Can't install Windows 8 x64 on late 2013 MBP with1TB SSD

Amazing mate, thx a lot!

Quick question. Hopefully someone can reply. Do I format the little 128.0MB partition that windows created as well? I forgot to format either when I followed Skips instructions so I think that's why Windows couldn't boot. I am going to retry.

The MSR partition is handled by the Windows Installer and is a FAT partition.

So do I not have to format either partition? Or do I still format the Primary one.

You will need to format the MS Data (non-MSR) partition if requested. Are you instilling Windows using EFI Boot in a Free Space partition?

Yes. I am following Skips intructions.

The Free Space will be split and converted to MSR FAT and MSD NTFS by the Windows Installer.

Thank you, skipsizemore! I've been trying to Boot Camp since late last night, and your suggestions got me over the last hurdle. The partition BC created was mucking up my install.

Thank YOU!

After much searching I wanted to share what worked for me.

• Late 2011 15" MacBook Pro
• OSX 10.10.5
• DVD drive replaced with second HardDrive (now have 2 2.5" SSD's)
• Bootcamp 'patched' to allow me to create a bootable USB drive (as discussed here Enable Bootcamp to install from usb for OSX 10.9**WORKS**)
• Windows installer and drivers installed onto a USB Flash Drive (USB 3.0, 32GB) from 8.1 ISO, using Bootcamp.

I found this blog post: http://macriot.com/mcrt/?p=2362 - which discusses how the bootcamp partitioner will modify your partition table to be a hybrid of both GPT (which is what shows up when you inspect the drive in disk utility) and MBR (which is what the windows installation sees.

It goes on to suggest using fdisk to re-build a clean GPT instead of the hybrid:

1. On your mac partition, download and install GPT fdisk Utility: http://sourceforge.net/projects/gptfdisk/
2. Launch Disk Utility (/Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility.app).
3. In the left pane select the Hard Drive (not Volume) which contains the OS X and BOOTCAMP partitions that BCA has created for you and click on the Disk Utility Info button (CMD+I) In the Info window, note down the Disk Identifier value of your hard drive, e.g. in the example below the Disk Identifier is “disk0”
4. Launch Terminal (/Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app).
5. Launch gdisk in terminal by copying and pasting the following text into Terminal without the quotes, “sudo gdisk /dev/disk0”, enter your system admin password when prompted.
6. Type “p” to view the partition table to confirm it is the correct hard drive you want to work on, if not type “q” to quit gdisk without making any changes and try again with another disk.
7. Assuming you have the correct disk (i.e. entered the correct Disk Identifier to launch gdisk), type “x” to enter the experts menu.
8. Type “n” to create a fresh protective MBR; note upon completion gdisk will not confirm a change or display any indication anything has been done, it will just show you another experts menu prompt.
9. Type “w” to save the changes you have made, confirm this action when prompted to do so
10. Quit Terminal.
11. Shutdown your Mac and unplug ALL other hard drives other than the hard drive you intend to install Windows 8/8.1 on. Also unplug all SSD cards or USB drives attached to your Mac.
12. Reboot your Mac whilst holding down the Option key and Boot into the “EFI Boot” disk to continue Windows 8/8.1 installation.
13. You will need to hit the Format button in the Windows Setup window to reformat the BOOTCAMP partition but this time no GPT error should result.

For me this fixed the problem, and I was able to install windows .

IMPORTANT NOTE ABOUT STEP 11: when installing Windows 8/8.1, the drive you want to install on should be the only one connected. In my case, since I had replaced the built-in DVD drive with another SSD, I had to disconnect the other one to make sure that windows was able to install. This is because, for anti-piracy reasons, Windows 8/8.1 won't install on any drive that it doesn't consider the 'main' drive.

I hope this helps anyone else that's been having issues here.

Does your Audio driver work?

Wow Thanks it helps me to solve the same problem yesterday,

Solution

I had exactly this problem running elCapitan and windows 10. the problem was solved by unplugging additional usb drives I had connected to the system.

Once i removed the extra drives, and followed Bootcamp assistant, it worked perfectly.

Why? who knows,

I had the same problem, followed the answer above, but still suffered from the same problem.

I was able to solve it through method described below:

1. Go to Utilities > Disk Utility and create Windows partition as Mac OS Extended (Journaling)

2. Enter into Windows Installation process

3. When MBR-GPT error message occurs, remove the windows partition (You can do this with Advanced Option)

4. press Shift + F10

5. When command prompt appears, do the following (hit enter when a line breaks)

diskpart

list disk

select disk 1 (replace 1 with the number of disk you would use for Windows installation)

cre par pri (meaning create partition (primary))

list par

sel par 1 (replace 1 with the number of partition you created; we will install Windows there)

active

format fs=ntfs quick

assign

6. close the command prompt

After the following step, I was able to install Windows.

(Source = http://blog.daum.net/_blog/BlogTypeView.do?blogid=0anqi&articleno=94)

Finally after two months, I have this fixed.

I was trying to install Windows 10 using boot camp on a late 2011 MacBook Pro 15 inch, bypassed so many Apple "restrictions" on older Macs, but got the MBR GPT error and ended up wiping the hard drive.

Now I recovered all files and started from the beginning, I successfully installed Windows using Skip's method AND also resetting PRAM after creating empty space.

Have to say, Apple really just gave up on developing boot camp for older Macs.

Recently got a newer Mac, and boot camp was much easier, only took about 1 hour. Which means...

If you are running El Capitan AND have a newer(2012 and later) Mac, there shouldn't be any issues with boot camp because Apple has officially fixed almost all errors in this thread.

But if you are like me(have an older Mac), you would probably be spending weeks on the internet looking for how to fix the countless errors in boot camp.

Regards,

Jimmy