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How to: Boot Camp without a Boot Screen
- Thread starter MisterAndrew
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NEVERMIND! I did is the hard way... dug into the temp files and put the files where they needed to go - it helped using this: https://www.crystalidea.com/blog/classic-mac-pro-and-windows
You can still do it blindly and learn where your HD is with how many arrow keys it takes
I'm trying to install Windows to an empty SSD from the Windows 10 install DVD, and get this message when I try to install:
Windows cannot be installed to this disk. The selected disk is of the GPT partition type.
That is not a typo. The windows installer is complaining because the disk on an EFI system is GPT, which is exactly what it's supposed to be.
What the heck? Isn't it supposed to be GPT? AFAIK I can't boot a Mac Pro in MBR mode.
Windows cannot be installed to this disk. The selected disk is of the GPT partition type.
That is not a typo. The windows installer is complaining because the disk on an EFI system is GPT, which is exactly what it's supposed to be.
What the heck? Isn't it supposed to be GPT? AFAIK I can't boot a Mac Pro in MBR mode.
So I finally got Windows to boot by installing in MBR mode *and* removing the SATA III card that came with my Mac Pro. Fortunately it still boots once I put the SATA controller back in, but I have to use a weird procedure to boot Windows.
What I have to do is leave the Windows 10 install DVD in the SuperDrive, hold down the 'C' key immediately after the boot chime and let go once I hear the DVD spin up. I can then get into Windows 10. Weird (cue Twilight Zone music.)
For whatever reason, holding down 'Option' at boot doesn't work. Well, it stops the boot process at a black screen and I've tried using the arrow keys to select different OS's and then hit enter, but it just won't boot into macOS or Windows.
What I have to do is leave the Windows 10 install DVD in the SuperDrive, hold down the 'C' key immediately after the boot chime and let go once I hear the DVD spin up. I can then get into Windows 10. Weird (cue Twilight Zone music.)
For whatever reason, holding down 'Option' at boot doesn't work. Well, it stops the boot process at a black screen and I've tried using the arrow keys to select different OS's and then hit enter, but it just won't boot into macOS or Windows.
I got SO close to finishing the setup! I got to step 22 “cd Bootcamp5/Bootcamp/Drivers/Apple” and hit return and all I get is “The system cannot find the path specified”. I’m assuming in the steps before when he says to change the folder name “Bootcamp xxxxxx” he’s referring to the ones that are created on the USB? I looked inside both and they were empty. (In my case the path I used was d: since that’s where my USB is). Any ideas, or perhaps you might know how I can download these drivers manually? Thanks!
While I still can't use the Option key blind at boot, I found that the "Startup Disk" preference panel works just fine. That's not as convenient as choosing the boot drive at startup, but it's more practical than keeping a Windows 10 boot DVD in the SuperDrive at all times.
@greg97 I had a similar problem. IIRC, the path changed a little bit in the latest release of the Bootcamp drivers. Try using Windows Explorer to drill down through some of the Bootcamp5 subfolders. I think I had to actually right click on "setup.exe" in Bootcamp5 and/or Bootcamp61, and then select "Run as administrator."
@greg97 I had a similar problem. IIRC, the path changed a little bit in the latest release of the Bootcamp drivers. Try using Windows Explorer to drill down through some of the Bootcamp5 subfolders. I think I had to actually right click on "setup.exe" in Bootcamp5 and/or Bootcamp61, and then select "Run as administrator."
Ok, I had in MP5,1 boot camp updated to be able to boot back to Mojave, and it was working perfect for some months. Now (maybe after a windows update?), I can't find Boot Camp tray icon.
Any ideas? Is it possible to find and run only the bootcamp program and not the drivers? All my hardware working fine.
Any ideas? Is it possible to find and run only the bootcamp program and not the drivers? All my hardware working fine.
Use Boot Manager Menu. There's Nothing easier. Disabling SIP seems to mess up booting into it, and when Enabled it seems fine again.
Thanks for the inspiration @imrazor! I was actually able to follow the instructions from here:
Everything went flawlessly...not sure why, since those instructions aren't too much different from post # 214 which are very similar? Anyways, now that I have Windows on my Mac for the first time, just curious if anyone is using any virus protection for Win10? (I used to use Avast on the Mac side, but was told to get rid of it since Macs don't really need it!). Thanks again!
OK so I read through this thread but have never installed Windows on a computer. I'm now considering it for a few games that won't run on Mojave.
Before I put aside a few hours one weekend I figured I should double check I am getting this right.
My machine is a Mac Pro 4.1 (2009) that I flashed to 5.1 (now on Firmware 144.0.0.0.0) and upgraded the CPUs so it now has dual X5675 Xeons at 3.06GHz. I'm running Mojave 10.14.6 and a RX580 Pulse GPU (no boot screen) - my display is a 1440p 27" connected via DVI and I have a wired Apple Keyboard and Logitech MX Master mouse.
I have two driverless PCI-E cards, one for eSata (Newertech I think) and a USB 3 (the bus powered Inateck one recommended on here). Mojave is on a 2.5 SSD in bay 1 with a 3.5 adaptor and the other bays have hard disks. If I understand h9826790 instructions I download a Windows 10 iso file and burn a dvd then I can install a new SSD with an adaptor in one of the drive bays, temporarily remove the hard disks and MacOS boot SSD and start from the DVD. This will allow me to format the new SSD and install Windows booted from the DVD (picking legacy BIOS mode not EFI). Once installed I should have internet over Ethernet and can download "brigadier" and use this to install first the Mac Pro bootcamp drivers then the ones for the iMac Pro to get APFS boot disk recognition from within the startup control panel in Windows.
After the bootcamp drivers are installed and Windows has done its updates this should then allow the original disks (which I only need access to in MacOS) to be added back to the machine and allow dual booting between Mojave and Windows using the startup disk control panel (Ideally I want to leave SIP enabled which I think prevents other tools for switching?).
Hopefully I've not missed anything?
Before I put aside a few hours one weekend I figured I should double check I am getting this right.
My machine is a Mac Pro 4.1 (2009) that I flashed to 5.1 (now on Firmware 144.0.0.0.0) and upgraded the CPUs so it now has dual X5675 Xeons at 3.06GHz. I'm running Mojave 10.14.6 and a RX580 Pulse GPU (no boot screen) - my display is a 1440p 27" connected via DVI and I have a wired Apple Keyboard and Logitech MX Master mouse.
I have two driverless PCI-E cards, one for eSata (Newertech I think) and a USB 3 (the bus powered Inateck one recommended on here). Mojave is on a 2.5 SSD in bay 1 with a 3.5 adaptor and the other bays have hard disks. If I understand h9826790 instructions I download a Windows 10 iso file and burn a dvd then I can install a new SSD with an adaptor in one of the drive bays, temporarily remove the hard disks and MacOS boot SSD and start from the DVD. This will allow me to format the new SSD and install Windows booted from the DVD (picking legacy BIOS mode not EFI). Once installed I should have internet over Ethernet and can download "brigadier" and use this to install first the Mac Pro bootcamp drivers then the ones for the iMac Pro to get APFS boot disk recognition from within the startup control panel in Windows.
After the bootcamp drivers are installed and Windows has done its updates this should then allow the original disks (which I only need access to in MacOS) to be added back to the machine and allow dual booting between Mojave and Windows using the startup disk control panel (Ideally I want to leave SIP enabled which I think prevents other tools for switching?).
Hopefully I've not missed anything?
OK in case it helps other I'm posting these notes. I followed the instructions in this thread and now have Windows 10 on a new SSD but did have and am seeing some issues.
The first was that downloading the latest release it wouldn't fit on a DVD (it was 5.6GB whichever version I picked it seemed). Thankfully I had an old DVD I had burnt of an earlier release when considering doing this before and that worked but, not until I put the SSD in bay 1. For some reason the installer said no disks existed when I tired in bay 4. I had already removed all my MacOS drives.
Once Windows was installed I followed the instructions for Brigadier and the Bootcamp drivers. At first I was getting 7-Zip errors but found after a search that running with admin rights would solve this and it did.
Windows had already installed some AMD software for my RX580 and offered to install the Logitech software for my mouse. The Mac Pro 5.1 Bootcamp drivers wouldn't install saying I needed Windows 7. The iMac Pro ones did however install and I could then see the bootcamp option to change startup disk (still to actually try once my Mac disk were back in the machine). Being an old version I ran the Windows updates and eventually got all those installed. I noticed it is the home version so can only see one processor. I've not activated it yet but assume if I buy a Pro key I can get both seen? Probably not too important for games but might be worthwhile if I find other software I need to run. I also double checked it was installed as legacy boot.
I installed Steam and download Shadow of the Tomb Raider (as it won't run on Mojave and I have too many 32-bit games to finish to try an unsupported Catalina install at this time). Once downloaded this did run but crashed at the end of the benchmark with a driver error...
I decided to put my MacOS disks back to test and the computer booted up into MacOS (guess NVRAM had remembered this as the default). I'll test switching back and forth likely tomorrow. MacOS can see the Bootcamp Partition which is named as such but there is also another volume "System Reserved" showing in the Finder?
The first was that downloading the latest release it wouldn't fit on a DVD (it was 5.6GB whichever version I picked it seemed). Thankfully I had an old DVD I had burnt of an earlier release when considering doing this before and that worked but, not until I put the SSD in bay 1. For some reason the installer said no disks existed when I tired in bay 4. I had already removed all my MacOS drives.
Once Windows was installed I followed the instructions for Brigadier and the Bootcamp drivers. At first I was getting 7-Zip errors but found after a search that running with admin rights would solve this and it did.
Windows had already installed some AMD software for my RX580 and offered to install the Logitech software for my mouse. The Mac Pro 5.1 Bootcamp drivers wouldn't install saying I needed Windows 7. The iMac Pro ones did however install and I could then see the bootcamp option to change startup disk (still to actually try once my Mac disk were back in the machine). Being an old version I ran the Windows updates and eventually got all those installed. I noticed it is the home version so can only see one processor. I've not activated it yet but assume if I buy a Pro key I can get both seen? Probably not too important for games but might be worthwhile if I find other software I need to run. I also double checked it was installed as legacy boot.
I installed Steam and download Shadow of the Tomb Raider (as it won't run on Mojave and I have too many 32-bit games to finish to try an unsupported Catalina install at this time). Once downloaded this did run but crashed at the end of the benchmark with a driver error...
I decided to put my MacOS disks back to test and the computer booted up into MacOS (guess NVRAM had remembered this as the default). I'll test switching back and forth likely tomorrow. MacOS can see the Bootcamp Partition which is named as such but there is also another volume "System Reserved" showing in the Finder?
I'm currently trying to do this to re-install Windows 10 from a clean slate but I can't get anything to show (I'm using an RX 560) any suggestions? It's a fresh disc. I can hear the superdrive spinning up and down for about a minute but then it slows down and goes silent, still a black screen.
It shows up as "ESD-ISO". The Windows 7 drive is my Win10 drive, I just never renamed it
I'm assuming you are also on an old Mac Pro given you say you are using an RX560?
It looks like your Mac does think the DVD is bootable if it appears there so if you are wanting to start fresh you could erase the existing Windows drive (perhaps make a clone else where first in case you need to restore it) and remove the Mac disk from the machine. Then try again booting from the optical drive by holding down "C".
It does take an age to boot from the DVD from what I saw.
It looks like your Mac does think the DVD is bootable if it appears there so if you are wanting to start fresh you could erase the existing Windows drive (perhaps make a clone else where first in case you need to restore it) and remove the Mac disk from the machine. Then try again booting from the optical drive by holding down "C".
It does take an age to boot from the DVD from what I saw.
Yeah I'm using a 4,1 flashed to a 5,1; since holding C doesn't really seem to work I assume I can try setting the disk as startup? resetting pram resets it to macOS anyways
Edit: I formatted the windows SSD (exFat/mbr, I assume it doesn't matter since the windows installer formats as ntfs?), Set the installer disc as startup, turned off the mac, and booted. (I forgot to take out the macOS ssd) the installer did show up in around 5 minutes or so after booting, so I now know it works; but I had to turn the mac back off to take out the macOS SSD.
I re-tried the process and now the installer doesn't show.. a bit stumped here, do I need the macOS drive in it?.. After selecting the installer as startup *in macOS*, turning it off and removing the macOS SSD, it doesn't boot the installer automatically, nor when I hold C. Only when I have the macOS drive in the system..
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At least you know the DVD installer is OK. I also formatted the SSD in MacOS before booting from the DVD but although the guide in this thread says the drive can be in any slot I couldn't get it seen when in bay 4 (not sure if this was to do with the the 3.5 to 2.5 adaptor). I ended up removing and disconnecting all drives except the optical drive and moving the new SSD to drive bay 1.
Also worth removing anything other than the mouse and keyboard connected to the Mac if the trouble persists.
Also worth removing anything other than the mouse and keyboard connected to the Mac if the trouble persists.
I'll try it in drivebay 1, the windows SSD is in bay 2; I don't have anything else connected either
Nothing changed when putting it in Bay 1, booting it normally doesn't even engage the superdrive; holding C does, but nothing ever shows up and the disc stops spinning a minute or so after.
If it can work with the macOS SSD in there, you can install Windows with the macOS SSD installed. Just be careful not to format the wrong drive.