[doolally]

Hi friendlies,

I've scanned the forums and not found an answer to my specific problem.

I'm trying to install a legit copy of Win 7 to a 115GB Boot Camp partition. I first had an issue with creating the partition, but booted into my Snow Leopard install disk and, after repairing permissions and the disk, was able to proceed with the partition.

The Win 7 intall seems to go fine until it gets to the 'Completing Installation' section: the moment when it needs to reboot. It tries to reboot but just hangs. It sits there with a blank screen until I give up and do a soft reset. Then it tries to continue the Win 7 install, tells me it wasn't shut down properly and I choose 'Restart Windows Normally'. I get a 'Starting Windows' splash screen, with the little window animation, then it hangs again and I'm stuck in that loop.

advTHANKSance for any counsel you can provide.

dool

[Helmling]

But your Mac partition is still functional, right?

[Cold Warrior]

I'd use boot camp utility to return your mac to a single partition, then run it again to redo your boot camp setup.

[ghporter]

Originally Posted by Cold Warrior 

I'd use boot camp utility to return your mac to a single partition, then run it again to redo your boot camp setup.

...as long as the Mac partition is indeed still working. If that's glitchy, then it would be VERY important to hold off on doing anything about Windows until OS X was running smoothly. After that, I wholeheartedly agree that restoring the drive to a single partition with the Boot Camp Utility (and no other tool!!!) is the way to go.

[doolally]

Well, I wiped my HDD, formatted, and reinstalled from my Time Machine backup and the Win 7 install is still hanging. As I write this I've been waiting 10+ minutes for it to reboot. Might it take longer? Should I go do something else for half an hour? It doesn't sound like the HDD or disc are doing anything.

Over on the Apple Support forums I did find this possible solution:

>>go to safe mode windows 7 and install nvidia drivers that you can find on "laptop video 2 go" I recommend the 258.69 version that is the one i used. the 258.96 version has some kind of combatibility problem generally, don't use for now. I just did this and then it didn't stuck, it loged on normally. tell me if it works for you <<

Perhaps I'll give that a try before I give up.

...and, it won't let me boot into safe mode. It just puts me right back in the 'Starting Windows...' hang on reboot loop.

So, that's enough of that. I have better things to do with my morning.

[Cold Warrior]

But you didn't use Boot Camp Assistant to reset your Mac to a single partition.

[doolally]

Originally Posted by Cold Warrior 

But you didn't use Boot Camp Assistant to reset your Mac to a single partition.

Boot Camp wouldn't let me modify the partition, that's why I booted to my install disk and completely wiped the HDD before doing a fresh OS X install and then Time Machine, and then Boot Camp partition and then back in that hanging loop.

[ghporter]

How clean is that Win7 disc? With XP, the optical drive driver was so primitive that it did absolutely no useful error correction and in some cases a fingerprint would kill an install. Bail out of the install and clean the DVD really, really well and try again.

[doolally]

Originally Posted by ghporter 

How clean is that Win7 disc? With XP, the optical drive driver was so primitive that it did absolutely no useful error correction and in some cases a fingerprint would kill an install. Bail out of the install and clean the DVD really, really well and try again.

It is a brand new disc, purchased new, sealed, and opened for this installation.

[Cold Warrior]

When you wiped your drive, did you use Disk Utility to create the windows partition, or, from a single partition, were you able to use Boot Camp Assistant to create the windows partition?

[doolally]

Originally Posted by Cold Warrior 

When you wiped your drive, did you use Disk Utility to create the windows partition, or, from a single partition, were you able to use Boot Camp Assistant to create the windows partition?

Once I wiped the drive and reinstalled I was able to use Boot Camp as normal. I followed these instructions. Everything goes fine until it tries to reboot.

EDIT: To check the Windows disk, I did a Parallels install and it works fine.

2nd EDIT: I found an Apple release that provides a driver fix:

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3173

I'll try that a report back.

[doolally]

Okay, so that Apple fix I linked to in my last post did the trick. It seems this particular issue is specific to the iMac (27-inch, Late 2009, my model) and iMac (21.5-inch, Mid 2010).

Thanks all for trying to help out.

[ghporter]

Good to hear that you found a resolution. I wonder what it is about the hardware in the particular iMac you have that isn't supported by the Win7 installer... But at least you have a fix.

[rickber]

I had a similar problem, but on a Mac Pro. The solution turned out to require the following:

1. Put disk where Windows BootCamp partition will be in slot 1. MacOS disk can be elsewhere without interfering with MacOS bootup.

2. Format partition using BootCamp

3. Use Windows 7 to install to this partition. It will choke because BootCamp formats as FAT not NTFS, but selecting "options" then "Format" fixes this problem and lets you continue.

4. Make sure ALL your USB devices are unplugged, except for keyboard and mouse. The hangup seems to be on installation of USB drivers -- which is deferred if you only have keyboard and mouse.

With this, I finally got my SSD up and running as the new C: for Windows 7

[hellmut]

Doolally,

briliant point with USB devices. Mine was hanging even with mouce connected. There is somewhere written that installation works only with branded mouses and kayboards. Mine was niname

Hellmut