Mac Mini Server 2012 Factory Restore/Boot Camp/Windows8.1/WHITE SCREEN

[Miscellaneous]

Hello,

I have a Mac Mini Server 2012 which I have had for around 6 months. I use it quite a lot mainly for Music Production on the OS X side and Graphic Design on the Windows side.

I recently decided to factory restore it as I wanted to spring clean it and reorganise the way some of my apps were installed. The way I had it set up was it was running OS X on one SSD and Windows 8.1 (installed using Boot Camp) on the other SSD. The way I went about the factory restore was I first used disk utility to erase/format the Windows SSD to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and then went about the factory restore of OS X onto the other SSD as normal (following instructions from the Apple website).

The issue I am having now is that my newly installed Windows 8.1 (used solely on a single SSD) is hanging on a white screen for quite a long time before the Windows splash screen shows up where before when I would boot or restart into Windows there was no white screen and it would go straight into the Windows splash screen and load to the desktop very quickly.

So my question is...

Why am I getting this prolonged white screen before the splash screen appears? How can I get rid of it? It was certainly not present on my previous installation. Can anyone advise me what the computer is doing during this time so that I can do some further research into a solution.

It's probably not a major issue, but I would really appreciate it if someone in the know could help me out.

Cheers!

 

[scottsjack]

Make sure both boot disks, Mac in Preferences and Mac in Bootcamp in Windows are set to the same drive.

 

[Miscellaneous]

Hi scottsjack,

Thanks for your reply, not sure exactly what you mean to be honest. Could you explain a bit more if possible? Maybe guide me through it?

Much appreciated.

 

[Miscellaneous]

Update On The Situation...

My Mac Mini is still under AppleCare so I decided to get in touch with support to see if they could help. I spoke to a few advisors over the phone and they asked me to go through a few troubleshooting techniques which unfortunately did not solve the issue.

They advised me to book an appointment at my local store which I was unable to do due to the booking times they had available so we arranged for the Mac Mini to be collected from my home and to be assessed/repaired by Amsys. I received a call from Amsys the following day to say that the Windows SSD would either be repaired or replaced and that the drive would have to be erased. The advisor from Amsys then told me that I would hear from them on Monday.

I'll keep this thread updated...

 

[Miscellaneous]

Update...

Unfortunately I still haven't heard from Amsys regarding my Mac Mini, I will get in touch with them tomorrow for an update. Hopefully they'll have some good news for me!

Just noticed that there is probably a more suitable section for this thread seeing as it's more likely a Boot Camp issue than a Mac Mini issue. I'm still new to this forum so I don't really know my way around.

 

[Miscellaneous]

Quick update...

I got my Mac Mini back from repair yesterday morning. The report said that the SSD had failed and that a new SSD was fitted.

I set up the Mac Mini and logged into my user account and was presented with following error message...

"The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer"

Having never seen this message before and not knowing what to do I called the repair company. I spoke to the technician who fitted the SSD who asked me to reboot to see if the message would disappear, which it did not.

So they arranged for the Mac Mini to be collected and are now assessing the computer again.

Does anyone have any experience with the error message above? I have done a quick google search and read some threads about external hard drives not working properly.

 

[Miscellaneous]

Any Idea's...?

I've been doing some research into the issue I am having with Boot Camp. I've read quite a few threads about people having slow Windows 7 boot times but I believe that my issue is quite different. The white screen issue I am having is before the Windows 8.1 splash screen even appears. I was reading this discussion earlier which is identical to the problem I am having;

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2224948?tstart=0

I would love to hear any ideas