Windows 8.1 install fails on new 2013 Retina MacBook

I have read this whole thread and short of the advanced disk editing command line stuff i think i have tried most all of it but still to no avail. Bar re-installing Mavericks.

This is my first Mac so can someone please reiterate, what is the cleanest way to remove all the partitions and restore from Internet Recovery? Please spell it out for me as im not totally up to speed on all the acronyms being used.

PS: How long does it take?

Brand new 2013 rMBP, 16gb, 512ssd w/ 750m.

PPS: Since i have messed around so much im not getting this error in disk utilty when i verify disk permissions.

Warning: SUID file “System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/Contents/MacOS/ARDAg ent” has been modified and will not be repaired

Full rebuild will take as long as your internet connection takes to download the Internet Recovery image. My guess 1-2 hours.

In the end I gave up trying to install Windows 8.1 on my rMBP. I will probably ask apple for a replacement machine if the bootcamp support is not updated.

I will leave that until tomorrow then. Any advice on deleting the partitions or just erase the current Mac OS partition?

I just bought it from Best Buy on the 22nd Dec as they had it for slightly cheaper. Bought brand new superdrive and W8.1 Pro disc at the same time. Must admit im rather disappointed that it is not the seamless Apple experience i was hoping for but im not giving up yet. Whats annoying is i only need windows for a few things, all of which dont exist for Mac but really need Boot Camp install to run properly, as opposed to Parallels or VMWare.

Hi guys,

I´ve bought a Macbook PRO 15’’ 1 TB SSD on the release date, right after, I´ve tried to install Windows 8.1 unsuccessfully, and was unable to remove bootcamp partition, since it was a new computer I´ve restored it from recovery partition.

Today I´ve decided to try it again using same MSDN .iso that failed the first time, since I was confident that the problem wasn’t the .iso. I´ve made a full time machine backup so I could recover from it if something happened.

I´ve initiated bootcamp normally, selected the .iso and let the process finish normally, selected the partition size and let it reboot, while rebooting didn’t press anything since it automatically starts windows installation, the font size of the installation is inconveniently small but possible to read. I´ve selected the partition that I´ve created, and it doesn’t let Windows to be installed to it, the next button is grayed, so I´ve deleted the Partition that the bootcamp created, selected it again and click next.

The installation occurred without any problems, I didn’t get the write errors that I´ve got when I first tried and Windows was successfully installed.

Regards,

Tiago

The extra small text size in the installer might mean that the Windows installation has been done in EFI mode.

Interesting!

Great news. I have a solution. I literally tried EVERYTHING. Every suggestion in this thread I tried - and it still failed for me with the "cannot prepare the computer for the next phase of installation" or whatever.

Here's the problem. Windows writes boot files to the EFI system partition. When these files are left over from a failed install, it can cause issues. Here's what I did:

1. Open terminal.
2. mkdir /Volumes/EFI
3. sudo mount -t msdos /dev/disk0s1 /Volumes/EFI

   Make sure /dev/disk0s1 is your EFI partition via diskutil list

4. Once mounted, browse to it in Finder.
5. Delete /Volumes/EFI/Temp
6. Delete /Volumes/EFI/EFI/Boot
7. Delete /Volumes/EFI/EFI/Microsoft
8. The only remaining folder structure should be /Volumes/EFI/EFI/APPLE/*
9. sudo umount -f /Volumes/EFI
10. Delete all partitions besides Macintosh HD and expand Macintosh HD to fill the entire disk.
11. Open bootcamp and follow instructions to make USB drive and partition disk.

    The computer will reboot automatically at the end of the initial bootcamp setup.

12. Hold down option when rebooting and select EFI Boot.
13. Reformat the BOOTCAMP partition as NTFS from the Windows installer.
14. Install to the newly formatted partition.
15. The computer should automatically reboot without error. No more could not prepare computer for next phase error!

I literally tried everything and then some before this. I hope this works for you guys.

It seems like this thread has morphed into multiple Bootcamp related issues. The initial post in the thread had to do with a Windows 8 installation failing due to the following message during the installation just prior to the first reboot, "Windows cannot update the computer's boot configuration." on the late model 15" Retina Macbook pro. I've tried a variety of things suggested in this thread. The only thing that *did* work for me was doing the MBR installation and then converting it to an EFI installation. The only problem with that solution is that I couldn't upgrade to Windows 8.1 from Windows 8.0 Pro with that solution--so I went back tot he drawing board.

So far I've worked with two different senior AppleCare support people who have each gone to engineering for help on the issue. The first suggested that I do an Internet recovery of Mavericks, and then erasing my drive and doing a fresh install of another installation of Mavericks. In neither case have I been able to make progress on this issue. Is this typical for AppleCare? My next step is to schedule and appointment with the Apple Store and let them see what's happening. The thing that I can't understand is that they don't seem to recognize (or acknowlege) that there's an underlying problem.

I'm troubled too by some of the suggested solutions, "Install from the CD... install from an ISO.. install with the flash drive in the left USB port and not the right... make the Windows partition 500 MB smaller than it needs to be... etc...). There *is* an underlying root cause to why these installations are failing and I have a hard time believing that any of the above has much to do with the underlying root cause. I know I can do an MBR installation too, but I don't get the point if EFI should be supported.

I'm starting to believe that I'm an outlier because I bought one of the more expensive Macbook Pro's. Maybe I should have just bought a Macbook Air or a 13" Macbook Pro as those don't seem to be having these same issues -- or at least Apple has already responded. I can't believe the lack of support thus far.

I saw one thread that said a AppleCare specialist at an Apple Store blamed Microsoft for the problems--as though Microsoft produces an operating system that they advertise as being capable of running on Apple hardware.

I'm trying to install an OEM copy of Windows 8.0 Pro.

@blkhp19. Still didnt work for me.

@iampastwitsend that's been my experience with AppleCare, they took notes, weren't aware of the issue, and at the end also said to call Microsoft. I lucked out in that 8.1 install worked just by removing and re-adding partition in Win 8.1 installer, so I didn't had to try Apple Store.

@iampastwitsend I have the late-2013 15" MBP with nVidia 750m (11,3) and I used bootcamp assistant and didn't have to do anything to get an EFI-booting windows 8.0 installation which I then upgraded to 8.1. People with the same exct hardware seem to have had differing outcomes so that's why this is so frustrating to people in this thread.

After about 10 tries or so i have only managed to install windows in bios mode. But i insist on EFI so i deleted BIOS install.

As my trials continue i have read nearly every post and managed to install at last.

I have accomplished this by some users advice but applying only partially.

As far as everybody knows when installing in EFI we get boot update error or something like that what i did was on the windows installation partition screen before continuing i did

1.Shift-F10 to open command prompt, or go through "Repair" "Advanced" "Command"

2. diskutil (enter) list volume (enter), select volume 1 (enter, make sure this is the 200MB EFI volume), assign letter=B (enter) exit (enter)

after this i simply installed and it worked. I think there is a problem with mounting EFI partition so with this it accidentally solved.

Hope it helps others.

It's diskpart and not diskutil. I tried this too. Shift-F10 from the partition selection screen. Tried it two ways: First just did the regular BootCamp stuff, but then before formatting the partition I assigned the EFI partition to B. Tried again where I created reduced the size of the Macintosh HD partition in Diskutil when booted into system recovery. Then set up the partition for Windows and again assigned B to the EFI partition as described above. In both cases the installation failed with the installation reporting, "WIndows could not update the system's boot configuration."

there is a diskutil too which is some kind of shell but it is the same . It might be that i have done cd B: before installing. Can you try this changing directory to EFI before installing.

By the way this idea is not mine i have accomplished by following in the 16th page of this discussion.

I'm not shooting the messanger. Just noting that the procedure didn't work for me. diskutil is the Mac equivalent of the Windows diskpart.

FWIW.... I looked at the log files from the Windows installation. The point of failure appears to be:

2013-12-29 20:36:02, Error [0x064230] IBSLIB Failed to create a new system store. Status = [c0000001]

2013-12-29 20:36:02, Error [0x0641b8] IBSLIB ModifyBootEntries: Error modifying bcd boot entries. dwRetCode=[0x1F][gle=0x0000001f]

I tried the same as iampastwitsend using diskpart (disk util is not recognized) at the windows partition screen but failed in just the same way.

Can you explain at exactly which point you use cd B:

i used:

DISKPART> ASSIGN LETTER=B

DISKPART> EXIT

X:\services

Then i just closed the command window (it already failed the first time so i had pressed format already) selected partition 4 and pressed next.