Windows 10 (bootcamp) not booting

[Padaung]

Hi All,

I have a 2012 Mac Mini i5 running MacOS 10.10.5. Earlier this year I installed a copy of Windows 8 Pro and upgraded to Windows 10 before the free update period expired.

All had been working fine until last night. I could boot into either OS using System Preferences/Startup Disk to select the boot OS, or by pressing Alt at the boot chime to enter the boot OS selector menu.

Last night I went to boot into Windows by pressing Alt and got nothing but the Mac boot chime and then a black (blank) screen. No flashing cursor, not boot OS menu selector, nothing...

I had to press the power button for 10s to switch off the machine. I restarted, pressed Alt and the same happened. This time I left the machine on the black screen for about 2 mins and nothing happened. Again, I had to force shutdown. This time I didn't press Alt and the computer booted into MacOS as normal.

I then went into System Preferences/Startup Disk and selected Bootcamp from the list, and clicked Restart.

The computer restarted, boot chime and then black screen, nothing...

I then had a panic as force shutdown and rebooting (but not pressing Alt) as normal did not boot into MacOS any longer, it just went to the black screen again.

Subsequent force shutdowns and pressing Alt on startup still didn't produce the the boot OS selector.

After Googling I found the key combination of cmd+ctrl+r+p which forced the computer to do the boot chime twice in quick succession. This produced a black screen again. I tried again and this time after leaving the computer on the black screen for a few minutes MacOS thankfully appeared, hence I'm typing this message!

Has anyone any ideas on how to fix this?

Screen grabs below of the disk utility info - you can see it lists Bootcamp as having no files and not bootable, but it appears in Startup Disk as a boot option, and opening the Bootcamp partition shows folders and files.

 

[keysofanxiety]

Sounds like Winblows is stuck in an update or hibernation loop. Basically it goes into a weird extended hibernate mode (as Win 8 does), rather than properly shutting down like Win 7 did. This makes the boot time artificially quicker. On Windows laptops, a static power drain normally fixes the issue.

To fix it on a Mac, you can try access the existing BootCamp partition through VMWare or Parallels Desktop. Oddly enough, that frequently kicks it into working.

Once that's up and running, it'd be best to change your power settings so that it does the old shutdown. To do this:

1) When in Windows, press Windows key + R (CMD+R on your Mac) on your keyboard to bring up the Run dialogue box
2) Type in powercfg.cpl and press OK
3) Along the left hand side of power options, select 'Choose what the power button does'
4) Click 'Change settings that are currently unavailable'
5) Untick the option for 'Turn on fast startup'

Please let me know how you get on!

 

[Padaung]

Sounds like Winblows is stuck in an update or hibernation loop. Basically it goes into a weird extended hibernate mode (as Win 8 does), rather than properly shutting down like Win 7 did. This makes the boot time artificially quicker. On Windows laptops, a static power drain normally fixes the issue.

To fix it on a Mac, you can try access the existing BootCamp partition through VMWare or Parallels Desktop. Oddly enough, that frequently kicks it into working.

Once that's up and running, it'd be best to change your power settings so that it does the old shutdown. To do this:

1) When in Windows, press Windows key + R (CMD+R on your Mac) on your keyboard to bring up the Run dialogue box
2) Type in powercfg.cpl and press OK
3) Along the left hand side of power options, select 'Choose what the power button does'
4) Click 'Change settings that are currently unavailable'
5) Untick the option for 'Turn on fast startup'

Please let me know how you get on!

A useful answer. Thank you.

What you say does make sense. I have an old copy of Parallels, but I'm not sure how happily it'll play with Yosemite and Win10. Also, I have no idea how to use it to access a Bootcamp partition! Anyway, I'll find my copy of Parallels and install it to see if I can do what you suggest.

I'll report back in a day or two once I've had a go

 

[keysofanxiety]

A useful answer. Thank you.

What you say does make sense. I have an old copy of Parallels, but I'm not sure how happily it'll play with Yosemite and Win10. Also, I have no idea how to use it to access a Bootcamp partition! Anyway, I'll find my copy of Parallels and install it to see if I can do what you suggest.

I'll report back in a day or two once I've had a go

It couldn't be simpler — once you've got Parallels installed, you can just select 'use existing BootCamp partition'. I believe it's a similar process with VMW.

Why not use the 14 day trial of Parallels? That should allow enough time to fix the issue. http://trial.parallels.com/?lang=en&terr=us

 

[Padaung]

It couldn't be simpler — once you've got Parallels installed, you can just select 'use existing BootCamp partition'. I believe it's a similar process with VMW.

Why not use the 14 day trial of Parallels? That should allow enough time to fix the issue. http://trial.parallels.com/?lang=en&terr=us

14 day trial, of course! I clearly don't have my full thinking cap on today, my only excuse is that it has been a long week!

 

[Padaung]

Win 10 wouldn't boot via Parallels. It kept on showing the error 'no boot device available' despite Parallels finding the Bootcamp partition and MacOS showing it as a boot option.

Anyway, I use the Windows install for testing purposes so I didn't have many applications installed on it and all my work files were on the Mac.

I deleted the Bootcamp partition and reinstalled the partition and Windows. I placed the wrong USB stick in the machine and installed Windows 8.1 by mistake. Not to worry, I needed a Win 8 install for testing anyway and I have aa dedicated Win 10 machine anyway.

So, I've continued with Win 8 but upon rebooting it also shows the black screen too. I decided to leave it to see what happens. After about 5 mins the black screen turns to the Windows logo. It stays on this for several more minutes and eventually Windows fully boots. Once in, Windows functions fine, it just takes 8-10 mins to get there!

Subsequent reboots into Win 8 take just as long.

Rebooting back into Mac OS causes the black screen to appear too, again for several minutes although it does boot quicker than Win 8.

Subsequent reboots back into MacOS are normal times expected for a5400rpm HDD.

May be the original install of Win 10 would have booted eventually if I'd left it on the black screen for long enough?

My thought has now turned to either a bad driver for Windows (but the original Win 10 install was at one point working perfectly fine) or is the HDD failing? Disk Utility isn't currently displaying any warnings.

 

[Tech198]

I've always found running Windows in VM is quicker than Boot camp. (only because of performance in the VM)

usual is black screen on boot of Windows, something previously done, didn't finish. Windows updates etc.. or something got deleted which prevents Windows from booting.. Its nothing to do with Mac permissions, since its on another partition.

It may be the same drive and Bootcamp done by Apple, but its a Windows installation.. Bootcamp only controls the installation and drivers. not Windows part. For example, if its a driver issue then just re-install boot-camp drivers...

You could wait a bit longer just to see, but 5 minutes is too long just for boot process.

 

[Padaung]

I've always found running Windows in VM is quicker than Boot camp. (only because of performance in the VM)

usual is black screen on boot of Windows, something previously done, didn't finish. Windows updates etc.. or something got deleted which prevents Windows from booting.. Its nothing to do with Mac permissions, since its on another partition.

It may be the same drive and Bootcamp done by Apple, but its a Windows installation.. Bootcamp only controls the installation and drivers. not Windows part. For example, if its a driver issue then just re-install boot-camp drivers...

You could wait a bit longer just to see, but 5 minutes is too long just for boot process.

Useful info, thanks Tech198. I'll try a re-install of the boot camp drivers later today. I'm using the computer in 'Mac mode' right now and need to get work done

 

[m4v3r1ck]

This is a MS issue! After I installed the AU 1607 my boot time went from 15 secs to 165 secs. When booting I see the Win logo and the happy dots, then my monitor goes black and gives the message "no input signal". I also hard-rebooted many times, but then I got the advice to WAIT! So, after waiting 2:45 min the login screen appeared. Many users are having this issue.

When the nvidia drivers are not installed, using the Windows drivers, my boot is 15 secs.

MS flawed with the latest updates! Nvidia drivers are broken in this version.

ADVISE!: WAIT A FEW MINUTES and then look if uninstalling your video drivers will change anything!

Cheers

 

[AwesomePaul]

Sounds like Winblows is stuck in an update or hibernation loop. Basically it goes into a weird extended hibernate mode (as Win 8 does), rather than properly shutting down like Win 7 did. This makes the boot time artificially quicker. On Windows laptops, a static power drain normally fixes the issue.

To fix it on a Mac, you can try access the existing BootCamp partition through VMWare or Parallels Desktop. Oddly enough, that frequently kicks it into working.

Once that's up and running, it'd be best to change your power settings so that it does the old shutdown. To do this:

1) When in Windows, press Windows key + R (CMD+R on your Mac) on your keyboard to bring up the Run dialogue box
2) Type in powercfg.cpl and press OK
3) Along the left hand side of power options, select 'Choose what the power button does'
4) Click 'Change settings that are currently unavailable'
5) Untick the option for 'Turn on fast startup'

Please let me know how you get on!

Thanks a bunch ... This worked.

I had the same issue and was able to resolve it using parallel.