Installing Windows 7 x64 on a MacBook Pro Using Bootcamp

Posted by on Oct 5, 2009 in Macintosh, Windows | 9 comments

I have been running Windows 7 RC x86 (the 32-bit version) in Bootcamp for several months now. It’s worked well, but I really didn’t like that it couldn’t see the full 6GB of RAM in my MacBook Pro (Late 2007).

Snow Leopard comes with new Bootcamp drivers that support 64-bit Windows and adds a new file system driver to allow you to read your OS X files while in Windows. So I decided it was time to upgrade.

I quickly learned that I would need to to a complete reinstall. Microsoft doesn’t let you do an in-place install from a 32-bit version of Windows to a 64-bit version. Understandable. I don’t use the Windows setup for anything mission-critical, so it was not a big deal for me to wipe it.

Unfortunately, I could not get the Windows 7 x64 DVD to boot. After restarting and choosing the Windows DVD at the boot screen, the screen would blank out and just display “Select CD-ROM Boot Type” and refuse to continue.

After a little research I found out that I wasn’t alone and that someone had figured out a fix: the DVD needed to be tweaked a bit to work on the MacBook Pro I have. Apparently this MacBook Pro does not fully support 64-bit Windows. Here are the steps I used (from Sergio McFly‘s blog):

(Note that you’ll need to do this from a Windows machine. I did it from a Windows Vista VM in VMware Fusion.)

  1. Create 3 folders c:\efi-iso, c:\efi-exe and c:\efi-dvd
  2. Download oscdimg.exe and put into c:\efi-exe
  3. Unzip the Windows 7 ISO to c:\efi-dvd (7zip works great for this)
  4. Open a Command window
  5. Type: cd c\:efi-exe
  6. Type: oscdimg -n -m -bc:\efi-dvd\boot\etfsboot.com c:\efi-dvd c:\efi-iso\win7x64.iso

You’ll now have a new iso file in c:\efi-iso. Burn this iso to a DVD (I used Toast back in OS X).

This new DVD will boot just fine. From it you can install Windows 7 on your MacBook Pro.

But it doesn’t end there! You’ll want to install the new Snow Leopard drivers, so after everything has finished, insert your Snow Leopard DVD. This is where I ran into another problem. I could not run the Setup. It would tell me that “this model Macintosh does not support 64-bit drivers”.

Again, after a little research, I found the solution. The trick is to run the Snow Leopard Driver installer in compatibility mode:

  1. On the BootCamp CD open “Drivers/Apple”
  2. Right click on “BootCamp64.msi” -> Properties
  3. Go To “Compability” Tab, under “Compability Mode” check the box and select “Previous Versions of Windows”
  4. Now doubleclick on the “BootCamp64.msi” and install normally

After doing this, the drivers all installed and everything seems to be working great.

9 Responses to “Installing Windows 7 x64 on a MacBook Pro Using Bootcamp”

  1. Gary says:
    October 22, 2009 at 9:46 am

    Thanks, I think this should work I just have been having trouble understanding what you mean by unzip the iso. Do you simply mean extract the contents? Could I do this with UltraISO or should I use a zip software such as winzip or 7-zip?

    Thanks, I’m a little confused.

  2. Paul Lefebvre says:
    October 22, 2009 at 10:07 am

    Yes, “unzip the ISO” means “extract its contents”. 7zip works fine to do this (and is freee). I haven’t tried UltraISO.

  3. Gary says:
    October 22, 2009 at 10:15 am

    Nevermind, got it to work, THANKS!!!

  4. Gary says:
    October 22, 2009 at 11:40 am

    Hey, I’ve run into another problem and trying to find a solution. Wondering if maybe you could help me out. I can’t find my Snow Leopard disc but I’ve made an image of it anyway. I’ve made it bootable from my external drive, but the problem is when I plug it into windows it won’t recognize it. So I can’t install the drivers.I’m about to install the trial version of MacDrive and go that route. Any better suggestions?

  5. Gary says:
    October 22, 2009 at 11:41 am

    Oh, and I forgot to mention I’m not able to burn the image back onto a disc for some reason, it keeps failing.

  6. Gary says:
    October 22, 2009 at 12:56 pm

    Ok, so MacDrive didn’t work, it just allowed me to view the contents of the disc, but for some reason I couldn’t locate Bootcamp folder, nor the setup.exe file… Anyway, I ended up finding the Bootcamp drivers on torrent here http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/5054638/Bootcamp_Driver_3.0_for_Windows_32bit__amp__64bit_%28from_Snow_Leopard.

    Success!!! Finally, after all that searching :-) . Although, I had to do something a little different once I burned the drivers to a disk. I’m running on a Macbook, so I can’t right click the .msi without the Bootcamp drivers. I had to use “shift+F10″ (which is the keyboard shortcut for right clicking). Everything else went as planned!

    Hope this helps someone else!!

  7. Trautwein says:
    November 4, 2009 at 9:35 am

    I have a Mac Pro 8 core 3.0ghz, I have windows 7 ultimate that runs in fusion 3.0 but I would like to use boot camp. When I try to install Windows to a dedicated internal drive I get almost all the way through the installation and after a few restarts I get a very quick blue screen, so fast I cannot read what it says. It then restarts again and gives me the option to run in safe mode. If i try safe mode I get a message that says Windows cannot finish installation in safe mode and then restarts. If I try normal mode, very fast blue screen and reboot. Any Ideas? I am going to follow the above to try 64 bit

  8. BB says:
    November 6, 2009 at 9:07 pm

    Thanks a lot for this. Worked like a charm in my iMac. Windows 7 runs great!

  9. Shervin says:
    November 7, 2009 at 1:05 pm

    I LOVE YOU!!!! Thank you so much it really helped B)