User profile for user: wesfrombham
wesfrombham Author
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9 points

Can't install Windows on Boot Camp – no signed drivers (Retina MacBook Pro, mid-2015)

Mid-2015 Retina MacBook Pro running High Sierra 11.13.3 (APFS, unencrypted) with up-to-date Boot Camp Assistant (6.1.0) — clean OS install a couple days ago.

Trying to install a Windows partition via Boot Camp Assistant, and running into trouble at every step of the process, with both Windows 10 64-bit and Windows 8.1 64-bit (clean ISOs downloaded directly from Microsoft):

  • Use Boot Camp Assistant to create partition (122GB on 1TB SSD). It downloads Windows Support files, and 9 times out of 10 the laptop crashes at the step of “Saving Windows Support files” – but force restarting allows me to alt/option-boot into the Windows installer anyway: great.
  • Boot into Windows 10 installer, format Boot Camp partition, select Windows version (have tried both Pro and Home) — it gets through copying, expanding, installing Windows files… but then I get an error every time at "Installing Updates” – error code 0x80070002, can't find drivers compatible with this hardware — Windows will restart (doesn't restart, just goes to a black backlit screen and stays there until I force restart).
  • Delete the partition, download the Windows Support Drivers to a FAT-formatted USB drive, then repeat all the above. Same exact thing.
  • Delete, repeat, but once booted into the Windows installer, first click "Load drivers" and select the OSXRESERVED partition: shows up all the driver folders, but shows no actual driver files when you navigate to any of the folders. Un-check "Hide drivers that aren't compatible with this hardware”, and a few drivers show up for each piece of hardware — install them all. Proceed to Windows install – no dice, same error at “Installing updates” stage.
  • Delete, repeat, “Load drivers” but check the USB instead of OSXRESERVED — same thing, folders are there but drivers don't show up unless I un-check the ‘Hide non-compatible drivers’ option.
  • Try the whole thing again with Windows 8.1 instead of Windows 10, and older version of the support software (Boot Camp Support 5.1.5722) on the USB: this time Boot Camp Assistant actually completes the “Saving support files” portion of the automatic driver download, and asks for admin password for restart, instead of crashing. Great. Boot into Windows 8.1 installer – it requires a license key instead of having the “I don't have a license key” option, but find one online to get me to the next step. This time it hangs indefinitely at 24% of copying Windows files.


Anyone have any advice? Am I missing something obvious here?

MacBook Pro with Retina display, macOS High Sierra (10.13.3), null

Posted on Feb 23, 2018 2:17 PM

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User profile for user: Loner T
Loner T
User level: Level 9
59,536 points

Posted on Feb 27, 2018 1:24 AM

The link I posted will build a USB Installer.


  • Copy the updated AMD drivers to a separate folder.
  • Use Disk Utility to create a FAT partition of the size you want.
  • Disconnect from all networks (physically, if necessary)
  • Reboot and use Option key to choose EFI Boot from Windows.
  • Choose the FAT partition as the destination. If you get a GPT vs MBR error, it can be corrected using GPT Fdisk.
  • Install Windows, but do not reboot after BC drivers are installed.
  • Install updated GPU drivers from the separate folder.
  • Create a Windows System Restore point
  • Reboot and test.
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User profile for user: Loner T
Loner T
User level: Level 9
59,536 points

Feb 27, 2018 1:24 AM in response to wesfrombham

The link I posted will build a USB Installer.


  • Copy the updated AMD drivers to a separate folder.
  • Use Disk Utility to create a FAT partition of the size you want.
  • Disconnect from all networks (physically, if necessary)
  • Reboot and use Option key to choose EFI Boot from Windows.
  • Choose the FAT partition as the destination. If you get a GPT vs MBR error, it can be corrected using GPT Fdisk.
  • Install Windows, but do not reboot after BC drivers are installed.
  • Install updated GPU drivers from the separate folder.
  • Create a Windows System Restore point
  • Reboot and test.
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User profile for user: wesfrombham
wesfrombham Author
User level: Level 1
9 points

Feb 27, 2018 7:36 PM in response to Loner T

As luck would have it, I had my girlfriend's MacBook, which still has Sierra on it. Made the USB installer on there by dragging/dropping the contents of the Windows ISO, and booted from the installer on my laptop with internet disconnected and all other drives removed… and got the same error as other recent attempts: “Windows cannot install required files. The file does not exist. Make sure all files required for installation are available, and restart the installation. Error code: 0x80070002”


Just to check, I also tried repeating with this method, which differs in that a utility is used to make the Windows USB installer instead of simply dragging the contents of the ISO, and also involves checking that GPT is used instead of Hybrid MBR, as well as manually adding the partition — this resulted in the exact same error code.


(I do know that the Windows ISO I am using is good, as I was able to get it installed and booting on an external hard drive today.)

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User profile for user: Loner T
Loner T
User level: Level 9
59,536 points

Feb 26, 2018 12:13 PM in response to wesfrombham

wesfrombham wrote:


I once again used BCA to remove the partition, ran SMC/NVRAM resets, re-set up the partition with BCA, canceled the restart to stay on macOS, replaced the contents of OSXRESERVED/BootCamp/Drivers/AMD/AMDGraphics with the corresponding contents from the bootcampdrivers.com download (had to use Terminal as the OSXRESERVED partition never shows up in macOS Finder), and then rebooted into the Windows installer, formatted the BOOTCAMP partition and began Windows setup…

As long as OSXRESERVED was not rebuilt, this should work.


wesfrombham wrote:



Same old story, cancels during setup:

“Windows cannot install required files. The file does not exist. Make sure all files required for installation are available, and restart the installation. Error code: 0x80070002”


I could not find the setupapi.dev.log in var/log or System/Library/Logs… where should I be looking for it?

Look for this file under /Volumes/BOOTCAMP/Windows or sub-folders from the macOS Finder. For example,

cd /Volumes/BOOTCAMP/

find . -name "setupapi.dev.log" -exec ls {} \; | more

./Windows/INF/setupapi.dev.log

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User profile for user: Loner T
Loner T
User level: Level 9
59,536 points

Feb 26, 2018 1:12 PM in response to wesfrombham

It should be in OSXRESERVED, but you can also get it if you download the BC drivers to a USB2 flash drive using


User uploaded file


The keys can be compared to the error message hive keys to see which driver(s) are causing issues.


Another option is to not install the AMD drivers at all, and use generic VGA till Windows is fully installed, and then running the updated driver setup.exe by hand after creating a Windows System Restore point.

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User profile for user: Loner T
Loner T
User level: Level 9
59,536 points

Feb 26, 2018 12:29 PM in response to wesfrombham

wesfrombham wrote:



I was able to select one driver file each out of the display and audio driver folders with the ‘Hide drivers not compatible with this machine's hardware' option selected: the audio one installed, and the display one failed with “We couldn't install the AMD Radeon R9 M370X ([file path]) driver. Contact your vendor for an updated driver.”

In this case, I suggest posting a message for matd2100 on the website and ask why it fails.

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User profile for user: wesfrombham
wesfrombham Author
User level: Level 1
9 points

Feb 26, 2018 5:03 PM in response to Loner T

Well, I've just tried that at least 3 times — now OSXRESERVED doesn't show up, even though it goes through the whole Boot Camp Assistant process each time.


SMC/NVRAM reset between each delete and try again.


diskutil list just shows High Sierra volumes and BOOTCAMP drive, without Windows Support/OSXRESERVED:


/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: GUID_partition_scheme *1.0 TB disk0

1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk0s1

2: Apple_APFS Container disk1 878.0 GB disk0s2

3: Microsoft Basic Data BOOTCAMP 122.3 GB disk0s3


/dev/disk1 (synthesized):

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: APFS Container Scheme - +878.0 GB disk1

Physical Store disk0s2

1: APFS Volume WD MBP 123.2 GB disk1s1

2: APFS Volume Preboot 102.5 MB disk1s2

3: APFS Volume Recovery 2.5 GB disk1s3

4: APFS Volume VM 1.1 GB disk1s4

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Can't install Windows on Boot Camp – no signed drivers (Retina MacBook Pro, mid-2015)

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