Q: Issue trying to clean install Windows 10 on Fusion Drive. el Capitan.

Summary:

Q1: Should it take 4+ hours to install Windows 10 via BCA?

Q2: Should it al be so slow when eventually initially in W10 desktop?

Q3; What do I do once I get to the W10 desktop but it auto updates the graphics driver as BC Update simply hangs for ages and get a working  driver to at least reboot to W10?

Q4: is there some issue with the Fusion Drive HDD which is causing all this delay and slow install/ boot? ON the clean install OS X 10.11.4 it is back to being fast as normal and all tests show things are OK but W10 goes onto the HDD part. Any way to check this beyond Diagnostic or Etrecheck?

Q5: Is there any issue with the GPT/ MBR which may cause this delay etc.?

Q6: How do I use my existing WindowsImageBackup backup from previous W10 with the BCA install usb drive or how do I create an USB stick recovery drive otherwise with my only other Mac having W7?

Q7: How can I install W8 as I did previously on Yosemite, via el Capitan without a GPT error on disk selection?

Details:

Day 5. Attempt 6.

Remove Boot Camp partition and re-attempt install via BCA. First issue is that when booting it goes to a blank black screen. Left for one hour nothing. Rebooting then using alt to select the Windows drive results in almost instant boot of the BCA created message and commencement of the installation.

4 1/2 hours from commencement to Windows 10 initial signing window.

Then second issue. One reaching the desktop Boot Camp Update attempts to start and install drivers. Gets to "Enumerating files..." stage then sits at the green bar around 5% for 1-2 hours and does nothing. All actions in the W10 desktop take ages.

In the meantime W10 auto update pops up a message saying graphics drivers updated as one of the few messages or actions during this time. Looks like Nvidia install with all the Experience package etc. (not desired) and most likely not the correct gpu driver.

Eventually decide to cancel the BC install by killing the Setup.exe process. Then copy Boot camp install folders to the desktop. Takes 30 minutes to copy over. Run again and this time, though taking around 15-20 minutes it goes load and eventually install with success message.

Checking the graphics driver it shows a yellow exclamation mark, so following Microsoft instructions I use the Uninstall option via Device Manager and then (slowly) manage to load Edge and download the latest Nvidia driver from their site for the GTX 780M for 64-bit W10 etc. The same I had been using previously. Slow again with running the Nvidia installer but eventually it runs only to say it could not install as unrecognised graphics device...

It's left with Microsoft PnP driver so figure it's at least sufficient to boot and rerun BC updates as all other drivers should have been installed. On reboot however I get a K-Mode error which is most likely related to this graphics driver and not possible to boot into the new W10 Boot Camp partition after 7 hours.

I do have a recovery backup W10 image (WindowsImageBackup) I had from a few weeks ago, however it won't install betting to the W10 installed. I try it with the BCA created windows usb stick but can;t seem to get any way to enter recovery mode and get the menu to install it. I don't have any way to create a W10 recovery usb drive now as my other Mac only has W7 installed.

Lastly I tried commencing a Reset option from the Recovery boot up but it would seem it will take even longer than starting again.

I have also gone to the recovery boot and selected Safe Mode but it opens to a blank black window and just sits there doing nothing.

Seems I will have to restart over via BCA and reinstall and try and resolve the graphics driver issue in order to install the BC Updates and then reboot to W10 and hope that with the drivers it returns to normal boot times and operation. Then update the gpu driver.

I have used and installed many times with Boot Camp over the years including previously an upgrade from W8.1 > W10 I have used for over 6 months with no issue. I have never experienced these very long install or glacial actions once in Windows even for the initial boot up.

Any help or suggestions would be appreciated and this seemingly simple process has now extended to five days.

Day 6 Attempt 7.

Deleted Bot camp partition. Ran through BCA again. Commenced install. After 6 hours, Windows install looping on 'Custom Settings'. Select preferences then wait and hour and it comes back to the same page four times.

Tried making a repair use stick from media creation for W10 via Boot Camp W7 and see if I could use the image backup. But using Repair option allows to select the backup image of W10 but will only show the whole Fusion drive HDD drive not the Boot Camp partition. And also requires the same BIOS message.

As it appears no one else has experienced this issue or can help, I'll try starting over and downgrade to Yosemite and install 8.1 and upgrade which I did last time.

Thanks for your input Loner T.

Given that it shouldn't take so long to install and delay once booted, how can I check if there is an issue with the HDD of the Fusion Drive beyond the Apple Diagnosis via 'D' key or Etrecheck? I prefer to try and find out what is causing this specific issue.

If I get back to trying to install W10 again I'll disconnect the iMac as suggested.

Not sure how I can create a repair disk/ USB without having W10 installed and working? I did create a W10 install media on USB stick which allows for Repair option but I could not use it to install my W10 image backup (see above) No idea how I can otherwise use/install this backup image.

Update:

So I removed the Boot Camp partition then used DU to erase the Fusion Drive and clean install Yosemite. Then update to 10.10.5. All fine. This has BCA 5.1.4.

Used this with a Windows 8.1 d/o media install iso to create and run BCA using a USB 2 stick (previously used to install). The install runs until settings etc. The computer rebooted, rotating circle for a bit then a blank black screen. Repeated tries end the same.

I assume some gpu driver issue even though I deflected updates etc. This is with an Nvidia GPU (see above) so unsure if it is the same Intel driver issue?

So kind of stuck now.  Loath to go back to el Capitan and try W10 again after the previous issues. It's so painful to wait 6-7 hours each attempt.

I don't have W7 install or serial to go back any further. I can't find a W8.0 install to try that rather than 8.1 (Microsoft only offer 8.1 it seems)

As it stands either I can resolve the black screen/ driver issue with the W8.1 install or find a way to install the W10 backup image.

Any other advice or suggestion would be appreciated.

This is from the 10.10.5 OS X clean install with BCA 5.1.4 onto a USB 2 Stick using an Windows 8.1 Install .iso;

<?xml version="1.0"?>

<?xml-stylesheet type='text/xml' href='test.xsl'?>

<!--Information on Boot Camp build-->

<BuildInfo BuildNumber="6136" ProductName="Boot Camp">

  <MsiInfo>

  <ProductManufacturer>Apple Inc.</ProductManufacturer>

  <ProductVersion>6.0.6136</ProductVersion>

  <ProductCode>{FCFFE6B6-BAE8-490E-88D0-097A9DA1C43D}</ProductCode>

  <Component Name="AppleOSSMgr.exe" GUID="*" SharedDLL="yes">

  <File Name="AppleOSSMgr.exe">

  <KeyPath>yes</KeyPath>

  <FileVersion>5.1.5.0</FileVersion>

  </File>

  <Registry>

  <Key>HKLM\SOFTWARE\Apple Inc.\Boot Camp</Key>

  <Name>Build Version</Name>

  <Type>string</Type>

  <Value>[BUILDVERSION]</Value>

  </Registry>

  <Registry>

  <Key>HKLM\SOFTWARE\Apple Inc.\Boot Camp</Key>

  <Name>VersionNT</Name>

  <Type>string</Type>

  <Value>[WINDOWSVERSION]</Value>

  </Registry>

  <Registry>

  <Key>HKLM\SOFTWARE\Apple Inc.\Boot Camp</Key>

  <Name>ModelID</Name>

  <Type>string</Type>

  <Value>[SYSTEMMODELNAME]</Value>

  </Registry>

  </Component>

  <Component Name="AppleControlPanel.exe" GUID="*" SharedDLL="yes">

  <File Name="AppleControlPanel.exe">

  <KeyPath>yes</KeyPath>

  <FileVersion>6.0.6100.0</FileVersion>

  </File>

  <Registry>

I can do a Windows 10 version if it is of use.

Update:

Attempt 8. Windows 8.1 Install iso via BCA 5.1.4 on USB 2 stick. 4 hours to settings, 1 hour settings, reboots, to loading apps page then powered off. Reboot results in brief period of rotating circle then blank black screen after 30 minutes. Rebooted same result.

This are the results as requested. This is with the latest Yosemite 10.10.5 with BCA 5.1.4 and Window 10 install.

Update: Tried with Yosemite 10.10.5 BCA 5.1.4 with W10 install. Same details from Bootcamp.xml. Same issues; 2-3 hours to get to settings, then hang for one hour + on auto launch of Bootcamp driver install Setup.exe. Tried to copy to HD but rebooted and does same each time. Unable to install via Setup.exe.

Checked Diagnosis again via boot + D which reported all was OK. Ran Disk Utility on 'Internal Drive' (Macintosh HD and Untitled) which showed no issue.  Not sure why it shows this name but seems to sometimes.

When partitioning in BCA for the HDD typically I select a close as possible 1.25TB for the Boot Camp leaving rest for Mac. 121GB is the SSD I assume.

Results as follows:

Last login: Sun May  1 17:53:20 on ttys000

imac---simon:~ simon$ diskutil list

/dev/disk0

   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER

   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *121.3 GB   disk0

   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1

   2:          Apple_CoreStorage                         121.0 GB   disk0s2

   3:                 Apple_Boot Boot OS X               134.2 MB   disk0s3

/dev/disk1

   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER

   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *3.0 TB     disk1

   1:                        EFI NO NAME                 209.7 MB   disk1s1

   2:          Apple_CoreStorage                         1.7 TB     disk1s2

   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.1 MB   disk1s3

   4:       Microsoft Basic Data                         1.3 TB     disk1s4

/dev/disk3

   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER

   0:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD           *1.9 TB     disk3

                                 Logical Volume on disk0s2, disk1s2

                                 02C2CD0E-6A51-46EA-847C-EBBCFD0330A3

                                 Unencrypted Fusion Drive

imac---simon:~ simon$ diskutil cs list

CoreStorage logical volume groups (1 found)

|

+-- Logical Volume Group CA0B8D0A-6315-4E85-B313-52AB509473F2

    =========================================================

    Name:         Internal Drive

    Status:       Online

    Size:         1868532424704 B (1.9 TB)

    Free Space:   0 B (0 B)

    |

    +-< Physical Volume 5E75EE74-EE1F-4FCB-A0C5-9ED5517FEB93

    |   ----------------------------------------------------

    |   Index:    0

    |   Disk:     disk0s2

    |   Status:   Online

    |   Size:     120988852224 B (121.0 GB)

    |

    +-< Physical Volume 91D639D6-634E-47C1-AFE5-616CE12E71E0

    |   ----------------------------------------------------

    |   Index:    1

    |   Disk:     disk1s2

    |   Status:   Online

    |   Size:     1747543572480 B (1.7 TB)

    |

    +-> Logical Volume Family D0A0522D-3762-4643-BE48-401070E61673

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

        Encryption Status:       Unlocked

        Encryption Type:         None

        Conversion Status:       NoConversion

        Conversion Direction:    -none-

        Has Encrypted Extents:   No

        Fully Secure:            No

        Passphrase Required:     No

        |

        +-> Logical Volume 02C2CD0E-6A51-46EA-847C-EBBCFD0330A3

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

            Disk:                  disk3

            Status:                Online

            Size (Total):          1853999939584 B (1.9 TB)

            Conversion Progress:   -none-

            Revertible:            No

            LV Name:               Macintosh HD

            Volume Name:           Macintosh HD

            Content Hint:          Apple_HFS

imac---simon:~ simon$ sudo gpt -vv -r show /dev/disk0

We trust you have received the usual lecture from the local System

Administrator. It usually boils down to these three things:

    #1) Respect the privacy of others.

    #2) Think before you type.

    #3) With great power comes great responsibility.

Password:

gpt show: /dev/disk0: mediasize=121332826112; sectorsize=512; blocks=236978176

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 236978175

      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  236306352      2  GPT part - 53746F72-6167-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC

  236715992     262144      3  GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC

  236978136          7      

  236978143         32         Sec GPT table

  236978175          1         Sec GPT header

imac---simon:~ simon$ sudo fdisk /dev/disk0

Disk: /dev/disk0 geometry: 14751/255/63 [236978176 sectors]

Signature: 0xAA55

         Starting       Ending

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

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

1: EE 1023 254  63 - 1023 254  63 [         1 -  236978175] <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   

imac---simon:~ simon$ sudo gpt -vv -r show /dev/disk1

gpt show: /dev/disk1: mediasize=3000592982016; sectorsize=512; blocks=5860533168

gpt show: /dev/disk1: PMBR at sector 0

gpt show: /dev/disk1: Pri GPT at sector 1

gpt show: /dev/disk1: Sec GPT at sector 5860533167

       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  3413171040      2  GPT part - 53746F72-6167-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC

  3413580680     1269760      3  GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC

  3414850440        1144      

  3414851584  2445680640      4  GPT part - EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7

  5860532224         911      

  5860533135          32         Sec GPT table

  5860533167           1         Sec GPT header

imac---simon:~ simon$ sudo fdisk /dev/disk1

Disk: /dev/disk1 geometry: 97451/255/63 [1565565872 sectors]

Signature: 0xAA55

         Starting       Ending

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

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

1: EE 1023 254  63 - 1023 254  63 [         1 - 4294967294] <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

Yes, disconnected ethernet cable for all attempts on Yosemite. Shows not connected in task bar icon (red line) though I can't open to check but wireless should not be set up.

I am not getting any Update messages in Windows which appears to confirm it. tried both with and without entering serial key.

Yes, just opening BCA and leaving all selected (Create a...., Download the... and Install...) letting it install to the USB stick from download Microsoft iso media for each version, downloading software each time, select partition size then let it partition, auto boot and commence windows install (formatting relevant Bootcamp partition at prompt for NTFS). Basically letting BCA do it all, both in Yosemite and el Capitan.

I hoped doing this in Yosemite would resolve it but apparently the issue remains for either W8.1 or W10 install attempts. Tried different USB sticks (USB2 for Yosemite) and different USB ports.

I have installed Windows on iMacs many times and even on this iMac 27 (Late 2013) which all work as anticipated i.e. no prolonged installs or major issues.. Previously I had installed W7 > updated W8 > W8.1. then W10. This is first time trying clean install on this iMac. But done so on previous iMacs over a lot of years.

The combination of Fusion Drive and current BCA installs just seems to result in these extra long delays for which I have no understanding given I checked the drives and the Windows does install ablate really slowly. Just can'y get to a stage when BC software updates can get installed at least.

Only thing I can think of trying is install of W7 or attempting to install directly with Windows to partition prepared but not via BCA.

They must be some underlying issue but I can't work it out or know enough about the diskutil results to see if there is anything there.

I only have one USB2 USB stick so have to use that for both W8.1 and W10 install attempts which I erase then run BCA for the relevant install.

Yes just a wired ethernet connection to the router (8MB) no wireless.

In el Capitan I have two USB3 sticks which I used for that as I understood it supports USB3 for install.

I have already tried removing then  installing without Step 1 and 2 though the result was the same issue.

The times are much the same if perhaps a little faster now in Yosemite. Whether W8.1 or W10 it is still taking 2-3 hours from reboot and commence Windows install to first settings page. Then around 30 minutes - 1 hour to get to the actual Windows desktop.

I can run it without Step 1-2 and just use the existing W10 install USB2 stick but I suspect the times will be the same. Will start now.

The difference in el Capitan trying to install W10 via BCA was that it would take 3-4 hours, get to 'Customizing...' settings pages then continue but end up rebooting and returning to the same customize page again and again. I was able to actually get to the W10 desktop three times out of 7-8 attempts.

Normally then it all loads very slowly and the Boot Camp Setup.exe startes automatically and after agree it moves to the 'Enumerating...' message and green bar just started, then doesn't progress any further even left for an hour or longer.   Each attempt was around 6-7 hours all together, hence the big frustration and problem currently.

The slow progression is both during installation and once in Windows desktop and great difficulty even getting to the point of installing the BC updated drivers via Setup.exe.

Thanks for your patient help. Appreciated.

No Time Machine backup but I wanted to clean install OS X and currently that side is working fine now. I just want to get Windows installed in Bootcamp. Both clean installs was the aim.

I do have a W10 image backup I made a few weeks ago  (WindowsImageBackup) but can`t find a way to try and install it. I made a W10 install usb via Windows media create but only shows HDD as a whole to install not the Boot Camp partition via Repair on the usb installer.

So no concern about existing files on either OS, simply to get Windows install to Boot Camp.

Still checking times for Yosemite W10 install.

Currently 12 minutes to create the Boot Camp partition in BCA (Stage 3 only). 1 hour 20 minutes from initial reboot and format and install process until complete and reboot.