2011 i7 Macbook Pro unable to boot from any Windows CD?
- by Craig Otis
I'm encountering issues installing Windows alongside my Lion install. I'm attempting to install from the internal SuperDrive, after using Boot Camp to partition what was a single, HFS+ volume.
When holding down Option at boot, the CD appears in the startup list, but upon selecting it, I get a gray screen for 5 minutes, then a flashing white folder.
I tried installing rEFIt and using this to boot the CD, but I receive an error about "Not Found" being returned from the "LocateDevicePath", and a mention of the firmware not supporting booting using legacy methods.
In the Console, when opening the StartupDisk preference pane (which never presents the CD as a selectable option), I see:
11/25/11 4:39:31.159 PM System Preferences: isCDROM: 0 isDVDROM:1
11/25/11 4:39:31.159 PM System Preferences: mountable disk appeared: /Volumes/GRMCPRFRER_EN_DVD
11/25/11 4:39:33.214 PM System Preferences: - So far so good, passing disk to System Searcher.
11/25/11 4:39:33.218 PM System Preferences: OSXCheck: No boot.efi in System Folder or volume root.
11/25/11 4:39:33.220 PM System Preferences: WinCheck: Not a valid windows filesystem: /Volumes/GRMCPRFRER_EN_DVD
11/25/11 4:39:33.220 PM System Preferences: WinCheck: Not a valid windows filesystem: /Volumes/GRMCPRFRER_EN_DVD
I'm at a loss here. I've done my research, but it sounds like most of the rEFIt errors of this nature are caused by installing from a thumbdrive, or an external drive. I'm using the internal SuperDrive.
Also, I've tried this with two different disks:
A Windows XP SP2 CD
A Windows 7 x86 DVD
Both are disks I've had around for years, and I've used them reliably in the past. The system is an early 2011 15" Macbook Pro, all firmware updates installed.