IMac – Bootcamp – Windows 7 Installation Help

bootcampimacinstallwindows

I have a mid 2011 21.5” iMac with High Sierra, the disk drive I think has an issue, it writes to DVDs but can’t read. I successfully burned Windows ISO to a DVD+ disk but the drive reads it as blank DVD, I confirmed this by using another pc.

I went to the USB drive way, I modified the BootCamp plist file to enable USB drive, I successfully created windows installation drive with BC, sat the partition, but when the Mac boots, it goes to a black screen, with a message “no bootable device”. I couldn’t find any way to read from the USB drive, I used both USB 2.0 and 3.0.

Any help would be highly appreciated.

Best Answer

You have to install Windows 7 to BIOS boot. EFI booting is not possible for two reasons. First the EFI firmware in your Mac is not new enough. Second, the drivers are for a BIOS booting Windows. The Apple way is to use a the Boot Camp Assistant and a Windows 7 DVD. You can choose either a 32 bit for 64 bit Windows. Windows 7 should include SP1. You can download the current Windows 7 from Microsoft. If necessary, the Window Support Software (Boot Camp Support Software) can be downloaded from the Apple website Install Windows 7 on your Mac using Boot Camp.

Your model Mac can not BIOS boot from a USB port. Therefore, modifying the Boot Camp Assistant application to create a Windows 7 USB installer is a pointless waste of time.

If the use of a DVD is not an option, then the following methods can be used or adapted.

  • The VM method. Here, a virtual machine is only used to install Windows 7.
  • The GUI method. The answer is for Windows 10. You will have to adapt for Windows 7.
  • The CLI method. The answer is for a Windows 7 and 10 dual boot. You will have to adapt to omit Windows 10.
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