MacBook – Haswell 15″ MBP, Win7 x64, no trackpad or keyboard

bootcampkeyboardmacbook pro

I've seen quite a few threads about this around the interwebs, but no solutions.

I'm migrating from a 2012 15" rMBP to a new (as of yesterday) 15" rMBP, and am having issues with Win7 x64.

I used Winclone to image the Windows partition om the old machine, transferred it to the new one, repartitioned everything, and restored the Winclone image. That seemed to work fine; all the files are where they should be. After recreating a VM in Parallels, I can boot the partition successfully.

However, I can't boot directly into the Bootcamp partition. At the login screen, the keyboard and trackpad are nonfunctional. I connected an external USB keyboard, which didn't help.

So, I used Bootcamp Assistant to create a Win7 installer USB stick, and booted off of that. Same thing: When it gets to the first GUI screen, input devices are nonfunctional.

Suggestions?

I need the 750 GPU for several reasons, and would hate to have to return this thing.

Best Answer

After playing with this for a 8-10 hours, I found a solution:

You have to have Bootcamp Assistant create the USB key, and download the latest drivers (first and second checkboxes) to the key. There's apparently some startup information created that will let the keyboard and trackpad work with the installer.

Once that's done, boot into the Win7 installer. It still probably won't install. However, at some point you'll be presented with an option for "Load drivers," which appears in a few different places during the install.

When you get the opportunity,

  1. Browse (on your installation media) to $WinPEDDriver$\IntelxHCISetup\Drivers\xHCI\Win7\x64\

  2. Uncheck the box that says "hide drivers for unsupported hardware." (Yes, really.)

  3. Select everything it finds.

  4. Hit next. Wait for the drivers to load.

  5. Exit out of the installer, closing everything until you get back to the "Install or Repair" screen (first thing you typically see when the Win7 installer boots. DO NOT REBOOT

  6. Remove your USB key.

  7. Wait for a moment.
  8. Re-attach the USB key.

Proceed through the "Install Windows" wizard, select your target partition (probably have to reformat it as NTFS, depending on how you created it), and proceed as normal.

There appears to be an issue with the way that UEFI handles USB 3, so this may not be an issue with a USB 2 key.

Related Question