Installing Windows 7 X64 on MacBook
[Thanks to http://my.opera.com/Dangerous_Dave/blog/]
After running Windows 7 in a virtual machine, I decided to install it natively. Here is a guide to getting around some of the problems. The information is a combination of everything I learnt from random Googled sites.Note: My method requires a DVD burning capable Windows machine. First of all, you need to partition your hard drive. How big is up to you, but I suggest 30GB+. Windows 7 doesn't appear to support FAT32, so you are stuck with NTFS (The only downside is that you can't natively write to the partition from within Leopard, but you can read). Boot Camp Assistant will partition your hard drive for you, so use that. In fact, you can follow it's instructions until the restart, unless you already have a Boot Camp partition, in which case you have to use something else to do the partitioning. Throw in the DVD you burnt of Windows 7 (if you haven't done this yet, I suggest using a rewritable, or reading the rest to decide whether to make the other changes or not before burning).
Reboot your MacBook, and hold Option at the first grey screen until the cursor appears and it gives you a drive selection. Double click on the Windows 7 disk. One of three things will happen (Note: Problem 3's solution may fix problem two as well): 1. The Windows 7 installation will start: Follow the instructions.
2. You will get a message: "1.
2.
Select CD-ROM Boot Type:_" You Wont be able to do anything.
Or 3. You will get an Error code 5. Ok, there's probably a million things that could happen, but they are the top 3, in my estimated order of probability. To fix problem 2, here's what I did(Taken from a post here:
1. Insert Windows Install disc into DVD drive
2. Using the build mode of ImgBurn, go to the advanced tab, then bootable disc and then select your DVD drive in the extract boot image drop down list. Go ahead and extract the boot image and store it somewhere on your hard drive.
3. Go to the information tab and add your DVD drive as the source file
4. Options tab, check that file system is ISO9660 + IDF and UDF revision is 1.02 (should be anyway by default)
5. Go to Advanced tab, sub tab Restrictions and further sub tab ISO9660: Set Folder / File length to Level X and tick the four check boxes at the bottom (allow more than 8 directory levels, Allow more than 255 characters in path, Allow files without Extensions, Don’t Add ‘;1’ Version number to Files. (Note it’s this bit that actually solves the problem the rest is effectively just duplicating the existing disc)
6. Move to the bootable disc tab: Click the tick box to make the image bootable, emulation type to “none (custom)” and the browse and select the boot image you previously extracted from the windows disc. Finally set Sectors to load to 4.
7. Click the big create iso button to create the bootable iso.
8. And use that iso to burn a new install disc.
That fixed problem 2 for me. Then I rebooted and tried to load my new disk, and was met with an Error Code 5, AKA problem 3 from above. To fix this, I followed these instructions (From here: 0 - create 3 folders c:\server2008iso c:\server2008exe c:\server2008dvd
1 - download this .exe file and put into c:\server2008exe
2 - put .iso you downloaded from ms into c:\server2008iso and unzip it
3 - move .iso file out of c:\server2008iso
4 - open a dos prompt in c:\server2008exe and type: oscdimg -n -m -bc:\server2008iso\boot\etfsboot.com c:\server2008iso c:\sever2008dvd\server2008dvd.iso
To unzip the iso, I used WinRAR. Now the soloution to 3 claims to be a solution to 2, but I had fixed 2 by the time I came accross it. You could try it first to see if it fixes both problems.
After doing these, you should be able to boot the install disk just fine. Choose language, then custom install. Choose the right partition, and install. It may reboot into Mac OS at points if you didn't use Boot Camp, just restart and choose the new Windows partition, and it will continue where it left off. After a while, you should find yourself running the Windows 7 beta. Next step, right click. Ha, gotcha! You are going to need some drivers.
Stick in your Leopard DVD. If you recently got your MacBook, see the simple solution here. If, like me, you got yours before 64 bit drivers were invented, you have two options. Download the update to Boot Camp, or use these drivers(From first post here). I did the second, and also downloaded the sound drivers from the RealTek site. I don't much care about some of the missing drivers, but you can just scroll down the above linked page to find a download for all of the drivers, which I guess saves you getting the Boot Camp update. I hope this guide has helped you to install Windows 7 if you were having problems. If you don't yet have the iso for Windows 7, you can't download it from Microsoft anymore. You may have to acquire it by other means [http://my.opera.com/community/graphics/smilies/smile.gif] . -Dave