Black Screen and blinking cursor on Install.

Question

Black Screen and blinking cursor on Install.

Hi, I was hoping someone could help me with this:

Today I have partitioned my hard drive 6 to 8 times because of this issue.

I have an old iMac, 20-inch early 2008 model, upgraded to 4GB RAM and 2TB HDD. I am attempting to install from a disk on which the .iso is burned using Disk Utility - I reach the stage where you select the size of your Windows partition and go ahead with the install. The system restarts - and I'm left with a black screen and blinking cursor. Notable was the fact that during this process the DVD was pretty loud.

So: Anyone else had this problem and know what to do? Part of me feels like it's because the HDD has been partitioned and re-partitioned so many times.

At the point of install I had a USB stick and keyboard in, as well as a wireless mouse, if that info is any help.

Any help appreciated! Tia

Mac OS X (10.6.8)

Posted on Feb 15, 2015 3:07 PM

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Answer 1

Loner T

Level 9

59,471 points

Feb 15, 2015 3:42 PM in response to ThrowbackForever

This is one issue (even though these are not same models as yours) - Boot Camp: iMac displays a black screen during installation of Windows 7 - Apple Support.

Are you using the internal Optical drive or an external USB DVD?

What version of Windows are you trying to install?

Is the USB a USB2 or a USB3 flash drive?

Can you Repair your internal disk via Disk Utility or boot the Mac at least once in Safe Mode - OS X: What is Safe Boot, Safe Mode? - Apple Support?

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Answer 2

Feb 16, 2015 1:59 AM in response to Loner T

Thanks for your reply.

I'm using the internal optical drive to burn and run the Windows Installer disk.

I'm installing 64 bit Windows 7 Home Premium.

I believe it's just USB, going from what Disk Utility reads the connection bus as.

Yeah, booting in safe mode works.

As for the support page you linked - I'm assuming I can do the same thing, but instead using the Windows Support Software found here: http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1720instead of whatever .zip file it mentions?

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Answer 3

Loner T

Level 9

59,471 points

Feb 16, 2015 4:50 AM in response to ThrowbackForever

You do no need to burn the DVD to disk as an ISO. Your iMac will use the DVD and a USB stick (for Bootcamp Drivers) to install Windows. Please try the steps in Boot Camp: iMac displays a black screen during installation of Windows 7 - Apple Support. The GPU driver on the Installer DVD does not seem to have appropriate drivers.

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Answer 4

Feb 16, 2015 11:55 AM in response to Loner T

Hmm. You misunderstand me - I need to burn the .iso to a disk because I only have the iso, no windows installer DVD. For now, I can get it to installation without a black screen, but as soon as I finish making a user (the final part of the installation), the computer shuts down after giving me this error message for a fraction of a second:

The Group Policy Client Service Failed The Sign-In: The Universal Unique Identifier Type Is Not Supported.

A little cryptic. I feel like it's a drivers issue still, as when I was choosing my Partition and formatting it to NTFS, I clicked 'Add Drivers' and it said it couldn't find any, even though I had a USB full of those drivers (including those you linked me to) connected at the time. Also, my bluetooth mouse didn't work. (Keyboard did, as it's wired).

Also worth mentioning is that after this happened, it was right back to black screen - both on the partition and the disk in the optical drive, which seemed weird.

Don't know what's causing this, I'm doing everything right afaik.

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Answer 5

Loner T

Level 9

59,471 points

Feb 16, 2015 1:11 PM in response to ThrowbackForever

You misunderstand me - I need to burn the .iso to a disk because I only have the iso, no windows installer DVD.

My assumption was bad. If your Mac has a built-in Optical drive, you will need to burn it to physical media. Disk Utility 12.x: Burn a disk image to a CD or DVD

If you start the installer when booted in OS X and run the setup.exe on the ISO, as soon as the Mac reboots, you will lose access to the ISO, which will lead to the UUID error.

The Windows installer is instructed by BCA to silently add drivers after it completes the initial installation. If you say 'Add Drivers', the installer is expecting drivers in addition to what BCA has already provided.

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