Boot Camp Won't Boot

[CMillet86]

I have a MacBook Pro 17" 2.33 C2D, I have installed XP Pro SP2 and I had to installed it 3 times before I could install the drivers and so forth, at first it would boot just fine, but now it will boot about every 10th time if that. It's really driving me crazy, as I was at school today and wanted to do an AutoCad drawing and I couldn't get Windows to boot. Sometimes it will get stuck at Windows XP loading screen and sometimes it will get just past that and be stuck on a black screen. Any Ideas? I'm not wanting to reinstall as I've just gotten XP how I like it.

[bdj21ya]

You could always try and see if you have better luck with Parallels. Another option would be to get Norton Ghost and make an image of your partition as soon as you get Windows how you want it (and before it starts having problems).

[Paul2660]

I have similar issues with my Macbookpro and XP.

When your machine gets the black screen, is it still running OK? if so, I would recommend this.

There is a "brightness.exe" that loads as part of the Apple/windows tools. This exe loads a small lcd screen down in the status bar that allows you to increase or decrease the brightness of the lcd.

Use a tool like absolute startup ( any tool that lets you edit what comes up during your machine's startup). Turn off the brightness.exe so that it can't start.

You can still manually run it, and about 1/2 of the time it will lock up my machine.

The other thing to consider is "last known good" during your boot hit the F8 key (it's either F8 or shift f8). This will give you a menu on boot, select "last known good".

If your machine hangs in the black screen mode and you turn it off, you should get the option for last known good on the next reboot.

My machine will still every so often get the black screen like you mention. It's up and running fine, just no video.

I looked hard and long when I first got my machine for a better video driver even pulling down the one from ATI but it didn't help.

During the load process, XP first paints the Windows XP screen and gives you a status bar while the core code is loaded. After this happens, your screen should go black for a few seconds, then the mouse cursor will reappear and the load continues. If mine is going to hand, its right here. I have always assumed it's the 32 bit video driver loading inncorrectly thus you don't get video, but the rest of the machine comes on up. (for what that is worth).
The only way to recover is hard power off, then restart. 95% of the time I will come up OK the 2nd time if I get this.

Out of 10 boots, I will get this black screen 2 times. Before I turned off the brightnesss.exe I was like you getting it over and over.

I also don't think a total reload will help I have done that. 2x.

I thought that as the new MacBookPro's came out with the 64 bit processors, that Apple had fixed this sine I didn't read about it as much.

I agree it's a pain, and has so far really kept me from using this machine as a primary box. I purchased it in 3rd qtr 06 and got it stable except for this issue. I have kept it thinking that Apple might finally address this, but doesn't look like that they will

As mentioned before Parrallels would get you around this also.

Paul Caldwell

[Paul2660]

Have you gotten Ghost to work? I loaded the older Drive Image 7.0, on my Macbookpro. It installed fine but when I went to run it, I errored out, couldn't find a hard drive, due to the EFI bios issue.

I hadn't tried Ghost as I assumed it would have the same problems and since they use alot of the older Drivere Image code, since they purchased them a few years ago.

Paul Caldwell

[CMillet86]

Parallels isn't an Option for me, I need to run AutoCad and Solidworks on Occasion so I need the 3D support. So far it's booted twice in a row without a problem so we'll see.