Native Install Windows 10 on mac pro 1.1 / 2.1 without usb or dvd or bootcamp

[andrew nz]

Native Install Windows 10 on mac pro 1.1 / 2.1 without usb or dvd or bootcamp

This is a long read.
Also it is a solution for aggrieved Warcraft players who are compelled to buy expensive mac pro 5.1 and video card to play.
With this solution you have all the tools you need to continue to play warcraft.
Shame on Apple for expecting mac users to invest such outrageous hardware.
You can download all your tools and provided you have a late model video card, there is no requirement to replace your mac pro- at least not for another 2-3 years.
Please cross post into any warcraft forum.


My mac pro is 2.1 flashed although I do not think it is necessary if you have not done that.
42G RAM
All HDD bays occupied and Firewire extrenal HDD.
Gigabyte R9 280x oc non-flashed card in slot 1 video
Nvidia 7300GT in slot 4 video for boot screen
Sound via Harman Kardon Soundsticks iSub with 3.5mm audio jack.
Apple wired keyboard.
Logitech wireless mouse
Multiple monitor setup: 1 boot screen and 2 main monitors with the R9 card.
Operating under 10.10.5 Yosemite which is on SSD.




These are at least 4 phases to installation.
1 collecting tools.
2 formatting the target disk/partition
3 and preliminary install with Virtualbox.
4 full native install from windows 10 installer.
Cups of Tea or coffee because phase 2-3 will take about 30-90 minutes but phase 4 could take 1-3 hours.
Carefully follow the instructions and I have indicated places where you can pause installation and resume later.

I recommend a dedicated disk or in my case I partitioned a disk whilst trying several usb and dvd creation options of which none worked well.
I also tried modifying Bootcamp assistant under el Captian not Yosemite which also worked well but I could not create a DVD and the usb option failed probably because of the 32 bit EFI issue.
The usb option is easily created but the mac would not boot from the usb regardless and my DVD writer seems flakey at best.
The working Mac os for this will be 10.10.5 but perhaps would work on el Capitan.

The idea is to create a fake preparation/install through virtualbox, prepare some files on the target disk/partition, boot through rEFIt into the windows installer and install as native procedure.

The issue is EFI and BIOS boot which virtualbox will enable:
"use VirtualBox with a virtualized disk file rather than give VirtualBox access to an entire hard disk.
This approach will enable you to boot Windows in either BIOS or EFI mode, and it will
create a virtual partition table on the virtual disk to match the Windows boot mode.”

Thanks to Rod Smith for this advice. https://www.rodsbooks.com/gdisk/hybrid.html
In fact we will instruct Virtualbox to install files on a “real” not virtual disk.


Phase One:

Gather tools

Disk Utility
Terminal


GDisk https://sourceforge.net/projects/gptfdisk/files/gptfdisk/
Virtualbox https://www.virtualbox.org
rEFIt http://refit.sourceforge.net
NTFS for mac or similar. This one has a 15 day trial which will work while you are fine tuning the installation.
https://www.paragon-software.com/home/ntfs-mac/
Mac Fans Control windows (optional): https://www.crystalidea.com/macs-fan-control/download
BootChamp (optional) https://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/28468/bootchamp
Sharpkeys https://github.com/randyrants/sharpkeys/
Mounty https://mounty.app

Windows ISO.

There are several methods to modify a native Microsoft ISO to enable it to work with the mac pro 32 bit EFI.
I used one from Hrutkay mods and chose the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update (1709) 64bit ISO.

Install the mac applications in their default install locations, except the ISO, place on desktop.


Now the fun begins.
Phase Two:


1 Install Gdisk and Virtualbox in default locations but not rEFIt or NTFS for mac just yet.

2 Identify your target disk.
Open Disk Utility to partition and choose the partition size. I suggest you want at least 1T and divide in half.
Format the mac target partition as mac os extended journaled and GUID. Choose any name you wish.
Format the Windows partition as ms-dos FAT.


3 Use Disk Utility to identify the disk /partition you are modifying.
Click on target partition or disk and click the info button at the top of the Disk utility window.

You will need this information later, save it. It will look like this:

Disk Identifier : disk2s3
Mount Point : /Volumes/PROMETHEUS

4 Important: In Disk utility Unmount the target partition/disk



5 Open Terminal
Use the following to create a Protective MBR.
If MBR is Hybrid GPT when using Virtualbox later, the Virtualbox enabled windows installer will complain about a GPT disk and you will not be able to install.

Gdisk is accessed in Terminal.
Use your own disk identifier similar and formatted as above:

Enter:
sudo gdisk /dev/disk2s3

Set MBR to protective:


• Enter p to view the existing partition table and verify you’re working on the correct disk

• Enter x to enter the expert menu

• Enter n to create a fresh protective MBR

• Enter w to save your changes and confirm the change when asked

• Enter q to exit Gdisk

• Run Gdisk to show your disk layout:

Enter:
sudo gdisk -l /dev/disk2s3

Your partition table should look something like this:

Warning: Devices opened with shared lock will not have their
partition table automatically reloaded!
Partition table scan:
MBR: protective
BSD: not present
APM: not present
GPT: present

Found valid GPT with protective MBR; using GPT.​

Next part thanks to Rod Smith https://www.rodsbooks.com/gdisk/hybrid.html
Go the Rods site for in depth analysis of MBR hybrid disks.

You need to modify the MBR we just created.
In this you will need to identify the partitions you have to modify for Virtuallbox and later the windows installer to recognise.

If you have divided a disk into halves, it will look something like this:

Disk /dev/disk2: 1953525168 sectors, 931.5 GiB
Sector size (logical): 512 bytes
Disk identifier (GUID): 0591B5CC-5A2D-4AB7-9558-3F9D0308369E
Partition table holds up to 128 entries
Main partition table begins at sector 2 and ends at sector 33
First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 1953525134
Partitions will be aligned on 8-sector boundaries
Total free space is 524301 sectors (256.0 MiB)

Number Start (sector) End (sector) Size Code Name
1 40 409639 200.0 MiB EF00 EFI System Partition
2 409640 976850599 465.6 GiB AF00 UNTITLED
3 977112744 1953262983 465.5 GiB 0700 DOS_FAT_32_ PROMETHEUS_2​

The partitions to modify are 2 and 3.

My thanks to Rod for pointing me to his site.
The following is my use of Rod's instruction again using GDisk:

Identify your target disk as previously.

6 Open Terminal
Enter sudo gdisk /dev/disk2
Enter r

as follows you will see something similar:

Command (? for help): r

Recovery/transformation command (? for help): p
Disk /dev/disk2: 1953525168 sectors, 931.5 GiB
Sector size (logical): 512 bytes
Disk identifier (GUID): 0591B5CC-5A2D-4AB7-9558-3F9D0308369E
Partition table holds up to 128 entries
Main partition table begins at sector 2 and ends at sector 33
First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 1953525134
Partitions will be aligned on 8-sector boundaries
Total free space is 524301 sectors (256.0 MiB)

Number Start (sector) End (sector) Size Code Name
1 40 409639 200.0 MiB EF00 EFI System Partition
2 409640 976850599 465.6 GiB AF00 UNTITLED
3 977112744 1953262983 465.5 GiB 0700 DOS_FAT_32_ PROMETHEUS

Recovery/transformation command (? for help): h

WARNING! Hybrid MBRs are flaky and dangerous! If you decide not to use one,
just hit the Enter key at the below prompt and your MBR partition table will
be untouched.

Type from one to three GPT partition numbers, separated by spaces, to be
added to the hybrid MBR, in sequence: 2 3
Place EFI GPT (0xEE) partition first in MBR (good for GRUB)? (Y/N): y​

Note: Gdisk will ask for hex codes. I used Gdisk defaults.

Creating entry for GPT partition #2 (MBR partition #2)
Enter an MBR hex code (default AF): [hit enter]
Set the bootable flag? (Y/N): y

Creating entry for GPT partition #3 (MBR partition #3)
Enter an MBR hex code (default 07): [hit enter]
Set the bootable flag? (Y/N): y

Unused partition space(s) found. Use one to protect more partitions? (Y/N): n

Recovery/transformation command (? for help): o (letter o lowercase not zero)

Disk size is 1953525168 sectors (931.5 GiB)
MBR disk identifier: 0x00000000
MBR partitions:

Number Boot Start Sector End Sector Status Code
1 1 409639 primary 0xEE
2 * 409640 976850599 primary 0xAF
3 * 977112744 1953262983 primary 0x07

Recovery/transformation command (? for help): w

Final checks complete. About to write GPT data. THIS WILL OVERWRITE EXISTING
PARTITIONS!!

Do you want to proceed? (Y/N): y
OK; writing new GUID partition table (GPT) to /dev/disk2.​

7 Enter q to quit GDisk.

The end goal is the asterisk confirmation that the partitions have been modified.

8 Reboot the mac.

Now is a correct place to pause and you could continue some time later or another day.
Phase Two is complete.


Next we will work with Virtualbox.


Phase 3:

1 Open Terminal
2 Open Disk Utility select your target disk/parititon, get info as perviously and copy disk identifier.

3 Open Virtualbox

Note: because we are using Terminal, it does not have a saved state so if you stop somewhere in the Virtualbox preparation you will have to start this section again.

In Virtualbox
Create a virtual machine without a hard drive:

New
name: windows 10 install
version: windows 10 64bit
I selected 4G ram
select: “Do not add virtual hard disk” (we will add later.)
continue: ignore warning and proceed.

4 Open Terminal
Enter sudo chmod 777 /dev/disk2s3
Enter sudo VBoxManage internalcommands createrawvmdk -rawdisk /dev/disk2 -filename PROMETHEUS.vmdk -partitions 3


Navigate to Home on your current disk.
Double click your HD icon, open users, open your Home folder


5 In Terminal
Enter sudo chown $USER PROMETHEUS*.vmdk

6 Copy the 2 files which will look something like
PROMETHEUS.vmdk
PROMETHEUS-pt.vmdk

into a folder called VirtualBox VMs and into the folder the name of your virtual machine we called windows 10 install (as above)


In Virtualbox
we now add the Windows iso which we placed on your desktop and the vdmk file:

7 Go to Settings: Storage
use the minus button at the bottom of the window to remove SATA
use the plus button to add IDE:
Select: Type ICH6
leave the use host enabled.

Select Add optical drive: add your modified ISO
Select Add hard disk : navigate to the VirtualBox VMs folder and select your version of PROMETHEUS.vmdk


8 In Virtualbox
Hit ok then the Start button.

The installer will gather information. Work through the language and other options at this stage of the install.
Select the correct partition/disk in the installer and select format.
If the installer complains about GPT, Phase 2 was unsuccessful and would have to be repeated but you should format your correct partition/disk anyway.

Virtualbox will now begin to install windows files on the partition we nominated and prepared.

Allow it to install and eventually the installer will notify to reboot.

After about 5 seconds into the reboot select the power off button


9 Quit Virtualbox.



We are about to install windows.

10 Install rEFIt
open your disk of you current drive which is your root level
mount the rEFIt image file and drag the EFI folder to the root of your disk


11 In Terminal
Enter cd [space] drag the efi folder into terminal [enter]
Enter cd [space] refit [enter]
Enter ./enable.sh [enter]



12 Install NTFS for mac
Phase 3 is complete.


13 Reboot the mac.
Hold option key and reboot back into your current mac os.

Open the modified ISO on your desktop and drag copy all the installer files into your windows NTFS partition/disk.
There is no need to delete any files that are there. The installer will remove what it does not want and will notify you that previous installation will be in an old.windows folder which can be deleted later.


This is a place to pause you could install windows later or the next day. Everything is prepared.



Phase 4:
Windows native install


1 Reboot into rEFIt
Hold option key and use arrow keys to navigate to windows icon and select it.


The screen will probably flicker and it could take a few minutes but if you have got this far everything is proceeding well.
This part will take a long time 1-3 hours.

rEFIt will have booted and selected the Windows installer.
If it reboots during the install and you are back in the mac os just reboot hold option and select windows as previously, the installer will take over again.
There will be periods of what appears to be no activity.
At this point all you can do is monitor progress and wait. Any messages that appear can be ignored.

2 Eventually Windows 10 user install settings microsoft account and finally desktop will appear.

3 Open Windows update and let it update everything.


Phase 4 complete.
Windows 10 is successfully installed.


Clean up:

Upgrade your video drivers.
Windows 10 found AMD drivers for my Gigabyte card and nvidia drivers for my 7300gt, but the AMD were old and video was unstable until I upgraded to the latest adrenalin drivers.


In Windows

Enter
[Command key] r
Enter temp

select all the temp files and delete

Enter [Command key] r
Enter %temp%

select all files and delete.

delete any old windows folder
revise security and privacy options in control panel

watch this vid to edit “regedit" and speed up windows

Notes:

I installed sharpkeys to use the secondary keys on the numeral keys "@#$" etc.
Bootcamp 4, 5 installer does not work.
I installed the realtek sound drivers which make my Isub and soundsticks work perfectly and perhaps even better than mac os.


Bluetooth: untested.
Wifi: no card in my machine, untested.
Ethernet: Windows detects and installs everything, no action needed.
System clock: does not auto update.



Warcraft.

Download and install Battlenet Windows which will then download and install the 52G warcraft game.

You will need at least a radeon 7950 or better video card and update the drivers to adrenalin drivers.

I used the AMD auto detect tool
https://www.amd.com/en/support/grap...s/amd-radeon-r9-200-series/amd-radeon-r9-280x


Warcraft is playable with high quality settings on a mac pro 1,1 , 2,1 under Windows 10 with R9 280x/7970 card.

 

[sanderhartveld]

Hi Andrew and others,

Thanks so much for all the effort that went into this post. I am getting stuck in Phase 4 and I hope someone can give some hints on why this is happening.

My system:
Macpro 1,1 flashed to 2,1
32 GB RAM
Running El Capitan 10.11.6
Upgraded from Intel Xeon 5150 Dual Core 2.66 GHz to Intel Xeon X5365 SLAED Stepping G0 Quad Core 3 GHz
Currently still on NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT 9 MB because I need Windows to flash my MSI Radeon R9 280x 3G Gaming OC and putting the card in slot 4 with the R9 in slot 1 does not give boot screen for me.
1TB disk split in 2 like instructed.
I am using the same (1709) 64bit ISO
VirtualBox 5.2.20 r125813
Latest versions of NTFS for Mac, rEFIt and GDisk

I'm getting far on the instructions in El Capitan, but when booting native into Windows to continue the install (Phase 4) from rEFIt for the first time I get this blue screen error. Pressing Enter gives a single short screen flash and comes back to the same screen and F8 does the same

I will try to run the install from Virtual Box again because that's what wrote winload.exe to the disk.
Also I will try to burn the (1709) 64bit ISO to dvd and boot from there.

Any suggestions are most welcome. Thanks in advance.

 

[andrew nz]

I'm getting far on the instructions in El Capitan, but when booting native into Windows to continue the install (Phase 4) from rEFIt for the first time I get this blue screen error. Pressing Enter gives a single short screen flash and comes back to the same screen and F8 does the same

The encouraging news is you are getting to Phase 4.

Does this blue screen appear before the installer begins?

I remember some messages in some parts of the install.
Does it appear every time you try Phase 4?

Try another reboot into the windows option with rEFIt.

Also Disk utility now has an option to format NTFS while the demo is active in NTFS for mac.
I suggest drag copy the file from the image one more time Phase 3:13, and if that does not work, delete all the files and then drag copy the files into the partition again.

Check NTFS for mac. Does it offer legacy boot? Phase 3:12.

Restart the mac back into mac os and then once again into the rEFIt windows option installer.

The NVIDIA card is better in slot 4 it will run at x8 not full speed because your R9 is in Slot 1 and you should get a boot screen from mac os with option key. That is the only reason i still have my 7300GT connected.
You do not really need to flash it for gaming in my opinion.

 

[sanderhartveld]

Update:
I am not a gamer, but I still want Windows 10. mainly to flash the R9 and for convienience.
The blue screen appears before the installer begins. I have not tried to start over at phase 1. But yes, every time I tried to boot (using refit or not) for starting phase 4 I got the blue screen.
Formatting the partition from the windows installer in virtualbox (phase 3:8) worked fine.
I figured the easyest way was to burn a dvd so I switched the method. Still using the partitions from gdisk. Installing by booting from dvd went very smooth. Also I preserverd the Recovery HD partition from apple.
I found that before boot I need to unplug the monitor cables from the R9 to get a boot screen on the NVIDIA card in slot 4.
So Windows 10 is installed. I could not yet find a windows driver for the NVIDIA card. Audio works perfect.
NTFS for mac (at the moment) does not offer legacy boot because of hybernation.
Next challange is to find out how to boot windows after it has hybernated itself. As soon as I have I will disable hybernating. Flashing the R9 was not succesful yet but that's another topic.

 

[andrew nz]

I am glad you installed windows 10, yet disappointed you were unable to continue without the DVD option.

I think it is hibernated because windows 10 was not shut down correctly.
I had that issue and solved it by either restarting (or shutdown) in windows and on boot use the option key to select mac os. NTFS for mac should then report a boot option. Shut down the mac when you usually do so, from mac os not windows-unless you intend to boot into windows at next startup.
I have not had that issue since.

I found NVIDA drivers problematic to locate.
Try these:

https://www.geforce.com/drivers/results/57493

http://www.siliconguide.com/drivers/device/304/


Georforce also have a smart updater that might be able to detect the card and download a correct driver.
i did not have to disconnect monitors to get boot screen.

 

[orph]

vary cool project, iv installed win 7 on a dedicated drive with parallels before years ago forgot till i saw this.
i dont know if it still works but they do a demo so on the 14 day trial you can do it
https://www.parallels.com/blogs/how-to-get-windows-10-in-parallels-desktop-13-for-mac/

only thing was you get the parallels demons ruining in windows 7 (or did at the time) so in the end i just did it with a dvd boot, they don't do anything was just OCD to keep a slim system
thinking back i relay dont know why i did do a re install lol

i have no idea if it works as well as this and lets you do a DVD/legacy install

 

[andrew nz]

Here's another thought.
I downloaded and installed Destiny 2 Forsaken (70G!) and run it perfectly on high settings on my mac under Windows 10. it is free for download for Battlenet users for another 1-2 weeks.
It is unlikely to be ported for macs any time soon.

So there is now no need to trade or throw away your 1.1 mac pro especially if you want to try gaming. Same applies for 3.1 mac pros.

 

[orph]

is it worth grabbing?

relay with steam and gog + the massive backlog of good games that are fairly cheep you dont need much for games.

il 2 sturmovik + a stick will give you a year or two just to learn , i may have lost a lot of time to that & so happy i dont know hoe much time

and for games windows will more than double the performance most the time (or same FPS at much much higher settings kind of thing)

 

[andrew nz]

its free if you use battlenet.

As well it can be played on a mac pro 1.1 with windows 10 installed as above.

 

[sanderhartveld]

I think it is hibernated because windows 10 was not shut down correctly.
I had that issue and solved it by either restarting (or shutdown) in windows and on boot use the option key to select mac os. NTFS for mac should then report a boot option. Shut down the mac when you usually do so, from mac os not windows-unless you intend to boot into windows at next startup.
I have not had that issue since.

I found NVIDA drivers problematic to locate.
Try these:

https://www.geforce.com/drivers/results/57493

http://www.siliconguide.com/drivers/device/304/


Georforce also have a smart updater that might be able to detect the card and download a correct driver.
i did not have to disconnect monitors to get boot screen.

I managed to boot to Windows again and disable hibernate.
Windows did an automatic update while I was also installing one of your dirvers so I'm not sure what helped. But the GeForce is working fine now.

 

[andrew nz]

the GeForce is working fine now

I believe the correct driver is 309.08.
I have tried 32 and 64 bit makes no difference it will crash after some time.
I have numerous blue screen of death because of these drivers.


Your blue error above is likely caused by a BIOS error the mac or the installer not selecting BIOS but EFI and crashing if I interpret the situation correctly.
I doubt the ISO is damaged but perhaps rEFIt did not perform correctly.

Once installed and functioning you now have a selectable boot option in Startup disk and other boot options can be discarded if you wish.

http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2744141/error-code-0xc000000e.html

Could someone more familiar with legacy BIOS and EFI boot make comment?

 

[orph]

o did you use any of the apple bootcamp drivers ?

 

[andrew nz]

did you use any of the apple bootcamp drivers ?

only the realtek audio driver for my isub and soundsticks. Native drivers do not work.
The bootcamp setup installer does not work, you have to select the individual installers of each driver you may want to use.
i did not need any other than the realtek.

 

[orph]

k, think iv grabbed the realtek once from there site to as a second option.
tho i always get confused by windows drivers so not shore if it was good or bad to do that

 

[andrew nz]

does anyone have advice which radeon card could replace the nvidia 7300gt which is currently in slot 1?

It has to be mac os boot screen capable and also stable under windows 10.

 

[andrew nz]

update:

finally a solution to the compatibility NVIDIA-Radeon clash.
I have successfully installed a mac flashed ati 2600xt.

initially i replaced the stock nvidiai 7300gt which was in slot 4, but the mac pro did not seem to respond.

After the 2600xt was installed in slot3, the expansion slot software recognised it and I adjusted the speed for x4.
It is stable under a mac environment under 10.10.5. i have not cheeked other mac OS's yet.

There are pros and cons with the new card:

pro:
Windows 10 , the 2600xt mac flashed card is windows 10 bootscreen capable.
Windows 10 seems more stable and slightly faster.
On the mac side with 10.10.5, the screen is a little faster and is boot screen capable.

con:
under windows 10 although the card is capable of 1920x1080 i cannot achieve the resolution and Adrenalin AMD software does not recognise the card.
Windows 10 does recognise the card but uses a Microsoft basic display driver and i can use up to 1280x1024.


..

the lower resolution is aesthetically less appealing and less functional and the trade off is either
function and aesthetics with the 7300gt and less stability

or

with the 2600xt installed and under windows 10, lower resolution and less function but greater stability.

..



I am trying to custom install driver for only the 2600 card and to not overwrite the Adrenalin for the other 2 screen connected to the R9 280x.

i tried to install a legacy driver from AMD, which failed and i recovered to the previous installed windows system which took about 1 hour. So i do not want to repeat that exercise.


Can anyone advise how to custom install an ATI/AMD driver for the 2600xt only and how to achieve it?

 

[Foxyz]

Hi Andrew and others,

Thanks so much for all the effort that went into this post. I am getting stuck in Phase 4 and I hope someone can give some hints on why this is happening.

My system:
Macpro 1,1 flashed to 2,1
32 GB RAM
Running El Capitan 10.11.6
Upgraded from Intel Xeon 5150 Dual Core 2.66 GHz to Intel Xeon X5365 SLAED Stepping G0 Quad Core 3 GHz
Currently still on NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT 9 MB because I need Windows to flash my MSI Radeon R9 280x 3G Gaming OC and putting the card in slot 4 with the R9 in slot 1 does not give boot screen for me.
1TB disk split in 2 like instructed.
I am using the same (1709) 64bit ISO
VirtualBox 5.2.20 r125813
Latest versions of NTFS for Mac, rEFIt and GDisk

I'm getting far on the instructions in El Capitan, but when booting native into Windows to continue the install (Phase 4) from rEFIt for the first time I get this blue screen error. Pressing Enter gives a single short screen flash and comes back to the same screen and F8 does the same

I will try to run the install from Virtual Box again because that's what wrote winload.exe to the disk.
Also I will try to burn the (1709) 64bit ISO to dvd and boot from there.

Any suggestions are most welcome. Thanks in advance.

I am facing the same issue and I come accross it at phase 3 step 13, I can install Windows 10 from VirtualBox and then boot from it using rEFIt but I get this blue screen suggesting an issue with the MBR. At step 13 there's some vague explanation on how to copy the installer onto your drive it tells you to copy the installer files onto your NTFS drive of which I have no idea what drive? Do I copy it to the drive I just installed Windows on? I don't know if that'd work it's very vague, so I'm supposed to put the installer onto my hard drive and natively boot from it somehow or do I just install from VirtualBox and expect it to work?

 

[andrew nz]

i have not been her for quite long time.

I can asnwer that the 280 x card shouldbe in slot 1 and will not work in slot 4.
It seems slot 4 is for a RAId card which is written on the backplane itself.

i cannot coment about your blue screen of death. If is was per-installer it seems there might be a hardware issue.
you appear to be in windows recovery which indicates you are quite advanced in the process.


Next project (maybe this year finally found one i can afford)

Windows 10/11 install on Mac Pro 4.1/5.1... and later version of mac os's...

 

[andrew nz]

I am facing the same issue and I come accross it at phase 3 step 13, I can install Windows 10 from VirtualBox and then boot from it using rEFIt but I get this blue screen suggesting an issue with the MBR. At step 13 there's some vague explanation on how to copy the installer onto your drive it tells you to copy the installer files onto your NTFS drive of which I have no idea what drive? Do I copy it to the drive I just installed Windows on? I don't know if that'd work it's very vague, so I'm supposed to put the installer onto my hard drive and natively boot from it somehow or do I just install from VirtualBox and expect it to work?

as above, you copy from the windows disk image onto the windows formatted target disk.

i hope everyone is able to get it working.

 

[Nguyen Duc Hieu]

My understanding about the reason for the complicated procedure in post #1 was because you use only 1 cMP. Is that correct?
In case you had a Windows PC, it would be easy to create a Windows Installer on an SSD/HDD, plug it to 1 of the 6 SATA ports on the cMP 1,1 and boot it from there.
Or there is any issue with this method?
BootCamp auto installer can be run in Administration mode, as Hrutkay mods guided.
Or simply select and install only the drivers which Windows couldn't find and install automotically.

 

[andrew nz]

the whole point of this thread is that neeither a windows machine nor bootcamp are required.