer picture what's going on with EFI with rMBP. I will go with Bios installation together with Hyper-V which it works before. Oracle Virtual Box will be my another backup option. May I know support request no so that I can tick 'I have the same problem'?

Merry Christmas!

TeddyIsSam wrote:

Thanks. Dourn. it gives me clearer picture what's going on with EFI with rMBP. I will go with Bios installation together with Hyper-V which it works before. Oracle Virtual Box will be my another backup option. May I know support request no so that I can tick 'I have the same problem'?

Merry Christmas!

Re. the support number, you'd need to look up your local number.

Start by going here:

http://www.apple.com/support/contact/

Every rMBP gets 1-year support (extended to 3 years with ApleCare) I think...

Actually, hold on... you can't be talking about Windows 8.1 here can you?

Windows 8.1 allows running Hyper-V images as a client (pretty much the same as using Oracle Virtual Box).

Windows Server 2012 R2 allows you to use the server version of Hyper-V, and (from memory) it's this server version that you can't install on a rMBP without an EFI update (either that, or the update to 9.3.1 fixed something!).

I've just installed the client version of Hyper-V on Windows 8.1 with no probs (although I haven't tested it yet).

Your Windows 8.1 is via EFI or BIOS installation? I think there is no issue with BIOS installation but I did face the problem with EFI mode. The Hyper-V platform can only be enabled by booting into OS X first then windows 8.1. When enabled, tick all options under Hyper-V will cause the system to restart two times with no effect(no installation of Hyper-V). I will try the BIOS installation at this moment and will perform upgrade when Apple release the patch hopefully.

TeddyIsSam wrote:

Your Windows 8.1 is via EFI or BIOS installation? I think there is no issue with BIOS installation but I did face the problem with EFI mode. The Hyper-V platform can only be enabled by booting into OS X first then windows 8.1. When enabled, tick all options under Hyper-V will cause the system to restart two times with no effect(no installation of Hyper-V). I will try the BIOS installation at this moment and will perform upgrade when Apple release the patch hopefully.

My Windows 8.1 install is via EFI - I have a replacement rMBP 15" - the initial one they sent me I couldn't get Win 8.1 to install via EFI at all - but on this replacement, it worked straight away with vanilla BootCamp install.

I definitely had the problem with the grayed-out Hyper-V option on this machine though, although I can't remember if that was from Windows Server 2012 R2 (which I installed first) or Win 8.1 (which I replaced it with). I suspect it was Win 8.1 as I then went and installed VirtualBox. No idea why it woudl suddenly start workign though, the only thing I've done in teh meantime since then is instal rEFInd and OSX 10.9.1 update.

I have 3 installs of Win 8.1 on this rMBP and I can enable Hyper-V on all 3, I get 2 reboots and then it's enabled.

But bear on mind that Hyper-V in client mode isn't fantastic - I think I read somewhere that VirtualBox can be faster :-)

Guys I've successfully installed Windows 8.1 via EFI but currently, all the elements of the gray bootloader have been enlarged. I suspect there's a change in the resolution of the bootloader as even when I was installing Windows, everything appeared bigger and none of the usual Windows EFI install graphical errors were exhibited. It's somewhat smaller than BIOS but definitely bigger than EFI.

Could it be caused by a change in the display settings? Just few days ago my mom used my laptop and I reduced the dpi via the display options, but I have switched it back since then, and it still won't go back to the normal size. It's a minor issue but it kinda annoys me.