jcatkins19

Q: Bootcamp issue: "Non-system disk, press any key to reboot"

I have a 2009 MBP that I had previously used bootcamp to successfully install windows 7 on just a couple months ago. I removed the partition and tried re-installing it with more capacity because I was running out of space. I successfully created a USB bootable drive just as I used the first time, following all the instructions to the T, however, when the computer restarts after letting Bootcamp run its course, it goes to the black screen with the message "Non-system disk, press any key to reboot". Nothing works when I try to 'hit any key'.... When I restart and hold 'Option', the only start up disk available is my Macintosh HD. This didn't happen the first time I installed it.... I've been searching all over the web for a solution, with no success. What am I doing wrong?

MacBook Pro (15-inch Mid 2009), OS X Yosemite (10.10)

Posted on Oct 29, 2014 1:52 PM

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Q: Bootcamp issue: "Non-system disk, press any key to reboot"

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  • by Loner T,

    Loner T Loner T Oct 30, 2014 10:17 AM in response to jcatkins19
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    Oct 30, 2014 10:17 AM in response to jcatkins19

    What brand is the DVD? I have used Verbatim, Sony and Memorex successfully in the past.

  • by jcatkins19,

    jcatkins19 jcatkins19 Oct 30, 2014 10:47 AM in response to Loner T
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    Oct 30, 2014 10:47 AM in response to Loner T

    I believe its one of those, I don't have it in front of me though.... I doubt the ISO is corrupted because as I mentioned before, it worked the first time I installed it...

  • by Loner T,

    Loner T Loner T Oct 30, 2014 11:00 AM in response to jcatkins19
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    Oct 30, 2014 11:00 AM in response to jcatkins19

    Can you verify SHA1 or MD5sum for the ISO using your ISO and verifying it against the Microsoft Download store information? IT would be good to eliminate such a corruption possibility.

  • by Carla107,

    Carla107 Carla107 Dec 5, 2014 7:37 AM in response to Loner T
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    Dec 5, 2014 7:37 AM in response to Loner T

    Yes and No,  I can't use the optical unit because I have a ssd  instead. How I can solve the problem? 

     

    thank you a lot.

  • by Loner T,

    Loner T Loner T Dec 5, 2014 11:10 AM in response to Carla107
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    Dec 5, 2014 11:10 AM in response to Carla107

    Since the Bootcamp Assistant uses the Model Identifier to set the booting process via settings in the NVRAM,

     

    1. Use Bootcamp Assistant. Put the Optical drive in the Optical bay, and the designated Windows drive in the main SATA bay, install Windows and then move the Windows disk back to the Optical bay.

     

    2. Use a Commercial product called Winclone, install Windows on another Mac which has its original hardware configuration, using Bootcamp Assistant, and move/clone it to the Optibay disk.

     

    3. Do not use Bootcamp Assistant. Use Disk Utility to create a partition on the Optibay disk, boot from the Windows installer, and install it on this partition. Use Gdisk to create a Hybrid MBR, if necessary (if not using EFI boot), so it can show up in System Preferences -> Startup Disk. You can use a tool like RUFUS (http://rufus.akeo.ie) to create a bootable USB and copy Windows media to such a USB, if necessary. It uses Diskpart.

  • by Maubaraf,

    Maubaraf Maubaraf Jan 4, 2015 9:35 AM in response to jcatkins19
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    Jan 4, 2015 9:35 AM in response to jcatkins19

    Hi you all,

     

    I am also experiencing this issue, I have a 15' MacBook Pro late 2008 with Yosemite in which I am trying to install a Windows 7 Prof SP1 through bootcamp. My MacBook Pro has an internal optical drive but is not working propperly, it won't recognize the dvd. I know that the dvd is not the issue because it works on my partners Macbook Pro.

     

    However, I managed to create a iso on my partner's computer, sent it to my computer through Airdrop and then create a bootable USB with bootcamp, bootcamp seems to do everything right but when it reboot my comp this message of Non system disk, press any key to reboot and then I need to force reboot with the power button. If I hold the option key now I get hd and recovery 10.10.1 but no USB option. The startup disk utility doesn't seem to recognize the USB as a bootable device either.

     

    At this stage I'm stuck, anytime I restart the computer for whatever reason I need to hold option to get to the boot menu to start Os X otherwise I get to a black screen with the message "No bootable device found, insert one and press any key"

     

    At this point I'd like some helpt please, I am a profane when it comes to computers but I've been reading every single post and I have some ideas, I'd appreciate if you think they are related to the problem or not:

     

    1.-In order to create the bootable USB on a computer with an optical drive I had to hack the bootcamp changing the info.plst file on the contents, I follow the instructions given on Enable Bootcamp to install from usb for OSX 10.9**WORKS** but on this post there are 2 different ways of changing the info.plst the one I did and the other one in which they do the same thing but they also take the Pre from the line <key>PreUEFIModels</key> and include their MacBook Model indentifier underneath the line. I DIDN'T modify this part of the info.plst and although I am not sure what EFI exactly is I know that is related with being able to boot from USB or not for what I read, do you think that I'd achieve something modifying the info.plst again and then creating the bootable USB again?

     

    2.- Another possible issue related with my problem that I read is whether if the USB are 2.0 or 3.0, I'm sorry but I don't know how to check that and it definetely doesn't appear in the get info option when you do right click, can somebody tell me how can I find out?

     

    3.- Also I read that Macs with build-in optical drive won't boot from USB despite of the optical drive not working, however it must be a way to tell the bios to boot from there, also why is startup disk not recognizing a bootable disk that was created by bootcamp?, It doesn't make sense, can somebody please give me some ideas? I'd really appreciate them, thanks.

  • by Loner T,

    Loner T Loner T Jan 4, 2015 7:39 PM in response to Maubaraf
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    Jan 4, 2015 7:39 PM in response to Maubaraf

    1. For Macs with built-in Optical drives, BCA sets the NVRAM to boot from it and will not allow external optical drives.

    2. Modifying the BC info.plist causes the No bootable device error.

    3. You may want to consider using your partner's Mac as the machine to install Windows and using a tool like Winclone to move it to your Machine.

    4. Use System Report to check USB2 (high-speed) or USB3 (super-speed) device.

    5. Apple Startup Manager recognizes specific file systems for boot ability, and the BCA Fat is not one of them.

  • by Maubaraf,

    Maubaraf Maubaraf Jan 13, 2015 9:15 AM in response to Loner T
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    Jan 13, 2015 9:15 AM in response to Loner T

    Hi Loner T, thanks very much for replying and for the advice. I appreciate you taking the time and bother to answer me and Winclone is a great idea that I was considering but I manage to sort it out myself without purchasing any further software and also not everybody have 2 MacbookPro available so this will provide an alternative way for all the people that are stuck with this ¨Non-System Disk¨ problem.

    Loner T wrote:

     

    1. For Macs with built-in Optical drives, BCA sets the NVRAM to boot from it and will not allow external optical drives.

     

    I'm afraid you got this wrong, or half wrong, it may won't allow external optical drive but it will boot from a bootable USB.  I have managed to boot on my MacBookPro late 2008 with built in optical drive with a bootable 8 GB USB, windows 7 is been installed on the partition that bootcamp created, no issues at all.

     

    Loner T wrote:

     

    2. Modifying the BC info.plist causes the No bootable device error.

     

    It's not that modifying the BC info.plist causes a bootable device error, what happens is that Bootcamp seems to be uncapable of creating a bootable USB, the message Non-system disk found is simply true because Bootcamp creates crap instead of a bootable USB. What I did at the end was:

     

         I used a computer with Windows 7 or higher (In my case at work)

         I used DISKPART utility that comes with windows to make my 8 GB USB bootable, the way you do this is:

              Insert the USB on the windows machine

              Open the command prompt window

              From here I'll write commands on italics and comments on normal

              Type diskpart

              It will ask you if you want to allow diskpart to make changes on this computer or some similar warning message you need to click yes.

              Type list disk

              It will show a list with the different disks, THEY WILL BE LISTED AS DISK 0, DISK 1, ETC.. identify your USB and see what number is

              Type select disk #

              Obviously here you need to change "#" for whatever number your USB is, DON'T GET THE NUMBER WRONG OR YOU'LL BE FORMATTING THE WRONG THING.

              Once the disk is selected type clean

              That will delete all the partitions and info on the USB

              Then type the following chain of commands:

                   create partition primary

                   select partition 1

                   active

                   format quick fs=fat32

                   assign

                   exit

              All this will create a primary partition on your USB that will be bootable and will exit DiskPart, after this you only need to copy the files from your windows DVD or iso image into the USB and the bootable USB is ready to be used

     

    Once you got your bootable USB you open bootcamp and untick the create a USB bootable disk and also the download the last software from apple, otherwise bootcamp will format again the USB and will undo all the work that you just did. Now I am assuming here that you already have modified the info.plst file on bootcamp to allow bootcamp to install from USB if you don't know how to do this follow the link on my previous reply to this post.


    After that bootcamp will ask you for the size of the partition you want to create, and then it will create it, restart the computer and the computer will boot from USB and the windows instalation program will start.

    There is only one hurdle more, the windows installation program will not let you choose the partition that bootcamp did straight away, you need to select it, format it (the option to format it appears once you click disk advanced) and then it will let you choose it and the installation will finish as normal. Remember that after you install windows it will go by default into windows, to come back to Mac hold alt/option at start and choose the mac partition, once in mac open the startup disk utility and select whichever partition(windows or Mac) you prefer to be the default one anytime the computer starts.

     

    That worked for me on a MacBookPro 15' with Yosemite Os X and while installing windows 7, I hope this helps other people but obviously do it under your own resposibility

     

    Cheers Everybody

  • by Loner T,

    Loner T Loner T Jan 13, 2015 10:42 AM in response to Maubaraf
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    Jan 13, 2015 10:42 AM in response to Maubaraf

    Glad to see it all work.

     

    Using BCA also creates a Hybrid MBR which is used by the W7 procedure that you have outlined. The USB boot procedure can also be done using a utility called Rufus, but diskpart also works.

     

    You will need to install BC drivers for Apple hardware support, which BCA automates. It will also provide a Boot Camp control panel item for switching between the two OSes.

  • by dagneyandleo,

    dagneyandleo dagneyandleo Jan 21, 2015 9:08 AM in response to Maubaraf
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    Jan 21, 2015 9:08 AM in response to Maubaraf

    I know I'm a weirdo for resurrecting an old thread like this, but I had issues with "non-system" BCA drives after updating to Yosemite and the steps outlined by Maubaraf worked like a charm with the same ISO that I was using to attempt to use with BCA. I didn't need to modify the info.plist because my Macbook Pro doesn't have an optical drive, but the diskpart bootable stick worked flawlessly.

  • by JonnyBest,

    JonnyBest JonnyBest Jan 26, 2015 1:24 PM in response to Maubaraf
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 26, 2015 1:24 PM in response to Maubaraf

    I was having the same prob, and I finally solve it with your suggestion!!


    Thank you Maubaraf!

  • by super_singh,

    super_singh super_singh May 29, 2015 6:22 AM in response to Maubaraf
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    May 29, 2015 6:22 AM in response to Maubaraf

    Maufbaraf your instructions worked for me, the only additional thing i did was to copy Windows Support folder to the new install disk which contains the driver from Apple I copied from the drive I created from bootcamp

  • by Balalaw,

    Balalaw Balalaw Jul 22, 2015 11:19 AM in response to Maubaraf
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Notebooks
    Jul 22, 2015 11:19 AM in response to Maubaraf
    Thanks a lot    You actually saved my time. I was looking at different forums for this error after boot camp partition. I installed windows smoothly following your instructions.   But I'm not able to install required drivers from the Windows Support software that I downloads earlier from boot camp. It simply says your model not supported..  Any assistance would be of great help.
  • by sweetw0r,

    sweetw0r sweetw0r Aug 21, 2015 1:37 AM in response to Maubaraf
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    iCloud
    Aug 21, 2015 1:37 AM in response to Maubaraf

    The only post that helped me with my MacBookPro5,5 2009 - Boot ROM Version: MBP55.00AC.B03

    Especially part with windows command line

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