Windows – Bootcamp Windows 7 installation, USB is not recognized only on bootloader

bootbootcampusbwindows

I'll abstract my question.

  1. I'm using MacPro4,1 Early 2009. And I'm trying to install Windows 7 Professional x64 SP1. (I'm using Yosemite 10.10.4, and Boot Camp Assistant is 5.1.4)
  2. My Mac has 2 HDDs, one is installed Mac (disk0), the other is formatted as FAT (disk1)
  3. I edited info.plist of Boot Camp Assistant to show USB install option, and created bootable USB with Boot Camp Assistant

  4. OS X recognize my USB as Windows Installation Media. (I tested it with Boot Camp Assistant app)

  5. But when I reboot Mac with USB inserted, bootloader of OS X does not recognize my USB as installation media (When I used alt/option to load bootloader)

    …and it shows just black screen with blink cursor

  6. I tried rEFInd. it recognized USB and showed windows, but does not work either.

  7. I also tried to create a new installation USB media from Windows, and it didn't work. (with Windows DVD/USB tool, UltraISO, BOOTICE)

Please note that the USB I have, has already been used to install Windows on several PCs without any problem. (Win 7,8,10)

What should I do?

I checked many Q&As from Apple Discussions, here, Macrumors, and so on. Nothing worked.

Additional Info #1

fdisk

Disk: /dev/disk1    geometry: 121601/255/63 [1953525168 sectors]
Signature: 0xAA55
     Starting       Ending
 #: id  cyl  hd sec -  cyl  hd sec [     start -       size]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*1: 07 1023 254  63 - 1023 254  63 [         2 - 1953525166] HPFS/QNX/AUX
 2: 00    0   0   0 -    0   0   0 [         0 -          0] unused      
 3: 00    0   0   0 -    0   0   0 [         0 -          0] unused      
 4: 00    0   0   0 -    0   0   0 [         0 -          0] unused

bless

/dev/disk1s1

Additional Info #2

1+0 records in
1+0 records out
512 bytes transferred in 0.011135 secs (45982 bytes/sec)
0000000: eb52 904e 5446 5320 2020 2000 0208 0000  .R.NTFS    .....
0000010: 0000 0000 00f8 0000 3f00 ff00 0200 0000  ........?.......
0000020: 0000 0000 8000 8000 ad6d 7074 0000 0000  .........mpt....
0000030: 0000 0c00 0000 0000 0200 0000 0000 0000  ................
0000040: f600 0000 0100 0000 1f50 fbc8 9bfb c83e  .........P.....>
0000050: 0000 0000 fa33 c08e d0bc 007c fb68 c007  .....3.....|.h..
0000060: 1f1e 6866 00cb 8816 0e00 6681 3e03 004e  ..hf......f.>..N
0000070: 5446 5375 15b4 41bb aa55 cd13 720c 81fb  TFSu..A..U..r...
0000080: 55aa 7506 f7c1 0100 7503 e9dd 001e 83ec  U.u.....u.......
0000090: 1868 1a00 b448 8a16 0e00 8bf4 161f cd13  .h...H..........
00000a0: 9f83 c418 9e58 1f72 e13b 060b 0075 dba3  .....X.r.;...u..
00000b0: 0f00 c12e 0f00 041e 5a33 dbb9 0020 2bc8  ........Z3... +.
00000c0: 66ff 0611 0003 160f 008e c2ff 0616 00e8  f...............
00000d0: 4b00 2bc8 77ef b800 bbcd 1a66 23c0 752d  K.+.w......f#.u-
00000e0: 6681 fb54 4350 4175 2481 f902 0172 1e16  f..TCPAu$....r..
00000f0: 6807 bb16 6870 0e16 6809 0066 5366 5366  h...hp..h..fSfSf
0000100: 5516 1616 68b8 0166 610e 07cd 1a33 c0bf  U...h..fa....3..
0000110: 2810 b9d8 0ffc f3aa e95f 0190 9066 601e  (........_...f`.
0000120: 0666 a111 0066 0306 1c00 1e66 6800 0000  .f...f.....fh...
0000130: 0066 5006 5368 0100 6810 00b4 428a 160e  .fP.Sh..h...B...
0000140: 0016 1f8b f4cd 1366 595b 5a66 5966 591f  .......fY[ZfYfY.
0000150: 0f82 1600 66ff 0611 0003 160f 008e c2ff  ....f...........
0000160: 0e16 0075 bc07 1f66 61c3 a0f8 01e8 0900  ...u...fa.......
0000170: a0fb 01e8 0300 f4eb fdb4 018b f0ac 3c00  ..............<.
0000180: 7409 b40e bb07 00cd 10eb f2c3 0d0a 4120  t.............A 
0000190: 6469 736b 2072 6561 6420 6572 726f 7220  disk read error 
00001a0: 6f63 6375 7272 6564 000d 0a42 4f4f 544d  occurred...BOOTM
00001b0: 4752 2069 7320 6d69 7373 696e 6700 0d0a  GR is missing...
00001c0: 424f 4f54 4d47 5220 6973 2063 6f6d 7072  BOOTMGR is compr
00001d0: 6573 7365 6400 0d0a 5072 6573 7320 4374  essed...Press Ct
00001e0: 726c 2b41 6c74 2b44 656c 2074 6f20 7265  rl+Alt+Del to re
00001f0: 7374 6172 740d 0a00 8ca9 bed6 0000 55aa  start.........U.

Best Answer

I attach answer here as you guys suggested.

SOLVED - Bootcamp Windows 7 installation without USB, ODD

OK, I'll explain how I worked it. I followed almost of all of David's method here and here, but there are little differences.

Before we start, please note that I'm using MacPro4,1 which does not support USB installation of boot camp and I detached ODD. Instead, I attached another HDD in Bay 2.

  1. You need rEFInd, VirtualBox, NTFS support for OS X (like Paragon or NTFS-3G), a bootable Windows installation ISO. Service Pack applied ISO is also ok.
  2. Update Mac firmware as recent one as possible. here
  3. Open Boot Camp Assistant and download driver files into any usb. (Just 2nd option of 3 of boot camp. if your boot camp assistant does not have 3 options, it would be 1st option)
  4. install NTFS support for OS X, rEFInd and VirtualBox.
  5. Format a partition with MS-DOS(FAT) which is going to install Windows.
    • I recommend you not to use Boot Camp Assistant app to format. Use Disk Utility instead.
  6. In terminal, type diskutil list and remember disk and partition number of target partition. In this example, I use disk 1 and partition 1. So, disk1s1

  7. Unmount partition and set permission.

    diskutil unmount /dev/disk1s1

sudo chmod 777 /dev/disk1s1

  8. Create VirtualBox image with raw disk access. anywhere except bootcamp partition

    sudo vboxmanage internalcommands createrawvmdk -filename bootcamp.vmdk -rawdisk /dev/disk1 -partitions 1

sudo chown $USER bootcamp*.vmdk
  9. Open VirtualBox and create a VM. Just set disk as what you already made, and ISO file of windows installation.
  10. Start VM and install as normally, BUT when you get in 'setting computer name' phase, shutdown VM forcibly.

  11. Turn off VirtualBox, and delete all files in the boot camp partition (including BOOT folder and bootmgr file - If you can not find them in Finder, use terminal to delete them or change Finder option with defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles YES)

    Of course, Before open finder, mount partition first. (If you didn't installed NTFS support, you can't mount or delete file)

    diskutil mount /dev/disk1s1
  12. double click windows ISO and copy all of the item into boot camp partition
  13. Reboot Mac and in rEFInd bootloader, select 'Windows NTFS volume'
  14. Install windows again, but DO NOT format boot camp partition.
  15. Installation is finished. When you see desktop, install Boot Camp Driver which you downloaded at Step 3
  16. After boot camp driver is installed & if you can see 'Windows' on OS X boot loader (which you can enter by pressing alt/option), you don't need rEFInd anymore. You can delete it in OS X.
  17. You will see bootup selection between 'Windows 7' and 'Windows Setup' when booting Windows. If you don't want to see it, Go to Control Panel - System - Advanced Settings - Advanced tab - Click Setting button which lies on 'Startup and Restore' section - Uncheck first one.
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