How I managed to Bootcamp my Imac without internal CD

Question

Problem: Bootcamp utility seemed ok, computer reboot but refuse to load the cd.
Instead I get white screen with "?". rEFlt did not help either.
In fact it refuse to boot from USB keys and I even put the win7 installation on my firewire disk (yes all of the above boot fine on pc:s). The only thing that would boot from external cd is the mac install disk.
Solution:
1. Run bootcamp and set the partition as you would like to have it. In my case I have replaced my superdrive for a 256gb SSD since I thought my imac would work perfect with an external cd instead.
I know, I am mad. Why would it just because the mac install cd worked like a charm?
When created the partition - exit bootcamp. Do not continue, reboot or anything. Just kill it.
2. Install Parallels Desktop 6 for mac trial. Its free for 10 days.
3. With Parallels, create a virtual machine, replace the harddisk in it with YOUR bootcamp disk.
Mount a win7 ISO or cd, does not matter which but ISO is about 20 times faster
4. Install win7 in your brand new virtual environment but after first step in the installation where it will reboot after unpacking the files - TURN OFF YOUR VIRTUAL MACHINE. You got 10 seconds to do that.
Failure to do so will mess up the install and you must start over.
5. Now, your win7 installation is ready except for a small problem - it is missing its MBR. Virtual machines are not allowed to write that to the disk so it writes it in a virtual file instead so IF you would boot it in parallels it would work but booting it "for real" will still not work.
6. Find your virtual machine file. Its most likely in documents/parallels directory. Choose "show package contents. In there you will find a file named after your harddrive. Choose "show package contents" on that as well and you will find a file called PhysicalMbr.hds. Copy that file to a USB stick.
7. Now we must write the MBR to our disk... This is simple however doing it wrong will end up badly for you
Open up Utilities and Disk Utility - Unmount your Bootcamp partition. Close Disk utility
Open up Utilities and Terminal
in Terminal please go to your usb stick (example: cd /Volumes/Usbkey (if its named Usbkey)
To find out what our disk is called type diskutil list
Your bootcamp disk will be shown in the list. For me it is /dev/disk1
to write your brand new MBR to the boot camp disk just type:
sudo dd if=PhysicalMbr.hds of=/dev/disk1 bs=512 count=1
Quadruple check that your bootcamp really is on /dev/disk1 before you do this.
If it fails (was ok for me but your boot camp may be locked etc) you can boot your mac install cd and do it from that terminal. That will bypass any locks but your able to really mess up your installation
You are now ready. Reboot your computer and be ready to press Option key really fast (or if you have refit you got 15 seconds) then just choose your boot camp partition. The win7 installation will continue without cd:s etc.
I would recommend installing refit since win7 will reboot a lot and its nice to have the extra 15 secs to choose partition.
Let me know if this was useful. It took me almost a day to overcome this problem.
I got Vmware fusion but it will not let me use a raw harddisk to work with so dont bother trying that. Use Parallels.
Again, the example above is with an 2009 Imac 27" with superdrive replaced with a 256gb SSD.
It may not work on your computer at all.
If you guys give me a mba or mbpro I will be happy to help out :P

Answer 1

Hi, I have a similar problem on my iMac with unusable internal drive: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3031967
Dirtylobster wrote:
 4. Install win7 in your brand new virtual environment but after first step in the installation where it will reboot after unpacking the files - TURN OFF YOUR VIRTUAL MACHINE. You got 10 seconds to do that.
Failure to do so will mess up the install and you must start over.
I'm not sure if I should take a chance... Could you please explain step 4 a bit more detailed? Do I have to click on "reboot" (where?) and then within 10 seconds turn off the virtual machine? HOW would I do that? THANKS!
EDIT: Did you read the following too?
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=10601274
What do you think of this alternative...? Thanks again.
Message was edited by: coxorange