Install Windows 7 in bootcamp on MacBook Pro with broken superdrive

I’ve been wanting a copy of Windows 7 on my Macbook Pro for a while now, just to play games and experiment – but sadly the superdrive is trashed. The firmware of my Macbook Pro (fairly old Core2Duo model, 2007?) doesn’t allow booting from USB, so memory sticks and external DVD-Drives are out of the question. After hours of crawling forums for what seems to be quite a common problem, I finally got a solution so I’m going to repost it here. This method is originally from InsideTheBrackets and was designed for use on a MacBook Air which has no internal SuperDrive. It basically involves installing Windows from within OsX using Parallels virtual machine, then restarting half way through the install, messing around with some seriously hardcore bootsector files, and carrying on the install from the hard drive natively. This is not for the feint hearted, and you could make your computer unbootable if you don’t follow exactly what I’ve written here.

NOTE: Windows 7 64 bit will install using this method if your computer can handle it, but when I tried to install the bootcamp drivers it said not compatible. UPDATE: Apple has released Bootcamp 3.1 which includes drivers for Windows 7 64-bit (if you’re computer can handle it). Get the latest drivers from here, and put them on your USB too prior to installing.

YOU WILL NEED:

- Something to back up onto, like an external hard drive.
- A USB stick, any size (we just need to save one small file somewhere that isn’t on the computer)
- Parallels virtualization software (amazon.jp
, official demo version, or pirate it)
- A DVD-image of Windows 7 32-bit, a bootable USB install, or an external DVD drive and install DVD
- A bootable USB install of OsX, or an external DVD drive and install DVD.

1. BACKUP:

I recommend SuperDuper to clone a bootcopy of your entire hard disk as it is now to an external drive, so even if you do screw up you’ll have something to boot off later.

2. RUN BOOTCAMP:

Bootcamp must be used to partition your hard drive else Parallels won’t recognise it later. Run the bootcamp utility until it says to insert your windows install disk, then just close it.

If bootcamp gave you errors like mine did, you may need to do a clean install of OsX on a freshly created single partition volume first. This can occur if you’ve been messing around with partitions like I do all the time, but if you did step 1 and took a backup you can easily restore your system once you’ve run bootcamp again.

3. CREATE A NEW PARALLELS MACHINE:

Make a new parallels machine. Skip detection of DVD media, and make no hard disk yet, we will configure these manually. Once your virtual machine is made, open it.

Click on the menu item “Virtual Machine -> Configure“, then on the Hardware tab. There should be no hard disk listed at the moment. Click on + to add a hard disk, and select “Boot Camp” option. If you are unable to select the Bootcamp option, it means it cannot find a bootcamp partition, probably because you thought you’d be clever by partitioning your hard disk yourself. Well, that won’t work. It has to be made by the bootcamp application for Parallels to recognise it, so backup your data, do a fresh install of OsX and go back to step 2.

Configure the DVD to point to either your external USB drive or your ISO image and start the install. Go ahead and format your bootcamp partition if Windows requires you to.

4. STOP INSTALLING WHEN IT SAYS IT WILL RESTART:

Once it’s gone through the file unpacking etc it will start a countdown of about 30 seconds before it restarts. DONT LET IT RESTART. Shut down the virtual machine before it does that.

5. FIND THE MASTER BOOT RECORD OF THE VIRTUAL MACHINE:

Explanation from Jono @ Inside the Brackets, because even I didn’t really know this stuff:

If you were to reboot now and try to force your Mac to boot Windows it won’t work. A typical PC’s hard disk has code right at the beginning of the disk which tells it where to find crucial operating system files – the MBR. Windows has gone ahead and installed the MBR but it’s installed in its VM, not to the real hard disk. We have to copy this MBR to the real hard disk and at the same time be careful not to mess up the Mac install.

So, first we need to find the virtual machine file; in a default install this will be in “Documents/Parallels” folder. To extract the MBR from it, right click your VM and choose “Show package contents“. Inside there is another file named after your hard disk (for example: SAMSUNG HS083HB.hdd), so do the same “Show package contents” for that too. Inside there is a “PhysicalMbr.hds” file, copy it to your USB drive.

6. WRITE THE MBR TO THE BOOTCAMP PARTITION:

Restart from your OsX install DVD as if you were going to install. We need to do this because the partitions are protected under normal conditions.

Once you’ve booted into the install, click on the Utilities menu -> Disk utility. Click on each of your hard drive partitions (your main OsX install, and your bootcamp drive) and click on “Unmount”. Don’t unmount your USB drive.

Now run Terminal, again from the Utilities menu and type in the following commands.

cd /Volumes
ls

Identify which is your flash drive, for example “USB-MEDIA”. Then type “cd” and the name of your USB drive. In my example, this would be:

cd USB-MEDIA

Now we’re going to back up the old MBR. Be careful typing these commands. By the way, these assume you didn’t rename the VM MBR when you copied it to your USB drive, and that you don’t have more partitions that simple an OsX install and bootcamp. If you do, you will need to customize them.

dd if=/dev/disk0 of=backup.mbr bs=512 count=1

This will back up the MBR to a file called backup.mbr on your USB drive.

Now we replace the physical MBR with the one copied from the VM.

dd if=PhysicalMbr.hds of=/dev/disk0 bs=512 count=1

Hint: If something bad happens and you need to restore your MBR, type the same command as directly above, but substitute PhysicalMbr.hds for backup.mbr.

Now that we’ve replace the MBR we need to check it looks ok. Type

fdisk -e /dev/disk0

Type print to view your MBR. The most important thing to check which Windows may have stuffed up is the id of each partition. Your first partition must have an id of EE, your Mac Partition must have an id of AF. If either of these is wrong you must change them (don’t worry, this doesn’t modify the data on these partitions). For each that is wrong, type setpid n where n is the number of the partition whose id you are changing. Then, when prompted, type the correct id.

When you are done with fdisk, type write and then exit.

You can quit the Mac OS X Installer now.

As the computer boots, just after you hear the chime, hold down the option key on the keyboard. Windows should now be one of the options in your boot menu, so choose it. Windows should start and continue with installation. When Windows restarts, remember that you will have to hold down the option key again and choose Windows.