I have spent 4 days now, trying to install Windows7 64 bit on my MacBook Pro 13 mid 2010 with High Sierra installed on it. I had installed in many years ago and it was really easy. I removed it when I replaced my original HDD with 500GB SSD. After many attempts with getting ISO to work with BootCamp assistant, I gave up and tried installing directly from bootable USB by using refind (as pressing opt/alt at start-up did show this USB as a bootable source.
Doing that I get the error "Windows can't be installed in drive 0 partition x (show details)" and the detail gives the error message "The selected disk is of the GPT partition style". Additionally it says that it must be NTFS.
I could click format, but it remains stuck at GPT error.
I tried different solutions so far that did not work.
-
Solution with ExFAT format
It simply says that format Windows/bootcamp partition to ExFAT from diskutility and restart. Tried it but did not help. -
solution given with gdisk
Tried that, but did not help. Still got the message. -
Solution by using diskpart at the Windows Installation screen. I used it missing to check that it is to be used in case I have separate physical disk. I used it and wiped out my who HDD.
After 3 I started fresh with High Sierra again. But I partitioned my disk before installing any OS. Now, I tried the same to install Windows7, but I get the same message. I realized that above instructions were for Windows 8. Don't know if that makes a difference on how to proceed with this GPT error?
Also in Solution 1, it highlights " make sure that "bootcamp is partition 4". But for me it appears at partition 3. Does that makes a difference?
Output from diskutil
diskutil list
/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *500.1 GB disk0
1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk0s1
2: Apple_APFS Container disk1 409.9 GB disk0s2
3: Microsoft Basic Data BOOTCAMP 89.9 GB disk0s3
/dev/disk1 (synthesized):
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: APFS Container Scheme - +409.9 GB disk1
Physical Store disk0s2
1: APFS Volume MacintoshHD 13.0 GB disk1s1
2: APFS Volume Preboot 22.2 MB disk1s2
3: APFS Volume Recovery 516.2 MB disk1s3
4: APFS Volume VM 4.3 GB disk1s4
Output from gdisk
GPT fdisk (gdisk) version 1.0.4
Warning: Devices opened with shared lock will not have their
partition table automatically reloaded!
Partition table scan:
MBR: protective
BSD: not present
APM: not present
GPT: present
Found valid GPT with protective MBR; using GPT.
output from gdisk print partition table
Expert command (? for help): p
Disk /dev/disk0: 976773168 sectors, 465.8 GiB
Sector size (logical): 512 bytes
Disk identifier (GUID): C49B7CD4-E813-445E-BEDB-BCA947F6F707
Partition table holds up to 128 entries
Main partition table begins at sector 2 and ends at sector 33
First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 976773134
Partitions will be aligned on 8-sector boundaries
Total free space is 263573 sectors (128.7 MiB)
Number Start (sector) End (sector) Size Code Name
1 40 409639 200.0 MiB EF00 EFI System Partition
2 409640 800991871 381.7 GiB AF0A
3 800993280 976510975 83.7 GiB 0700
output from gdisk "print protective MBR data
Disk size is 976773168 sectors (465.8 GiB)
MBR disk identifier: 0x00000000
MBR partitions:
Number Boot Start Sector End Sector Status Code
1 1 976773167 primary 0xEE
Output from gpt -r show /dev/disk0
start size index contents
0 1 PMBR
1 1 Pri GPT header
2 32 Pri GPT table
34 6
40 409600 1 GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
409640 800582232 2 GPT part - 7C3457EF-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
800991872 1408
800993280 175517696 3 GPT part - EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7
976510976 262159
976773135 32 Sec GPT table
976773167 1 Sec GPT header
At this moment Bootcamp is FAT32 partition.
After 4 days of effort, loss of data, I need help. I am not sure if I missed something small to notice after reading page after page.
I came across this solution about converting drive from GPT to hybrid. I would like to try this, but at the same time I notice that almost every article warns about Hybrid GPT/MBR.
I hope there is a simple solution than this or if someone can confirm that this is the only option left to try. I can then try this complicated looking solution as well.
Best Answer
Basically, this is a chicken/egg problem where the Windows 7 installation flash drive will not boot properly when the internal drive is hybrid partitioned.
After many hours of false starts, the following steps were used to install Windows 7. You will need two flash drives.
Download and install rEFInd on the Mac.
Use ImgBurn on a Windows machine to create an iso file from the Windows 7 DVD.
Use Rufus on a Windows machine to create the bootable USB flash drive from the iso file.
Use MacOS to create the internal drive partitions needed to install Windows 7.
Download the latest Windows Support Software. For your Mac, this software can be found at Boot Camp Support Software 4.0.4033.
FAT32 format the second flash drive. Be sure to use a MBR partitioning scheme. For example, you could use the macOS Disk Utility application to erase the flash drive using the parameters shown in the image below.
Copy the Windows Support Software to root folder on the second flash drive. For example, you could use the macOS Finder application to copy the files.
Put a copy of
gdisk
for windows on second flash drive.