Problems installing W7 / W10 on iMac 2010

[GreyLotus]

Hi guys,

This must have been discussed a bunch of times, but I can't seem to find an (updated) fix.

I'm trying to install Windows 7 32b on my iMac 2010. I run both Catalina and High Sierra, and I own both, the official Windows 7 Install DVD, as well as a .iso file which I could use. I already created a partition of 100GB on my SSD to run W7 on.

Problem 1: Install DVD doesn't get detected as a bootable Volume when holding down ALT key) at boot. Pretty much immediately gets auto-ejected.

Problem 2: Bootcamp
Will not let me create a bootable USB drive under neither High Sierra nor Catalina, the latter only supporting W10 install anyway.
Under High Sierra, Bootcamp consistently crashes right after clicking "continue" in the first Screen. There is no external drive connected & no CD/DVD inserted at this point.

I suspect it can't be that hard, but if anyone can point me in the right direction, I'd be grateful.

 

[mdgm]

Your iMac has a DVD drive so Apple expects Bootcamp to be installed from a DVD.

However you can disable SIP and modify the Bootcamp Assistant app in High Sierra to allow you to use USB instead.

Looks like you have a 3rd party GPU installed. That could be related to the issues you are having.

Perhaps rather than using Bootcamp Assistant, create a FAT32 partition on your HDD/SSD using Disk Utility, simply format a USB key in Disk Utility to use FAT32 (I think this should still work with Windows 7, with recent Windows 10 you need to use ExFAT as there is a wim file that is >4GB) if it's not already using that, put the contents of the Windows 7 iso on and try booting off the USB key to install Windows.

 

[GreyLotus]

Perhaps rather than using Bootcamp Assistant, create a FAT32 partition on your HDD/SSD using Disk Utility, simply format a USB key in Disk Utility to use FAT32 (I think this should still work with Windows 7, with recent Windows 10 you need to use ExFAT as there is a wim file that is >4GB) if it's not already using that, put the contents of the Windows 7 iso on and try booting off the USB key to install Windows.

Hi, thanks for this. I tried this 3 times, each time with a different scheme when formatting the USB to FAT under Catalina (GUID, Master Boot Record, Apple Partition Scheme), none of them made the USB bootable.

I've tried entering recovery mode in order to check the SIP status, but I just get a white screen.

I'm honestly lost.

 

[GreyLotus]

Hi there,
Unfortunately, still haven't managed to install W7 :-(
As I said, I can no longer access recovery mode. But before I installed Catalina, I surely did disable SIP, so I think it still is.

Any help is much appreciated.

 

[mdgm]

I think with at least one of Refind Plus or Open Core there is the option to disable SIP in the configuration.

 

[GreyLotus]

I think with at least one of Refind Plus or Open Core there is the option to disable SIP in the configuration.

Hi, I managed to enter Recovery Mode when High Sierra was selected as startup drive. I can re-assure SIP is disabled.
But, if I open Bootcamp Assistant under High Sierra, it immediately crashes after the first "continue".
I also tried to create a bootable W7, and also W10 usb drive with unetbootin, but the mac wouldn't recognize them as bootable.

Why on earth is this so hard....

 

[GreyLotus]

listing all the steps I took so far (updated):
(By now, I no longer care if it's W7 or W10, I just want to get one of them to work. I have proper ISO files at hand for both)

1. Partition main internal SSD:
- 800GBs Catalina
- 100GBs High Sierra
- 100GBs for W7 or W10 installation (exFAT)

2. Tried booting from the W7 32bit install CD -> Doesn't get recognized.

2. Under Catalina:
Tried to use Bootcamp; only option is to burn the ISO to a bootable CD/DVD, but under Catalina, my internal superdrive doesn't recognize any blank CDs or DVDs, and doesn't properly work anyway. So I guess this option is obsolete.

3. Under High Sierra:
BootCamp working again since I changed my startup disk; Played around with the info.plist file until I saw all three options in the main Window of BootCamp assistant. Created a bootable USB with the W10 64bit ISO (it automatically downloaded the Windows Support Software Tools during the process).
-> USB not detected as bootable disk.

4. Created a bootable USB using "UnetBootin" for both W7 and W10.
-> USB not detected as bootable disk.

5. a) Manually formatted the USB drive to exFAT copied the W10 ISO content onto it, along with the Windows support Software Tools downloaded from Apple.*
-> USB not detected as bootable disk

5. b) Manually formatted the USB drive to FAT copied the W7 ISO content onto it, along with the Windows support Software Tools downloaded from Apple.*
-> USB not detected as bootable disk

*When formatting, I tried through Master Boot Record and all the options at least once; but none of them worked.

 

[Joeronzk]

I managed to install Windows 10 on Macbook Pro after hours of troubleshooting. Some of the tricks I did:

1> Check if the ISO file is broken or not. Double click the Windows 10 ISO, Mac should mount it automatically. This means the ISO file is fine.

2> Format USB to FAT32 with MBR when creating bootable USB from Windows ISO. I tried exFAT and NTFS but failed. USB not showing up when pressing Option key during startup.

3>Try a different ISO burning program. UNetbootin is not working for Windows 10 as far as I tried out. Give a try on this one: https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...-for-creating-bootable-usb-installer.2256303/

4>Make sure Windows 10 ISO image is not larger than 4.5 GB especially install.wim is not bigger than 4GB. This is very important as FAT32 only supports file less than 4GB. You need to download an old version of Windows 10 ISO or split the latest Windows 10 ISO (20H2, 5.8GB) with wimlib.

p.s the above suggestion is for Windows 10 ISO and Apple does not recommend installing Win7 on Mac.

Hope this helps!

 

[GreyLotus]

Hi @Joeronzk , thanks for the reply.

Meanwhile, I finally got a couple of steps further! Still not at the end, unfortunately.

The trick for me was to manually create the USB drive (copied the contents of ISO and Windows Support Software onto the exFAT formatted drive). So I only used bootcamp to partition the SSD drive, but not to create the bootable USB.
Under Catalina, this only worked after some info.plist editing (Bootcamp 6.1).

This finally enabled to boot the iMac from EFI Boot.


NEXT PROBLEM:
When trying to install, there was the MBR/GPT error which is also mentioned here: https://fgimian.github.io/blog/2016/03/12/installing-windows-10-on-a-mac-without-bootcamp/

I fixed it the same way this tutorial says (gdisk tool), worked ok.

When creating a new partition on the "unallocated space", W10 automatically creates two more smaller partitions.

Now when I try to continue, I get this error:
"We Couldn't Create a New Partition or Locate an Existing One"

Any idea what could cause the issue and how to fix it?

 

[GreyLotus]

Hi, just bumping this, as it still wasn't solved and I'm getting desperate :-(

 

[Kent W]

Perhaps you should consider to go back to basics. A clean install of Mac OS High Sierra with original HW in the iMac.

Then install W7 via BootCamp and do it via DVD to ensure legacy mode (Apple drivers for Windows for this Mac is designed for legacy BIOS emulation mode, not EFI/USB, you will get problems with e.g. soundcard). I read you mentioned some problems with DVD reader. Anyhow with the modifications you described, it may cause the problem.

If you got back to basics with a clean HS on standard HW I assume you have at least the correct fundamentals in place for upgrade.

I have installed W on iMac 2011 legacy boot setup starting with a clean HS and it went just fine. After install you can upgrade to W10. there are some tweaks that may make it run better (available info on the net).

Anyhow I even decided to put Windows 10 on a separate external Thunderbolt SSD with a working BootCamp setup, but that is a bit more complicated with first Paralells W10 install and then a transfer to external SSD through Win2USB software. I use Macrium Reflect Free as my back-up and all is great. Everything works and MS keeps my iMac up to date which Apple refuses.

 

[Aesthetica]

Hi, just bumping this, as it still wasn't solved and I'm getting desperate :-(

Bumping this again because I'm having the same issue installing Windows 7,8 and 10 on my Mid 2011 iMac, its being a real pain in the ass and its taken me days to get to this point. Did you manage to install it?

My setup:

• macOS Mojave via dosdude patcher on a 1TB SSD. (So no option to create a partition in Boot Camp Assistant.)
• 200GB exFAT Partition for Windows created manually in Disk Utility. Reformatted in Windows setup each time.
• Nvidia K4100m upgraded GPU

I recently wiped the whole drive because I though previous partitioning might have messed something up, so some of these methods I tried with a slightly different setup, but I'm now still getting the same problems.

Methods I've tried

Windows 10 via OpenCore (USB Stick)

This method looked so clean and simple! But it didn't work for me. First, I wasn't able to create a 200mb partition on my SSD for OpenCore (Disk Utility says 'Operation Failed') so couldn't follow the tutorial exactly and booted via a USB Stick.

I get to the first reboot of the setup and it tells me that “Windows could not prepare the computer to boot into the next phase of installation”. I think it might not know what drive to reboot into, but I can't remove any because they're all in use at the time.

I'm not sure if the tutorial expects us to be using OpenCore for everything (macOS included) - maybe its the mix of dosdude Mojave and Opencore that's not possible?

Windows 10 via Legacy boot (USB) ,

Windows 7 via UEFI Boot, Windows 8 via Legacy Boot (CD)

All of these options give me the

"We Couldn't Create a New Partition or Locate an Existing One" error that you get above.

Windows 7 via Legacy Boot (CD)

Well this just gives me a blank screen, even the backlight isn't on! Something to do with my upgraded video card maybe?


Next Attempt: Install High Sierra (will try on a USB stick first), Partition with the old Boot Camp Assistant, install Windows and then Upgrade to Mojave. But I have a feeling this might mess up the boot menu or something

 

[Aesthetica]

More absolute misery: Wiped my drive and reinstalled El Capitan (had it on hand) to use an officially supported (on my iMac and with Windows 7) version of Boot Camp Assistant. Crashes upon clicking Continue.

Every single avenue to install Windows, even the most simple seems to end in failure, why?!

Another Update: ???

Managed to get Windows 8.1 running via Boot Camp Assistant after restarting El Capitan and removing external drives. Yes! Obviously Windows 8 is absolutely horrible but since its just for games I guess I can bare being in the OS for 30 seconds.

However I do feel like as soon as I reinstall Mojave on the El Capitan partition something horrible is going to happen.