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Boot Camp 4 Tips and Reports

Working with Lion's Boot Camp and Windows
Updated February 21, 2011
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If you’re using Lion about your problems or tips.
 

TIPS and Reports

TIP: Fix for Glitch preventing Lion from installing with Boot Camp

By John Rizzo

Monday, July 25, 2011

An Apple tech article reports a problem that prevents Lion from installing if there is an existing Boot Camp partition on the driver. The Lion installer reports "This disk cannot be used to start up your computer."

Apple's first recommendation is to backup and reformat the drive. If that can't be done, the article recommends using Disk Utility to slight shrink the size of the non-Boot Camp partition. You can then return the partition to its original size after you install Lion.

Harry Erwin reported this problem to us and essentially used this solution successfully. However, he booted from and another volume and erased the hard drive, which isn't necessary to resize a partition. Here's his report......Read entire story here

Another suggestion for installing Lion on drives with Boot Camp

Thursday, July 28, 2011

Ryan Weaver responded to our report "Fix for Glitch preventing Lion from installing with Boot Camp," which reported an Apple method for enabling Lion to install on a hard drive with Boot Camp already installed. Weaver used another method:

Regarding the issue where Lion installer reports "This disk cannot be used to start up your computer." My fix for this problem was to boot Lion from an external drive and use Disk Utility to repair the primary drive partition map (apparently there was a discrepancy in the EFI partition), then repair the primary MAC partition. After that it installed just fine.

If you've tried this method, or Apple's method, .

Non-standard Boot Camp prevents Lion Recovery HD and FileVault

Monday, July 25, 2011

Having a non-standard Boot Camp partition will prevent the Lion installer from creating a Recovery HD hard disk partition, according to an Apple tech article. It will also prevent you from using the FileVault feature to encrypt the data on the drive. The fix that Apple suggests could take up a whole day or more.

When such a Boot Camp partition is detected, the Lion installer will display a message, "Some features of Mac OS X Lion are not supported for the disk." This occurs if the Boot Camp partition was created with manually modified Boot camp setting or if further partitioning was done after Boot Camp was set up ......Read entire story here

Newer Macs can't run Windows XP in Boot Camp

Thursday, July 28, 2011

Apple reports that recent Mac models no longer support Windows XP or Windows Vista in Boot Camp. They do support the 32-bit or 64-bit editions of Windows 7 Home Premium, Professional, and Ultimate. This limitation is not related to Mac OS X 10.7 Lion or other Mac OS version. The Macs affected:

  • MacBook Pro (Early 2011)
  • MacBook Air (Late 2010) and later
  • iMac (Mid 2011)
  • Mac mini (Mid 2011)

Lion with Boot Camp doesn't boot with USB WiFi extender

Friday, August 5, 2011

Byron reports that after installing Lion with Boot Camp, Lion would not boot. He found the fix:

Was able to install Lion, but now it won't boot. Goes gray srceen. Windows will boot. After more testing it turns out the issue was the Hawking Technologies USB WiFi extender. Plug it in kernel panic. Not plugged in and ok.

If you've seen this .

Lion's Boot Camp 4.0 drops support for Win XP, adds Windows installation features

By John Rizzo

Monday, August 8, 2011

Apple has dropped support for Windows XP and Windows Vista in Boot Camp 4.0, the version that ships with Lion. Boot Camp 4.0 only supports Windows 7 Home Premium, Professional, and Ultimate. Previous versions of Boot Camp also supported Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2 and later, Windows Vista, as well as Windows 7.

Boot Camp 4 adds some new installation features, including a way to do a clean install of Windows 7 in an existing Boot Camp partition from a Windows 7 installation disc, without using Boot Camp Assistant. Boot Camp 4.0 also adds other new features for installing Windows, including support of Microsoft Windows ISO disc images.

The new version of Boot Camp also adds three new features for installing Windows. It now enables you to install Windows 7 from an ISO disc image downloaded from Microsoft. In order to do this, you use the Boot Camp Assistant to expand the image to a USB flash drive.

Boot Camp 4.0 also adds the ability to upgrade Windows or do a clean install without using the Boot Camp Assistant.

Another new feature is that the Apple drivers are no longer include on the Lion hard drive. Instead, when you use the Boot Camp Assistant to create a CD or USB flash installer, the Assistant downloads the latest version of the Windows Boot Camp drivers.

Most of this information appeared last week in a new Apple new support document "Boot Camp 4.0, OS X Lion: Frequently Asked Questions." Boot Camp is Apple's software that enables users to boot a Mac with Windows.

Thunderbolt blocks Windows 7 sleep, PCI Express, with Boot Camp

Monday, August 8, 2011

Macs booted with Windows 7 using Boot Camp cannot access PCI cards while a Thunderbolt device is plugged in, according to an Apple technical article that lists limitations of using Thunderbolt while booted from Windows 7. The article also states that Thunderbolt devices plugged into the Mac also prevent Windows 7 from going into sleep mode.

Apple warns not to disconnect a Thunderbolt device from the Taskbar tool. By doing so, Windows will not recognize the device again unless the Mac is restarted. Also, if you plug a Thunderbolt device directly in to the Thunderbolt port while Windows is running, you'll have to restart Windows in order for the device to be recognized. However, Windows will recognize devices that are plugged into another Thunderbolt device when Windows is running.

The article implies that Thunderbolt in Boot Camp does not support Windows XP or Vista.

These restrictions are not related to Boot Camp 4, the version that comes with Lion, and apply to Thunderbolt-equipped Macs running Snow Leopard's Boot Camp 3 as well. The MacBook Pro models released earlier this year were the first to include the high-speed Thunderbolt port.

Windows trackpad problem in Boot Camp 4 on 13" MacBook Pro

Monday, November 28, 2011

Apple posted an article about a problem with Windows and Boot Camp 4 on the 13-inch, early 2011 MacBook Pro. Ejecting a USB hard drive from the Safe Removal menu in Windows can cause the Trackpad to stop working. Apple says that is that the trackpad is also "ejected" from Windows. The problem occurs when a USB hard drive is plugged into USB port closest to the trackpad. To resolve the problem, Apple suggests using USB port closest to the MagSafe power connector.

Boot Camp 4 is the version that ships with Mac OS X 10.7 Lion.

If you've seen this problem on this or another MacBook Pro model

TIP: Fixing an audio "pop" in Win 7, Boot Camp Mac

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Harm Dijkman found that on his Mac running Boot Camp, Windows 7's Eco mode in the Energy saving settings caused an audio "pop" sound:

I bought a second 24-inch Cinema Display, which I connected to my Mac. I also made a clean install of Windows 7 in Boot Camp, and discovered a annoying error, which I didn't have before.

Whenever I loaded Windows 7, there was a single 'pop' sound that came from the Cinema Display's speakers every time Windows loaded up the sound driver for the display and activated the speakers. It happened sometimes from one display, sometimes form the other one, and sometimes both. The sound only pops when I haven't used any audio for a minute or so. This sound never happens when loading the OS X partition.

I've found the solution. It had to do with the Energy Safety mode of Windows. Beside the regular option, there is also an eco mode, which I turned on. This mode also looks at the drivers, and if too long unused, they are switched off. This causes the ACD to pop every time.

If you've seen this

Boot Camp Bluetooth drivers incompatible with latest Macs

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Apple's Boot Camp Bluetooth drivers for Windows 7 don't work with Bluetooth audio devices when a new-model Mac is booted with Windows 7, according to a reader post in our discussion forums:

Boot Camp bluetooth drivers for Windows 7 of the new BCM20702 card are faulty you will notice mainly if you try to pair a Bluetooth Audio Device. Forums are seeded with topics reporting different issues.

With previous versions (BCM2070 MBA2010, etc) you may get a workaround installing the latest Broadcom drivers, but that is not the case for the latest BT card.

Please help pushing some pressure on Apple to provide appropriate bluetooth drivers for the new bluetooth card: BCM20702 BT V4 + HS, built in Macbook Air MID2011, MacBook Pro 2011, iMAC and mini. Broadcom drivers will not install properly either.

If you've seen this problem or post a reply in the forum.

Windows 7 install in Boot Camp 4 hangs at last stage

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Alakh Deora reports a problem installing Windows 7 in Boot Camp 4:

I tried installing Windows 7 Ultimate x64 on my MacBook Pro 13-inch (mid 2010) having OS X Lion 10.7.2, using Boot Camp 4.0.1. The installation carries on smoothly till creating a Boot Camp Partition, collecting information for installing Windows, and the first 4 steps of installing Windows. After this, the system restarts, gets onto the 5th step (i.e. "Completing Installation"), and hangs. I have tried different versions of Windows, different setups, but none of them have worked, and all get stuck at the same point.

If you've seen this problem .

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