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I'be been trying to install Windows 8.1 using bootcamp on an Early 2011 Macbook pro. I've been using a bootable USB thumbdrive made with Unetbootin.

I edited info.plist to enable loading the win 8 iso from USB. I'm not sure if this is relevant.

Windows keeps giving the error "Windows cannot update the computers boot configuration, installation can not proceed" when running the windows setup.

I had a problem with a hybrid MBR disk, and fixed it as explained here. Windows detects GPT disk as MBR in EFI boot

Here is the output of gdisk; is there anything obviously wrong?

$ sudo gdisk /dev/disk0
Password:
GPT fdisk (gdisk) version 1.0.3

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.

Command (? for help): p
Disk /dev/disk0: 976773168 sectors, 465.8 GiB
Sector size (logical): 512 bytes
Disk identifier (GUID): 00005C15-13A1-0000-7869-0000F1280000
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 1125 sectors (562.5 KiB)




Number  Start (sector)    End (sector)  Size       Code  Name

   1              40          409639   200.0 MiB   EF00  EFI system partition

   2          409640       781460623   372.4 GiB   AF05  Customer

   3       781460624       782730159   619.9 MiB   AB00  

   4       782731264       976513023   92.4 GiB    0700  Basic data partition

   5       976513024       976773119   127.0 MiB   0C01  Microsoft reserved ...
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  • What's the filesystem on the EFI System Partition (ESP; your first partition)? Some Macs wind up misconfigured with HFS+ on the ESP, and Windows can't write to HFS+. The ESP should use FAT, and the last time I checked (with Windows 7), Windows insisted on FAT32 on the ESP. It could also be that the filesystem on the partition might be damaged, so checking for damage with appropriate filesystem-check tools (like dosfsck in Linux -- I'm not sure what macOS uses, offhand) would be helpful. – Rod Smith Oct 30 '17 at 16:32
  • Thanks for taking a look. The EFI Partition is FAT32. I have run First Aid on the disk from Disk Utility. I think the next step is to wipe the disk entirely and copy my OS image back across. – Bob B Oct 31 '17 at 20:33
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I gave up and started again

Copy OSX disk using Carbon Copy Cloner Format Mac disk which re writes a fresh EFI Copy the OSX disk back across Create an installation DVD using the windows ISO and OS X Use bootcamp to create the partition Fix the hybrid GPT problem Install windows using bootcamp and the DVD Install rEFInd to choose between OSX and windows at boot.

I'm not sure if my problems where connected to the fact that I was trying to use a USB drive as a win installer on my Early 2011 Macbook pro which is not supported or there was something wing with my EFI / Disk. I used a DVD to install windows in the end as I had been tinkering for too long.

If anyone stumbles upon this after getting the dreaded "Windows cannot update the computers boot configuration, installation can not proceed" I would clone your disk and start again.

Thanks to Rod for all the info on gpt fdisk, answering my post and creating rEFInd which works great.

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