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installing windows 7 on Macbook Pro 2009

Hi,


I have a Macbook Pro 17" (mid-2009) and I recently swapped my HDD with a SSD. I used to have Windows Vista installed on my HDD, first installed without problems in 2009.

After changing the hard drive, I've updated my OSX to El Capitan and when I tried to start the intallation of Bootcamp as previously done, I get a message saying that no bootable devices can be found. I have tried with two different versions of Windows 7, Windows 8 as well as the same version of Windows Vista previously installed on the HDD but I get the same message.

I can see why if I had it installed before it doesn't work now. I thought that perhaps it could depend of the OSX being too advance for my laptop? Of it's the SSD that is not compatible with older versions of Windows? Or could it be that the latest version of Bootcamp cannot deal with old windows on old macs?

I have tried all sorts of methods suggested by several forums without success and I don't know what else to do.

I would be very grateful if somebody could help me solving this issue.

Many thanks.

MacBook Pro, OS X El Capitan (10.11.4), MacBook Pro 17" (mid-2009) 8GB

Posted on May 2, 2017 9:11 AM

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Posted on May 2, 2017 9:25 AM

you can not install windows 7 on a system running 10.11 in bootcamp

Microsoft stopped support of Windows 7 during the distribution of OS 10.11 and Apple ceased support for it as well.

Install Windows 7 and earlier on your Mac using Boot Camp - Apple Support


you will need to use some other virtualization software outside of what Apple offers, like VMWare or Parallels if you want to install Win 7 on an Mac running 10.11

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May 2, 2017 9:25 AM in response to Nanny_Plum

you can not install windows 7 on a system running 10.11 in bootcamp

Microsoft stopped support of Windows 7 during the distribution of OS 10.11 and Apple ceased support for it as well.

Install Windows 7 and earlier on your Mac using Boot Camp - Apple Support


you will need to use some other virtualization software outside of what Apple offers, like VMWare or Parallels if you want to install Win 7 on an Mac running 10.11

May 2, 2017 9:25 AM in response to JimmyCMPIT

Thanks for your reply. Now it is clearer why.


May I ask you a couple of questions:


Would it mean that if I left my old OS Snow Leopard, installed Windows and update the OSX it would work? In this case I could perhaps re-install my old OS and start from the beginning, although I would like to avoid this.


Would it work if I installed my old HDD with Windows on it in place of the SuperDrive and booting from it?


Many thanks.

May 2, 2017 9:53 AM in response to Nanny_Plum

I think boot-camp and rEFit allow you to place the windows install on an alternate HDD from your OSX HDD. As a side note, you can also just directly install windows to an HDD in your mac; and then when you boot hold down option to select the windows volume as the boot volume. Again no bootcamp features but it works. Though this method may require 2HDDs one for win one for mac.

May 2, 2017 10:06 AM in response to Nanny_Plum

if you had Win 7 previously installed and did not do a clean install to 10.11 or 10.12 from any OS prior to 10.11 and just updated? then Win 7 will be "grandfathered" in and you could still boot to it.


Are you asking if you could take a HDD with Win7 on it form a PC and boot to Win7 on the mac if it was connected? It's not designed to work that way: If you got past an error with hal.dll or didn't outright BSOD and made it to a login in window the Win 7 config on the drive would recognize that the HW profile from the previous windows machine is nothing like the Mac and it would de-authorize itself.


Also hacking your EFI with code you or anyone else found on the web is also potentially and irreversibly disastrous.

May 2, 2017 10:50 AM in response to JimmyCMPIT

What Jimmy said about hacking your EFI is very true, you can cause problems and it is not for the faint of heart. I have utilized it on many occasions and sometimes it works great, other times you end up just scratching everything wiping your HDD's and taking a different approach.


If you are not tied to WIN7, it may be easier to just bootcamp win10. If you are not tied to bootcamp, it may be easier to just run WIN7 in virtualization.

May 3, 2017 2:19 AM in response to JFLU

Thanks Jimmy and JFLU, this is very helpful.


The HDD I want to install in the SuperDrive slot is the native HDD that came with my mac when I bought it and with WinVista Bootcamp-installed on it. After I swapped it with a SSD I left it out as the mac partition on it wasn't working anymore but the bootcamp partition was working just fine. So my idea was to put it in the SuperDrive slot and see if it can still run.


I haven't had the chance to try any of the methods you suggested yet but reading about the potential disastrous implications of hacking the EFI I'm not going anywhere near that, especially as I'm not an expert and don't know anything about codes, so I think I will try the other way.


It is annoying as I don't use Win very often but I need it just for one software not currently running on mac.


Thanks a lot for all your help!

installing windows 7 on Macbook Pro 2009

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