Install Windows 7 in Mid-2015 Macbook Pro

Here is the course of how things went in terminal. I think it looks like it went well? Do you do the three tests you described before or after installing Windows?

MacBook-Pro-2:~ sudo gdisk /dev/rdisk0

GPT fdisk (gdisk) version 1.0.0

Warning: Devices opened with shared lock will not have their

partition table automatically reloaded!

Partition table scan:

MBR: hybrid

BSD: not present

APM: not present

GPT: present

Found valid GPT with hybrid MBR; using GPT.

Command (? for help): b

Enter backup filename to save: gdisk backup

The operation has completed successfully.

Command (? for help): P

Disk /dev/rdisk0: 977105060 sectors, 465.9 GiB

Logical sector size: 512 bytes

Disk identifier (GUID): 316A6941-387C-4FA2-A9C5-03FD18BD52D9

Partition table holds up to 128 entries

First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 977105026

Partitions will be aligned on 8-sector boundaries

Total free space is 2017 sectors (1008.5 KiB)

Number Start (sector) End (sector) Size Code Name

1 40 409639 200.0 MiB EF00 EFI System Partition

2 409640 783253895 373.3 GiB AF05 Macintosh HD

3 783253896 784523431 619.9 MiB AB00 Recovery HD

4 784525312 977104895 91.8 GiB 0700 MACINTOSH H

Command (? for help): r

Recovery/transformation command (? for help): o

Disk size is 977105060 sectors (465.9 GiB)

MBR disk identifier: 0x00000000

MBR partitions:

Number Boot Start Sector End Sector Status Code

1 1 409639 primary 0xEE

2 409640 783253895 primary 0xAC

3 783253896 784523431 primary 0xAB

4 784525312 977104895 primary 0x0B

Recovery/transformation command (? for help): h

WARNING! Hybrid MBRs are flaky and dangerous! If you decide not to use one,

just hit the Enter key at the below prompt and your MBR partition table will

be untouched.

Type from one to three GPT partition numbers, separated by spaces, to be

added to the hybrid MBR, in sequence: 2 3 4

Place EFI GPT (0xEE) partition first in MBR (good for GRUB)? (Y/N): Y

Creating entry for GPT partition #2 (MBR partition #2)

Enter an MBR hex code (default AF):

Set the bootable flag? (Y/N): N

Creating entry for GPT partition #3 (MBR partition #3)

Enter an MBR hex code (default AB):

Set the bootable flag? (Y/N): N

Creating entry for GPT partition #4 (MBR partition #4)

Enter an MBR hex code (default 07):

Set the bootable flag? (Y/N): N

Recovery/transformation command (? for help): o

Disk size is 977105060 sectors (465.9 GiB)

MBR disk identifier: 0x00000000

MBR partitions:

Number Boot Start Sector End Sector Status Code

1 1 409639 primary 0xEE

2 409640 783253895 primary 0xAF

3 783253896 784523431 primary 0xAB

4 784525312 977104895 primary 0x07

Recovery/transformation command (? for help): W

Final checks complete. About to write GPT data. THIS WILL OVERWRITE EXISTING

PARTITIONS!!

Do you want to proceed? (Y/N): Y

OK; writing new GUID partition table (GPT) to /dev/rdisk0.

Warning: Devices opened with shared lock will not have their

partition table automatically reloaded!

Warning: The kernel may continue to use old or deleted partitions.

You should reboot or remove the drive.

The operation has completed successfully.

MacBook-Pro-2:~

In terms of the tests....

Test 1 - Does Bootcamp Volume show up in Finder?

-->Yes, it shows up as "MACINTOSH H" which is what i named the FAT partition

Test 2 - Can you see files in Bootcamp Volume?

-->It states there are 0 items (it is a freshly formatted FAT partition so this makes sense, right? It does let me move a file to the partition and then delete it with no problem from finder)

Test 3 - Can you select Bootcamp in System Preferences -> Startup Disk?

--> No only the Macintosh HD shows up there.

I went and bought an Apple SuperDrive. I held ALT/Option at start-up and with the Windows 7 Disk in it the drive is recognized as "EFI Disk." When I select it the screen blinks, remains black for a few seconds as I hear the disk spinning in the SuperDrive, and then it blinks to the regular Apple startup progress bar and goes straight to my user login. :-(

I was under the impression that the Apple SuperDrive was the only method that would work based on what you mentioned in the earlier posts about it having a special ability on the firmware level to be recognized?

I tried the USB thumb drive again and it did not show up at boot up in the ALT/Option menu.

I inserted the USB thumb drive and it did not reveal itself as an additional selection. The only two were still those pictured above. I went ahead and selected EFI Boot after the USB thumb drive was plugged in and it went to a black screen and then almost immediately to the Apple logo boot screen with progress bar and then straight to my account login.

I thought the Hybrid MBR was supposed to enable the SuperDrive to install Windows 7 because the GPT fdisk basically does the job of BootCamp and makes a Hybrid MBR?

Well I already own a copy of Windows 7 Pro and have my product Key so I was hoping to get it on the 2015 Macbook Pro and then use the free upgrade to Windows 10. It is basically just trying to save $100-200 for a new license (which, if I had to do I would just skip 8.1 and buy a Windows 10 license).

Do you think a tool like rEFInd would be helpful in this instance?

The Windows 7 clone on the new 2015 Macbook Pro would recognize the change in hardware and it would lose its activation.

If I got my hands on a 2012 Macbook Air and made a thumb drive using bootcamp on it with a Windows 7 ISO would that fix the issue we are having?

I think I might try the cloning method. Can you tell me the sequence to use the cloning method? I am not familiar with SysPrep but I see it is kind of like a windows cleanup utility. Would I run it before making the clone while in Windows 7?

So is the sequence:

1.) Install Windows 7 on 2011 Macbook with Bootcamp

2.) While in Windows 7 bootcamp run SysPrep

3.) Use CloneZilla live CD to make a clone of bootcamp partition

Not sure why it wouldn't let me edit or delete the post above but I made some changes to my question:

I think I might try the cloning method. Can you tell me the sequence to use the cloning method? I am not familiar with SysPrep but I see it is kind of like a windows cleanup utility. Would I run it before making the clone while in Windows 7?

So is the sequence:

1.) Install Windows 7 on 2011 Macbook with Bootcamp

2.) While in Windows 7 bootcamp run SysPrep.

a.) Would you recommend the following SysPrep command for this situation: sysprep /oobe /generalize ?

b.) Or should I run the SysPrep command that runs the specialize pass, Plug and Play, and other setup tasks before launching Windows Welcome: sysprep /generalize /oobe

3.) Use CloneZilla live CD to make a clone of bootcamp partition

Would I need to do anything to the Hybrid MBR we created with GPT Fdisk before using CloneZilla to install the image on a drive?

Would I need to do anything to the Hybrid MBR we created? And, if I use disk utility to re-partition the drive back to one partition and erase the drive back to one HFS+ volume for re-installation of Yosemite would that destroy the Hybrid MBR and put things back to Apple's default?

I was going to buy WinClone Standard just to make things easy but I was reading their support documents and it looks like cloning isn't going to work either on a 2015 macbook Pro if the image comes from a 2011 Macbook Pro. Do you think I am reading the link below correctly?

https://twocanoes.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/204433039-Winclone-Image-Compati bility-with-512b-and-4K-Block-Size-on-20…

I felt like the issue had something to do with the hybrid MBR we created so I wiped and re-partitioned the disk and re-installed Mac OS X. Then I created a FAT partition with disk utility as it instructs in the Winclone guides. I put my saved image back on and of course the Windows 10 wasn't activated any longer because of a hardware change. So I put the image of Windows 7 right before upgrading to Win 10 back on the BOOTCAMP partition and re-upgraded (using Parallels to access the Win7 bootcamp partition) from Windows 7 (activated) to Win 10 (activated). After the upgrade I selected System Prefences-->Startup Disk and it has windows so I selected it and hit restart and it successfully restarted NOT into a black screen but instead a blue screen lol.

Of course, none of the start-up options (F8) make it boot-up either.

There is no way for me to run either Bootrec.exe or EasyBCD. I do not have a Windows 10 disk to boot into a relevant RE to run bootrec.exe and EasyBCD requires a working windows installation to run its .exe. I tried to create a Windows 10 Recovery CD from:

https://neosmart.net/blog/2015/windows-10-recovery-cd-free/

I used DD to burn the ISO to a USB stick but it wouldn't show up in ALT/Option. Are there any linux Recovery USB you think could do this? The only thing I can boot into now is MacOSX as the first thing the windows partition goes to is the blue screen pictured above.

When I open BCA in MacOS there are only three options: create install disk, Download Windows Support drivers, Remove Windows 8 or later. Do you mean create a new install USB disk from the Windows 10 ISO? Then do I boot up and try to select the EFI disk and go from there?