Unable to Install Windows 8 on secondary Hard Disk

1. If you go into Disk Utility and click on Toshiba and click Erase, the drop down box should allow you to select Free Space.

2. I have not completely read the link you pointed out, but let me read it.

3. Create a small 32/64GB partition on the SSD (not the Toshiba HDD), for testing.

4. On the screen where it shows you EFI Boot (USB) select it and report on any errors.

5. If #4 works, would you be willing to swap the SSD and HDD temporarily, install Windows on HDD when it is in the main bay, and once completed, swap them again.

1. Can you post the output of

a. sudo gpt -vv -r show /dev/disk0 (This should be the SSD).

b. sudo fdisk /dev/disk0 (from the SSD).

c. Did you run an EFI installation on the SSD or a regular Bootcamp install?

2. This will be quite a bit of work, but

a. Remove the EVO from the system.

b. Put the HDD in the main SATA bay.

c. Try a regular (not EFI) bootcamp/Win8 installation.

3. The no bootable disk seems to indicate that you have a USB3.0 flash drive, not a USB 2.0 flash drive. I had a similar issue on one of my MBPs when trying a W8.1 EFI installation.

1. I suggest we leave your SSD alone and not try on it. If you want to I would suggest a regular Bootcamp installation later (a non-EFI method).

2. Using a regular non-EFI Bootcamp installation is what should be attempted on the Toshiba drive.

3. If you notice the Toshiba is 1465149168 blocks, but the MBR entry #1 is 4294967295 (2048 Gb = 2TB) which is the MBR limit of 2.2TiB, so both disks have a PMBR at sector 0 to avoid non-GPT aware utilities from manipulating the entire disk.

4. The disk0s4 you saw would have eventually become a Microsoft System Reserved partition of 200 MB and the rest would have become NTFS, if the EFI firmware on the MBP worked. It is an older machine, so the EFI may never fully support a Windows 8 installation. My 13" 2012 MBP also gave me errors similar to yours with a just a single 256GB SSD when an EFI installation was attempted. Later 2013 models have newer EFI firmware, which works. I have it installed as an EFI on a 15" late 2013 rMBP.

This is a working W8.1 EFI installation disk layout form the 15" rMBP. You can see GPT#4 is MSR and GPT #5 is Microsoft Basic Data (you can see the list of partition type GUIDs at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GUID_Partition_Table)

gpt show: /dev/disk0: mediasize=500277790720; sectorsize=512; blocks=977105060

gpt show: /dev/disk0: PMBR at sector 0

gpt show: /dev/disk0: Pri GPT at sector 1

gpt show: /dev/disk0: Sec GPT at sector 977105059

start size index contents

0 1 PMBR

1 1 Pri GPT header

2 32 Pri GPT table

34 6

40 409600 1 GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B

409640 487712920 2 GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC

488122560 1269536 3 GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC

489392096 32

489392128 262144 4 GPT part - E3C9E316-0B5C-4DB8-817D-F92DF00215AE

489654272 487450624 5 GPT part - EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7

977104896 131

977105027 32 Sec GPT table

977105059 1 Sec GPT header

Disk: /dev/disk0 geometry: 60821/255/63 [977105060 sectors]

Signature: 0xAA55

Starting Ending

#: id cyl hd sec - cyl hd sec [ start - size]

------------------------------------------------------------------------

1: EE 1023 254 63 - 1023 254 63 [ 1 - 977105059] <Unknown ID>

2: 00 0 0 0 - 0 0 0 [ 0 - 0] unused

3: 00 0 0 0 - 0 0 0 [ 0 - 0] unused

4: 00 0 0 0 - 0 0 0 [ 0 - 0] unused

5. As a next step, I would recommend a non-EFI installation on the Toshiba first. If that fails, the options are,

a. Remove the SSD from the main bay, leaving the Toshiba in the Optibay and try a single disk non-EFI installation, or,

b. Put the Toshiba in the main bay, install a non-EFI W8 and then physically move the disk to Optibay and test, putting the SSD back in the main bay. the

MBR and GPT will move with the disk and should not have any interference with the SSD.

calojer wrote:

Ok, let me understand...

A few weeks ago the TOSHIBA Hard Disk was the only drive in my Macbook.

I Was Able to do a classic BOOTCAMP install of Windows 7 PRO through a DVD (bacause there was the Superdrive mounted).

The TOSHIBA was splitted in 2 Partitions:

- MAC OS X

- WINDOWS 7

Everything worked for a long time with no problem.

If this was fully functional, moving the Toshiba to Optical Bay should have left OSX and Windows running without any issues (unless there were SATA issues).

This is the non-EFI traditional Bootcamp, which uses a Hybrid MBR.

calojer wrote:

Then I bought the SSD and this optical bay replacement + SATA Optical Drive (Superdrive) Enclosure for Unibody Macbook:

The first Thing I've Tried to do was install WINDOWS 7 (burned on DVD) just like was in the past but the External Superdrive didn't Work.

Black Screen and the error message: Press Any key to boot from Cd-Rom... (but keyboard didn't work)

I guess the Windows 7 pro DVD works only if the optical bay is mounted into the Macbook... (VERY STRANGE 😟)

The reason this did not work is because the internal Optical drive has a driver embedded in the firmware of the MBP, but the external Superdrive did not have a driver loaded when Bootcamp/Windows was being installed. There are many posters who have had their iMac internal optical drive not work, and an external Superdrive is not 'seen'. The Apple Bootcamp drivers contain a Windows driver 'AppleODDInstaller64.exe" to support such Superdrives. This driver is not available in the $WinPEDriver$ folder on the Bootcamp USB and the Windows installer has no access to the external Optical Drive. There is a possible hack to copy this driver into that folder and load it via AutoUnattend.xml file.

calojer wrote:

For This Reason I've tried to make a Bootable Key of WINDOWS 8.1

What I Don't Understand now is:

How can i do a regular non-EFI Bootcamp installation of Windows?

If I Let Bootcamp do its procedure the macbook reboots into a black screen with the error message:

No Bootable Device -- Insert boot disk and press any key.

All Bootcamp installations use the Hybrid MBR approach (and use a BIOS compatibility layer called CSM-BIOS), unless the user chooses to hit the Alt key during reboot and chooses the EFI Boot icon in the Boot Manager. This also requires partitioning the disk first and creating the Free Space partition that I have mentioned. Such Free space gets split into an MSR and MBD partition to support EFI, but only works in later MBPs, not older ones.

Your original Toshiba installation used this approach.

On the USB that Bootcamp Assistant builds, if you look at AutoUnattend.xml, it loads two drivers, by default, from the $WinPEDriver$,

This is the section from the XML file.

</component>

<component name="Microsoft-Windows-PnpCustomizationsWinPE"processorArchitecture="amd64"publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35"language="neutral"versionScope="nonSxS"xmlns:wcm="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WMIConfig/2002/State"xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">

<DriverPaths>

<PathAndCredentials wcm:keyValue="1" wcm:action="add">

<Path>$WinPEDriver$</Path>

</PathAndCredentials>

</DriverPaths>

</component>

This is the directory listing.

You can create a new directory called "AppleODDInstaller64" under $WinPEDriver$, and copy AppleODDInstaller64.exe in this new directory. You should be able test and see if the driver will work and let you see the external SuperDrive. The highlighted portion can be ignored.

Would it be possible for you to use something like imgur.com and post links here?

I am unable to see the images and have had errors when I click on the link. I get a Jive SBS error, and you can see the images I post. I have tested on multiply OSes and browsers, but no luck.

This is what I get (Notice the URL).

I can see both images. Thanks. For d) the screen image shows a disc, rather than a USB.

1. Did bootcamp partition the designated disk (Toshiba or SSD)? If yes, can you post a text output of sudo fdisk /dev/disk[0,1] where 0 and 1 are the two disks (probably SSD and HDD).

2. If Bootcamp did not partition, you may still have a GPT partition, and the CSM-BIOS installation will hang.

Your disk1 should look something like this on the GPT and MBR side. Entry #4 on the MBR will be type '0C' rather than '07' as shown, since Windows has not yet been installed.

sudo gpt -vv -r show /dev/disk0

gpt show: /dev/disk0: mediasize=1000555581440; sectorsize=512; blocks=1954210120

gpt show: /dev/disk0: Suspicious MBR at sector 0

gpt show: /dev/disk0: Pri GPT at sector 1

gpt show: /dev/disk0: Sec GPT at sector 1954210119

start size index contents

0 1 MBR

1 1 Pri GPT header

2 32 Pri GPT table

34 6

40 409600 1 GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B

409640 1452530904 2 GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC

1452940544 1269536 3 GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC

1454210080 992

1454211072 499998720 4 GPT part - EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7

1954209792 295

1954210087 32 Sec GPT table

1954210119 1 Sec GPT header

sudo fdisk /dev/disk0

Disk: /dev/disk0 geometry: 121643/255/63 [1954210120 sectors]

Signature: 0xAA55

Starting Ending

#: id cyl hd sec - cyl hd sec [ start - size]

------------------------------------------------------------------------

1: EE 1023 254 63 - 1023 254 63 [ 1 - 409639] <Unknown ID>

2: AF 1023 254 63 - 1023 254 63 [ 409640 - 1452530904] HFS+

3: AB 1023 254 63 - 1023 254 63 [1452940544 - 1269536] Darwin Boot

*4: 07 1023 254 63 - 1023 254 63 [1454211072 - 499998720] HPFS/QNX/AUX