Installer Disk Could Not Be Found

I appreciate your fast response. I've left my uncle's place for the night. So, I'll have to try that tomorrow or in a day or two. He has an old Dell PC that might have come with a Windows 8 install disc. Would that disk work? Or could I burn the ISO file we downloaded onto a DVD disk and would that work? I've been an Apple only computer owner since my first Apple IIe back in the 80's, I've never had to really deal with Windows. In the last few months my uncle has converted to Apple. A new iPhone, iPad, and he purchased this refurbished iMac a month ago and would like to set it up so he can move his old files from the Dell PC.

Thanks again for your help.

Thank you for your prompt response.

We did download the Windows 8.1 ISO file directly from the Microsoft site. We are also using a USB 2.0 thumb drive. We figured that one out already. Uncle had just bought a USB 3.0 thumb drive, and we were having problems. I used one of my USB 2.0 drives and corrected that. We also had to change the format to exFAT from MSDOSfat32 because the ISO file is larger than 4.0 GB.

According to MacTracker, his mid 2011 21.5" iMac should have a SuperDrive to burn the DVD. I have some DVD-R discs, and I'll take my 2009 MBP over with it's SuperDrive just in case.

We will set it to burn at the lowest possible burn rate speed.

Thank you so much! It might be a day or two before I can give it a try with the holiday coming up. I will report back our progress.

On a separate note, when we get Windows 8.1 up and running on his iMac, do we just copy his old files and programs from his Dell PC onto thumb drives and transfer all that info to the Windows partition that way?

Thanks again.

I believe the Windows 8.1 file name is:

Win8.1_English_x64.iso

I will try to get back to my uncle's tomorrow, but that may have to wait a couple of days to verify that and check the MD5sum (which I had to lookup what that meant). According to what I found I would use the 'Terminal' and type in "md5 Win8.1_English_x64.iso" if that is the actual file name. And that would give me a result like "MD5 (Win8.1_English_x64.iso)= areallylongstringoflettersandnumbers1234567890"

And if that matches what it should be, then we'd know the file was downloaded corruption free. Correct?

Also thanks for the tip about transferring his files from his old Dell PC. I will look at what you suggested.

Thank you again for all your help.

Thank you again Loner T.

I'll reply when I return to my uncle's. Have a Happy New Year.

(Also, the 'Helpful' boxes are "grayed-out" on your last two posts. It wouldn't let me mark them as helpful even though they were.)

I have returned to my uncle's.

The file we downloaded from Microsoft is named: Win8.1_English_x64.iso

I used the Terminal and entered this:

openssl md5 /Users/xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx/Desktop/Win8.1_English_x64.iso

And this is the result:

MD5(/Users/xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx/Desktop/Win8.1_English_x64.iso)= e0d4594e56c0545d379340e0db9519a5

Since that matched the number you provided in the reply above, I went ahead and burned the ISO file to a DVD. The burn was successful and verified. When mounted to the desktop the disk shows a name of: IR5_CCSA_X64FRE_EN_US_DV9. I did not give it this name, this is the name it gave itself.

Going back to Boot Camp Assistant, we had already downloaded the support files to the USB thumb drive, and with the box for Install Windows 7 or Windows 8 checked, we clicked the continue button. We get this message: "Windows 10 is not supported on this Mac. Please use a DVD or USB drive which contains Windows 7 or Windows 8."

We ejected the DVD and tried clicking the continue button on Boot Camp Assistant. It told us: "The installer disk could not be found. Insert your Windows installer disk and wait a few seconds for the disk to be recognized." We inserted the DVD and nothing happens.

I opened the DVD and this is a list of files on the DVD:

autorun.inf

boot - (a folder)

bootmgr

bootmgr.efi

efi - (a folder)

setup.exe

sources - (a folder)

support - (a folder)

This is a list of files on the thumb drive:

$WinPEDriver$ -(a folder)

AutoUnattend.xml

BootCamp - (a folder)

Was I supposed to burn what's on the thumb drive onto the DVD too? What are we still doing wrong?

Any help is much appreciated. Thank you.

Thank you for your patience and your help.

It will definitely be at least two or three days before I can return to my uncle's to try this suggestion. I will update this post when I do your suggestions.

Thank you again.