Windows 8.1 install fails on new 2013 Retina MacBook

Finaly I did install win 8. using jarvil 's solution. So I used bios Win setup.

It looks that it works but it happend after many different variants I did last two days.

I have a top spec 15" rMBP and I wanted to get Windows 7 64 bit running on Boot Camp. Towards the last part of the installation, I receive the error message, "Windows could not complete the installation. To install Windows on this computer, restart the installation." and I and left with a blinking cursor when the computer reboots. I'm not too sure if it's the same error as the one you faced.

I managed to solve it through immediately holding the option button on the next reboot (otherwise the keyboard and trackpad may stop functioning, not sure why), selecting the option to boot from the created boot drive for Windows installer (that was created through Boot Camp Assistant), and selecting the option to "repair the computer" (paraphrased). I managed to get to the option of running command prompt from there and entered these lines of codes (as obtained from http://www.sevenforums.com/hardware-devices/82226-boot-bcd-0xc000000d-unreadable -boot-configuration-data-2.html by posters; SIW2 and bayhuntr:

bootrec /fixmbr

bootrec /fixboot

bootrec /rebuildbcd - (this successfully found 1 windows install, "Add installation to boot list?" “Y”, you should get "The requested system device cannot be found")

diskpart

lis vol (mine is C)

sel vol c

act

exi

bcdboot c:\windows /s c:

bootsect /nt60 all /mbr

Restart - (Everything works and boots into Windows 7 normally)

I think it's also in EFI because the login screen is unstretched and I followed 100% the official way using Boot Camp Assistant. Hope this helps some of you. Probably works for Windows 8, 8.1. Let me know.

Cheers, have a good weekend guys.

I did a very similar thing but I too was installing 8.1 from a downloaded file off the Windows web store. I am running:

Macbook Pro

Retina, 13-inch, Late 2012

2.9 GHz Intel Core i7

8 GB 1600 MHz DDR3

Intel HD 4000 1024 MB

OS X 10.9.1

First things first upgrade to Maverick and get all other system upgrades.

If you are currently buying a new 8.1 OS, you can either get the install CD or a downloadable .exe install file.

I got the downloaded version b/c I do not have an optical drive.

The first thing I had to do was get on a Windows PC and run the .exe install file on a 8Gb (or larger) usb stick. This must be FAT formatted, make sure you do this ahead of time or you will waste a lot of time.

You will be asked to enter your license key, don't worry you aren't installing or binding it to the PC you are using, this is just for verification. Follow with all the steps it asks for, there will be downloads and other checks that Windows goes through, but the last step will be it asking if you would like to make a USB boot disk, or an ISO file. Choose the ISO and put it on your USB.

Next, you need to put the ISO onto you Mac b/c the USB will be formatted during the following steps.

Run bootcamp, check all three options.

You need to put your ISO and the bootcamp files on the same USB stick.

After bootcamp does its thing your computer will restart and start up windows. DO NOT START UP WINDOWS!

Hold option key and select your Mac HD.

Open Disk Utility

Select the Bootcamp partition. MAKE SURE BOOTCAMP IS THE SELECTED DRIVE!!!

Click the minus button.

Click apply.

Press the plus button to add a new partion. (automatically called MACINTOSH HD2)

Select the partion and settings will show up on the right.

Rename the partition to BOOTCAMP.

Change the type to ExFAT.

Click apply.

You are now ready to reboot in Windows.

Everytime you reboot during the install process you will need to hold option and click the Windows device with the orange USB logo, (Not the EFI orange USB logo). So don't walk away or get distracted, there will be several reboots.

When you are loading, it should say "Using Mac Bootcamp settings to facilitate install" or something along those lines in the upper left corner. If it doesn't you probably selected the wrong boot drive.

You will now start the install process.

You need to select the partion you want to install Windows to.

It will probably be the 4th partition and be about 20Gb less than the size you indicated, and should have Bootcamp in the name.

Select this (it will say Windows cannot install here), and click FORMAT... For the love of god make sure you are on the right partiton before formatting.

You can now install windows on this partition, click next.

This next part is up to you.

It was suggested to me to turn off all updates/autoupdates when it askes during the install operation. This is so you can run the bootcamp install drivers before windows does its thing. After installing bootcamp drivers you can go and turn on Windows updates.

I did this and my SCREEN FLICKERS in Windows. I havent figured out why, im sure its a graphics driver issue, I don't know if this would have happened or not if I had let windows do its updates first, someone will have to be daring and let me know.

Also just a side note as this is my first bootcamp experience and this took me a while to figure out.

After you get windows loaded open the Bootcamp Control Panel and here you can change your trackpad settings to enable two-finger touch for right click.

Good Luck

My 5c: I had received a dual GPU late-2013 model, and spent most of the holidays trying to get W8.1 up&running (like the crazy 🙂). I've finally succeeded by using a method posted a few pages back in this thread, the one that lets Windows create partition AND leaves 600mb of unused space. IMO this should be the #1 method to try for the newcomers. Thanks God, the screen doesn't flicker, but neither I see the Intel GPU in Bootcamp. A tip to Chandangles: to maximize the rejoyce over the victory, try the Trackpad++ driver! With the recent release it's become the real beast, almost like the better touch tool, but for Bootcamp: http://www.trackpad.powerplan7.com/Screen_Shot_Trackpad_Plus_Plus_v30.png

K.R.,

Fred

Hey thanks Fred, I was wondering how I could enable some of the other track pad features I'm going to go download that now!

Hi all.I find this solution in another thread.

"I just wanted to note that what worked for me was a slight variation on the solution that Skip posted. When I left the empty space and had the Windows 8 installer create its own partitions there, it gave refused to continue saying that Windows couldn't be installed on the GPT partition type.

I had noticed on some of the posts about installing Windows 8.1 that instead of leaving empty space, they recommended using the Mac's Disk Utility to create an ExFAT partition in that space, then let the Windows setup program reformat it as NTFS.

That worked perfectly for me with installing Windows 8 Pro, and now Win8 works fine for me both in boot camp and with Parallels connecting to the boot camp partition as well. Hooray!"

And this worked for me.After WIndows was installed i installed all the driver manually from my before created bootcamp USB.You find them in the Folder Bootcamp/drivers.

(I do not use the USB during the Windows installation.i use a Windows DVD with external drive}

Now WIndows 8 Pro is on my Macbook and updating Windows updates.Next Step will be update to WIndows 8.1

Only thing do not work because missing driver is the corect mouse function from air mouse.left and right buttom works but no scrolling.And also my Logitech Mouse will not work,maybe need to search also for drivers.But the rest looks fine.So iam looking for Bluetooth USB Host Controller driver,thats the only thing is yellow marked in device manager.

greets Klaus

PS:After Windows installing i will start to fight with Second Monitor on HDMI,because this also do not work easy 🙂

The riseyth solution totally did the trick for me. It turned out that there was a partition that didn't have a drive letter assigned. Once that was taken care of the installation of Windows 8.1 from usb DVD ran smoothly. Thanks.

When I finally got to install Windows 8.1 the BootCamp files wouldn't install from the usb-stick. When I tried I got an error message telling me that the x64 version was not supported. I found this tread: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3061470?start=15&tstart=0

After some time in the Windows command prompt I got the BootCamp installer to work and everything seems to be ok.

update

windows 8.1 sucessfully updated,As bootloader i use "efit" and works well.

Magic mouse works but without scrollfunction,Keyboard works after installing a special tool but special function controls like brightness do not work(you can controll with the charmbar.(need better drivers)

external Monitor Problem solved.just changed to HDMI on my second Monitor.

So the first Windows 8.1 install wasn't 100 % solid. So I wiped it using Bootcamp in MacOS. Then I ran Bootcamp again, made sure to download the drivers for the usb-memory from Bootcamp. Had to reformat the partition from within the Windows installer but then everything ran as it should and installed Windows 8.1 from DVD.

I am now running Battlefield 4 (after installing Firefox browser because there was a plugin that refused to install properly under Explorer and after installing the latest Nvidia driver).

Alright, so currently I am running Windows 8 on my Macbook pro w/ retina. I am trying to install/upgrade to 8.1. I have tried using the store, using Windows Setup, and even trying win8.1 on a USB (got an error that i had to restart windows setup and retry or something along those lines). And all so far have failed. If someone could give me a step by step on what to do that would be fantastic. Ive read solutions that require DVD drives, and i would like to stay away from that option seeing as i dont have an external one or one on my mac obviously.

This isn't any help, but I've also reported the problem to Apple, as we all should. FWIW, their most recent LiveChat reply was just "I’ve researched and double checked for you, and it looks like we would need to wait until there is an update. The latest version of Bootcamp is Bootcamp 5, and the highest OS it supports for Windows is 8.0. If anything changes, you can find it here. This provides all info Bootcamp 5 and the operating systems it supports for Windows."

In other words, we've no idea if anything's being done about the problem.

Hey,

I did it like this and it worked just fine.

I used:

- MacBook Pro Retina (delivered yesterday)

- USB Flashdrive (for drivers)

- Windows 8 DVD (not 8.1 but I guess it wouldn't matter)

- external Apple Superdrive

1. Start boot camp assistant

2. Connect the USB Flashdrive

3. Just klick the lower 2 options (Drivers should load on your USB Flashdrive)

4. Choose size of partitions

5. Connect external drive with windows dvd (a USB Flashdrive with windows on it should work as well)

6. restart the Mac

7. press options key (alt) on the keyboard when startup sound appears (not "c")

8. Choose EFI-Boot! not Windows or any other option (this was what I did wrong several times)

9. Install Windows (even though you probably need magnifying glasses)

I created a win 8.1. ISO as well and installed it after the win 8 installation. Now I have Windows 8.1. running.

Got the 8.1 ISO with this procedure

I used a generic key to install and activated with the real one later on.

Hope this helps someone. I needed 10h to solve this cause of several issues along the way.

OK... Finally solved the problem during my winter break... took almost 1.5 months 😝 Actually we users are creating the problem... Bootcamp is OK... our late 2013 Mac is OK... but Apple is't as it's not giving us the solution 😉 Now let me clear concisely what actually occurs behind the problem.

When you open bootcamp to install Windows, you get a popup window. Then you click continue... then you choose the options among the three which suits to your intention. Then if you chose to create a installation disk or/and download the Windows Support Software, bootcamp does so. Then the next PROBLEMETIC STEP comes! Yes! you got it! This step creates the actual problem: Partitioning the hard disk for installing Windows. Before bootcamp starts partitioning, a simple POPUP WINDOW will inform you whether you will get the "Windows could not update the computer's boot configuration. Installation cannot proceed" message or not during your windows installation! Andddd... the popup window is here:

Soooo... super duper simple fact: if you don't get this popup window, you're going to get that error. Because this HELPER TOOL will simulate proper environment for installing Windows in your Mac 🙂

Now be sure:

1. You just have one partion in your Hard Disk before partitioning it into two for installing Windows

2. This PARTITIONING SHOULD ONLY BE DONE BY BOOTCAMP if you want your Windows in EFI mode. The way jarvil told us is for BIOS mode. I'm not going to explain here what is EFI and what is BIOS. Simply keep in mind that EFI is latest, better and faster for booting your Windows 🙂

That's it guys! If you don't get that popup window, follow the instructions:

1. Turn your hard disk into a single partition by using Bootcamp/Disk Utility. Bootcamp is recommended

2. Take a flash drive, format it, and then open Bootcamp

3. Choose all the three options:

Create a Windows 7 or later vertion install disk

Download the latest Windows Support software from Apple

Install or remove Windows 7 or later version

Yes! We are going to create a new installation disk...

4. I know you are clever enough to guess what should you do now! Just enter your password when you get THAT SPECIAL POPUP WINDOW! Then Mac will restart after partitioning your hard disk!

5. Do noting untill the windows installation window comes

6. Go forward pressing Next, putting serial, and accepting the agreement that we never read 😝

7. Select advanced installation... I mean the second option

8. Now find the partition named BOOTCAMP

9. Select it and Format it!

10. Click Next

You are done! Your Mac will install windows without any problem or error message 😁 After installation, if you find that your drivers aren't working, go to the installation disk and open the folder named BOOT CAMP. Open the exe named Setup... Install the drivers and restart after completion... 😁 Your Mac now owns Windows in EFI mode like mine!

That's all I have known killing my winter break! Thanks everyone! Take care!

<Edited by Host>

It is not 100% true to all 2013 rMBP(15") at least not for my first one. I did the exactly steps as you mentioned when I got the first one. The error appears every time. I can install it successfully in BIOS mode without any issues not in EFI mode. Recently I got a replacement for 2013 rMBP(15") and it run very well except I did assign the EFI partion letter before format the partition. Everything went smoothly. 🙂 I am not sure what's the real issue is but I am quite happy with the outcome at this moment.