Q: Windows 8.1 install fails on new 2013 Retina MacBook

For those of you who have discrete Nvidia graphics (rmbp 15") and have a working EFI install, does the Intel graphics chip show up in Windows' device manager?

Also was Boot Camp used to originally partition the disc?

There are many inconsistencies in outcome it seems, even with identical hardware - both with dual graphics and without whether EFI or bios installation is attempted.

There have even been reports of somebody (on here) installing Windows on a brand new rMBP (having ordered 2 identical machines) and the second one refusing to do the same. In an effort to reproduce this on the first machine he removed the Windows installation and attempted to do it again. It wouldn't install this time! On the same machine it had just been installed on! That's odd!

I find myself wondering whether these inconsistencies are due to a) different firmware on the same models or b) possible poorly functioning firmware.

There's nothing else that makes any sense to me 

No, only the nVidia option shows up in the device manager.

I didn't do any workarounds, Boot Camp Assistant partitioned and did everything.

I used the Windows 8.1 Pro VL (x64) MSDN image (filename: SW_DVD5_Win_Pro_8.1_64BIT_Eng_Intl_MLF_X18-96633) to a brand new, pretty high end USB 3.0 flash drive.

mistteam: Thanks. I'll try this image to see if it makes any difference. Windows 7 works fine, but inplace upgrade (which I don't want to do in the first place) leaves me without KB+Mouse (though I think that can be solved)

This is huge!  Thank you!  Very informative writeup!  I had a feeling I was missing something.  Thank you again.

Thanks. I'd love to know the mechanism for turning off the Intel chip that Boot Camp uses.

Was this an EFI boot or normal Boot Camp bios (CSM) mode installation?

It was an EFI boot; at least, that's how it was marked for the installed partition after the first portion of the Windows installation was done and I held option at boot on the first restart the Windows installer did.

Thanks again mistteam, and when you option boot now is it still called EFI boot or is it called Windows or Bootcamp?

Hi again.

Just some additional details about Apple's EFI implementation:

When Intel first created the EFI spec, they stopped work at v1.1, before contributing it to the Unified EFI Forum, who continued to evolve the UEFI spec (currently at UEFI v2.4).

Apple wrote their own EFI firmware, but based it on Intel's EFI 1.1 reference implementation.

Windows 8/Windows 2012 support anything over UEFI v2.0, although they don't actually check what version of UEFI is installed.

Windows will therefore install on an EFI 1.1 implementation, but you'd expect there to be some issues (although what those issues are I don't know).

The reason that Windows 7 can have issues with EFI is that it expects there to be BIOS-like interrupt for the video card, which is why when you install Windows 7 on an EFI computer you'll often see a black screen.

The mechanism used in these forums of installing Windows 7 -> Windows 8 -> Windows 8.1 should get past this problem.

More info here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_Extensible_Firmware_Interface

http://wiki.osx86project.org/wiki/index.php/Apple%27s_EFI_implementation

Windows UEFI Support:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh824898.aspx

Finally i managed to setup Win 8.1 into MBPR 15" ME294LL.

First it didn't work. It appears to me that the issue is the win ISO that i tried to use before. I just got a DVD copy from my windows laptop and made a bootable image. That actually went well throw the installation steps but then failed with the message mentioned above.

Later i decided that it might be my bad call and just downloaded a preview ISO from MSDN (or wherever it comes from). That did just perfect. The Bootcamp created flash drive with all necessary deivers, etc. I had to re-create bootcamp partition with disk utility but that was again an exeption.

So it does work on latest Hastwell macbooks pro BUT not for every copy of official Win 8.1

P.S. Not sure if anyone else did the same because the preview Win 8.1 is  quite old. However it can be easier to update to RTM from Preview, no?

I'm seeing indications this was fixed in 10.9.1, but I haven't had a chance to try myself. Anyone else try?

What indications and where, please? 

Colin Cornaby wrote:

 

I'm seeing indications this was fixed in 10.9.1, but I haven't had a chance to try myself. Anyone else try?

Interesting - I can see there's a specific version of 10.9.1 for late-2013 rMBPs (13 and 15") although no mention of what the fixes are for these specific models, they just list the generic fixes for 10.9.1... plus say "it includes all updates for 10.9.1 plus system specific enhancements to improve the stability and compatability of your Mac"...

http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1712

I have a late-2013 15 MBPr. I just downloaded 10.9.1 and tried the straight-ahead BootCamp method to install 8.1 fresh (no extra steps in the formating), and I got the same message after going through almost the entire process. I purchsed the 8.1 from the Microsoft website, and I made my ISO by downloading it on a real Windows machine. FYI: previously I had several failures trying many of the different techniuques in thread and landed up with two Windows partitions, so I wiped my HD and re-downloaded Mavericks (before the 10.9.1 update) and had not tried to install Windows again until after I made the 10.9.1 update: this attempt.

Donpaluh, thank you so much for trying that and reporting here! That was supposed to be my next step (with Windows 8.1 bought ISO). I do want to try MSDN 8.1 version when I get around it.

Another (not so useful) trivia - Bootcamp version was 479 before and after OS X 10.9.1 upgrade. That version seems to be late 2013 MBP Retina specific, since my older Mac has boot camp 473.