Q: Windows 8.1 install fails on new 2013 Retina MacBook

I tried just copying the Bootcamp Assistant over from ML. That didnt render any difference.

Booting ML on the new 2013 MBPR doesnt work at all, even from an external or targeted drive. No Access sign appears.

The problem i'm having is I'm actually able to install windows 8.1 natively via bios mode installer by the delete / new / format method in the win installer but once that is done, the drive no longer shows up on the os x desktop or is recognised by the mac side. (not in startup disk) yet I could boot into it using OPTION. I want to be able to use it in parallels also.

I thought maybe about adding an EFI directory to the partition manually or something.

It would seem that windows 8.1 doesnt like the partition created by bootcamp assistant obviously.. due to the gpt partition error messsage yet apparently windows 7 doesnt mind ( may have to go this route) I really wanted a native installation and not an update though.

I brought ipartition in the hope it would fix my issue but after changing the size of the bootcamp partition, my partition disapeared after pressing (option)

I'm holding on to my MBPR 2012 and connecting the two together using thunderbolt.

What happens if you connect 2013 in target mode and use boot camp to partition 2013 ssd using boot camp assistant in ml.

I have the same issue noted by everyone else. Initially, bootcamp assistant would just hang while trying to partition the drive. This was fixed by doing an internet recovery which fixed all the permissions issue on the macbook (late 2013, 15inch with 512 SSD). I still dont know how I got a mac from apple store with disk permissions screwed up - but that is a different forum topic to discuss.

I tried several times using different techniques listed on this thread or the others without any luck. Even tried a USB 3 drive without any luck.

Apple support asked me to call windows support (who directed me back to apple support).

One windows sales rep told me that windows 8 is not supported in bootcamp and that if I buy windows 8 from him, he will give me a link to download windows 7 and then I can upgrade. I did not believe him at the time but this is how I got windows 8 on my PC.

Basically used a windows 7 trial iso file and had bootcamp prepare everything.

Installed windows 7 in BIOS mode without any issues.

Updated to windows 8 by downloading the setup.exe file from MS website.

Updated to windows 8.1 from windows store.

Everything is running fine now (except for a few minor hiccups). Primary reason was to play windows games. I'm having some issue with mouse pad clashing with external USB mice.

I emailed my apple rep to update him on my issue. He asked me to go to support.apple.com website and search for DL1704. It seems to be an EFI firmware update for macbook pro 13 inch. I'm not sure if I should apply this update on my 15 inch macbook pro.  If anyone is trying to still install windows 8 via bootcamp, perhaps they should give this method a try and let everyone know.

I honestly do not know what is the fuss about hybrid MBR (BIOS mode) vs EFI mode. Should I be expecting some trouble?

Nevermind. I answered my own question. Curiosity drove me to download that package and it would not let me install it on my 15 inch mabook pro (hardware not supported).

Seems that people with 13 inch macbook pro's (who have EFI v 1.3)  do not have any issue with installing windows 8. This makes be believe that when apple releases a EFI 1.3 update for the 15 inch models, we should have no problems with EFI install.

I really don't understand all these different outcomes. I have the late 2013 15 inch macbook pro with NVIDIA GPU (11,3) and using bootcamp assistant it installed windows 8 with EFI boot on its own. Just for completeness to try and figure out what is causing these discrepancies here's the full story:

I had Linux installed to dual-boot alongside OS X and I was having trouble deleting the Linux partitions via disk utility and I formatted the whole drive and accidentally wiped the recovery partition too. I had to do an internet recovery and installed mavericks again that way. I then created an iso from my Windows 8 system builder DVD and ran bootcamp assistant and checked all 3 options and pointed it to the windows 8 iso and my USB flash drive. It asked me how I wanted to partition the drive and I chose the windows partition size. Bootcamp assistant rebooted the machine into the windows 8 installer. I wasn't able to choose to install to the windows 8 partition bootcamp assistant created so I had to format it from within the installer and it then proceeded. Lo and behold when the installation was complete I ended up with Windows 8 booting via EFI.

It seems only fair to throw my hat into the ring here too.

I’ll try to include as much information as possible, because through a painful day and a half, I finally have Windows 8.1 running through what I am pretty sure is an EFI setup -- however I haven’t seen any instructions here on how to determine that for sure.

I have a late 2013 Retina MBP with the nVidia card. I wanted to install Windows 8.1 Pro through EFI. I tried many of the steps here, and finally one worked. This was after many failures, so bear with me. I will be borrowing from many of the steps that others before me have used.

I created a USB installer with Bootcamp Assistant on my rMBP. I used a en-US Windows 8/8 Pro ISO from MSDN.

If you’ve tried this and failed multiple times like I did, uncheck the first two options in Boot Camp Assistant and check the third option to “Remove Windows 7”. Return your system back to a single-harddrive partition state.

Close Boot Camp Assistant.

Open up Disk Utility. Go to the top of the heirarchy of your harddrives, and go to the First Aid tab. Verify the Disk and Repair it, until there are no errors remaining. I had to do this a few times.

Re-open Boot Camp Assistant. Plug in your USB Drive containing your Windows 8 Installer, and check only the third option on the Assistant. Partition your drive for Windows to your liking.

Your computer will restart. hold down Option, and boot back into your Mac.

- Open up Disk Utility.

- Click on the Top Level HardDrive in the list.

- Click on the rectangle that says “Bootcamp”.

- Delete it with the “minus” button. (Originally, I couldn’t find this minus button because I was selecting the partition in the left list. Don’t do that.)

- Create a new partition by clicking the plus button. Select the ExFAT option. Name it “BOOTCAMP” again to make our lives easy.

- Click Apply

Restart your computer. Hold down Option. Boot into the USB “Windows” Icon. (We will install the BIOS version of Windows, and then remove the MBR and repair EFI.)

During the Windows 8 installation, you will need to select the “BOOTCAMP” partition and format it. You should be able to continue at this point.

The installation should succeed. When the computer restarts, hold down Option and select the Harddrive icon for “Windows”. Do this until you reach the “Personalize” section of the installation. Turn off your computer by pressing the power button on your laptop.

Turn the computer on, and hold down Option. Boot into your Mac side.

Download and install gdisk ( http://sourceforge.net/projects/gptfdisk/ )

The PKG will not run out of the box, you need to give permission in System Preferences > Security & Privacy > General Tab

After gdisk is installed, open up a Terminal prompt.

type:

sudo gdisk /dev/disk0 (hit enter)

x (hit enter)

n (hit enter)

w (hit enter)

y (hit enter)

(if the app hasn’t quit out for you at this point)

q (hit enter)

Close the terminal.

Open your USB Drive, and rename AutoUnattended.xml to AutoUnattended.xml.back

Reboot the computer, Hold Option down, now select the USB EFI Boot so we can fix EFI. (You’ll notice your Windows drive is missing for now.)

When the installer starts, hit Shift-F10.

type:

diskpart (hit enter)

list volume (hit enter)

select volume 1 (hit enter -- make sure volume 1 is the 200mb EFI volume)

assign letter=B (hit enter)

exit (enter)

cd /d B:\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\ (hit enter)

ren BCD BCD.bak (hit enter)

bcdboot C:\Windows /l en-US /s B: /f ALL (hit enter)

When this is done, you should be good. Reboot, hold Option down one more time, and go back into the Hard Drive that says “Windows”.

Finish your initialization of Windows 8.1.

Don’t forget to install the BootCamp drivers

Thanks to everyone that suggested stuff on here. I hope something gets straightened out, this was far too painful to deal with.

Good job mcarriere, unfortunately windows will not be stable on exFat,

NTFS would be the best and more stable

If there is a way, please advise

@mcarriere, thanks for the writeup.  I was looking at bcdboot's flags [1] and out of curioisity, why use /f ALL instead of nothing, which defaults to /f UEFI?

Regarding powering off at Personalize, is that a soft or hard power-off?

@wbiggy, I'm guessing mcarriere meant in the format step to format it as NTFS, but he can confirm.

[1] http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh824874.aspx

Hi all.

SO I'm one of the ones that struggled to install Windows via EFI on my brand new rMBP 15. I started off by following the BootCamp instructions (selectign all 3 options) with a Windows 8.1 UK Install ISO. I let BootCamp Assistant resize my disk to create a BootCamp partition, then let it boot into the windows installer. I could tell I was in EFI mode as the graphics were very small and there was no BIOS DOS-like flashing cursor at boot.

But at the last stage of installation, I got the dreaded "Unable to update boot configuration" error.

So I ended up installing windows via the BIOS method.

However, my MacBook ended up with a trackpad failure (diagnosed at an Apple store) so they sent me a new rMBP.

So, for kicks, I thought I'd try a fresh Windows 8.1 install using the standard BootCamp steps outlined ahead.. and low and behold, it just worked. I have Windows 8.1 booting up in EFI mode.

So this makes me think it may be a problem with certain rMBPs.

Or possibly my replaced rMBP has some software/firmware difference than my original one.

I couldn't work out how people were getting different outcomes, I assumed it must be a difference in the method.

But now I know first-hand that it can be dependent on the actual rMBP you have.

Weird!

Hey there, i had the same error, tryed about 4 times and then it installed windows 8.1.

What i changed is not much and i am not sure if it is the rison it worked but here it is what i did:

     - I changed name to just Windows

     - Then in cofiguration on the last step i changed insted of autodetect i chouse Windows 8.1 in the menu.

     - Changed size of the hard drive to 81 gb.

     - And then it worked.

So i hope it is helpful if not them my computer awesome .

@wbiggy: exFAT is just a way to simply get the formatting to work -- In the install process you format the drive to NTFS.

@riseyth: that bit was taken from someone else's instructions. I simply followed them.

As for the power off, I think just tapping the power button worked, but if not, hold it until the power goes off.

@mcarriere, Thank you, I will give it a shot tonight and have feedback

Hey @mcarrire,

Do you think its possible to install Windows 8 first, the n upgrade to 8.1 ? , As I do have a 8 License

Cause when upgrading its like re installing, which could end up messing the boot record

Possibly, but since I installed the Windows 8.1 version, I can't be for sure. There are many people in this thread that have mentioned that installing Windows 7 and upgrading worked -- so give it a shot!

I don't want to act like an expert here, I merely pulled together the instructions of many other smart people, and found the order of operations that worked for me.

I tried it, no luck, during installation of Windows, I could not select the BOOTCAMP Partitiom,

It did allow me to format it, but gave the EFI message saying windows cannot be installed there

I'll have to rely on Parallel for now