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twoworms · Oct 24, 2009, 09:32 PM

I have a late 08 (or early 09) Unibody Macbook Pro 2.53Ghz. I start the Bootcamp Assistant and successfully create my Windows partition. When I restart with the Windows 7 disk, I get a blinking cursor for 1 second then it goes to a black screen and never leaves. I have tried several different Windows 7 disks with the same result. I have even tried booting from a Windows Vista, Windows XP and even a Ubuntu disk all with the same result, stuck at a black screen. I've tried zapping PRAM and resetting SMC, but neither did anything.

I took the hard drive out of this mac and put it into my wife's older Macbook pro, and it booted off the Windows 7 disk and completed the install to my drive with no issues. I then put my hard drive back into my Macbook Pro and I get the same black screen when trying to start the Windows partition, and still have the same problem that it will not boot from any other OS disk be it Windows or Ubuntu. It boots from OS X DVDs without a problem.

Also several months ago I had a Windows XP installation on this computer with no issues. I wiped it just before going to Snow Leopard.

Any clue as to what is going on here?

twoworms · Oct 25, 2009, 01:50 AM

What is really odd is if I take my hard drive out of my Unibody Macbook Pro and put it into my wife's non-unibody Macbook Pro, it boots the Windows partition with no problem (Remembering I previously swapped these hard drives to complete the Windows installation to my hard drive). Seeing as the disk boots on her machine fine and not in mine, and my Windows cds (DVDs) boot fine on hers and not on mine, it seems to me it's something specific about my machine, but I can't imagine what it is.

ghporter · Oct 25, 2009, 10:34 AM

It looks like there's an EFI issue with your newer machine, or a problem with your optical drive. Intel Macs use EFI instead of Open Firmware (PPC Macs) or BIOS (Intel/AMD PCs), but it basically does the same thing: acts as an interface between the hardware and the OS. One thing EFI does is tell the machine how to boot from bootable media. Now the really weird part is that a NEWER Mac should have a newer, more capable EFI version...

I'd suggest you find an external drive and see if you can boot your newer machine off that disc from the external drive. That will tell you if it's really the EFI or if it's something odd about your optical drive.

alanl · Oct 27, 2009, 01:35 PM

Have you had any luck. I am having the exact same problem. Any other suggestions out thier?

Quantum7 · Nov 8, 2009, 03:18 AM

I just ran into this problem too. I can't boot from either my win xp partition or my xp cd–I just see a black screen.

For me the problem started after I sent in my macbook for some repairs (display and keyboard replacement). This timing is suspicious, but I have trouble seeing a connection between the repairs and the ability to boot windows.

ghporter: I can boot from my snow leopard dvd, which makes me suspect that this isn't EFI. Any other ideas?

ghporter · Nov 8, 2009, 08:24 AM

Quantum, welcome to our forums!

Depending on the age of your MacBook, it still could be EFI. It took an EFI update for several machines to make them Boot Camp compatible. I say this because booting from an OS X disc is a different process from booting from a Windows disc or hard drive; EFI has to handle both.

[url=http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3260]Here is Apple's gateway page with instructions for finding and updating your EFI firmware. If there is an EFI update for your machine, apply it. It can't hurt your machine, even if the update has already been applied, and it could make your machine capable of booting from a Windows partition or disc.

Quantum7 · Nov 8, 2009, 05:28 PM

Thanks for the suggestion, ghporter. However, it seems my firmware is up to date, and if I try to force it to upgrade the EFI I just get "This computer does not need this update." Someone on another forum posted a link to rEFIt, but I'm not desperate enough to try installing third party EFI hacks yet.

Do you know anything specific about the difference between booting from an OSX dvd and from a Microsoft/Ubuntu DVD?

PS. Other things I've tried: resetting the PRAM&NVRAM (Cmd-Opt-P-R); Hardware test (no problems).

Rumor · Nov 8, 2009, 05:40 PM

Windows 7 isn't supported by Bootcamp yet.

ghporter · Nov 8, 2009, 06:30 PM

A bootable image is still a bootable image. The disc should boot, whether it's XP, Vista, or 7. Whether it actually installs or not is a different matter. In fact it should install, though there may be driver problems at the moment.

seanc · Nov 8, 2009, 06:46 PM

Originally Posted by Rumor

Windows 7 isn't supported by Bootcamp yet.

Should still boot and install. The only thing Bootcamp doesn't support about Windows 7 are the drivers.

compnstufff · Oct 24, 2010, 05:16 AM

I get the black screen as well, and have to shutdown and hit option upon boot and select mac disk drive, even when there are no other partitions. I did at one time have Vista 32 bit installed and removved it to try Parallel's to no avail. Now, I can't get boot camp to install anything with this black screen. Am trying to reinstall snow leopard now and start from scratch.

seanc · Oct 24, 2010, 06:57 AM

Are you managing to install Snow Leopard or not?
Try booting, while holding the C key.