How did I install 64-bit Windows 7 on a very old MacBook Pro without a Superdrive

I have a very old MacBook Pro. It is a MA610 /A1211 (MacBookPro2,1, 15-inch, 2.33 GHz T7600, ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 Graphics card), released at late 2006. I wanted to install Windows 7 on it. Now the Windows 7 on my old MacBook Pro works fine. It took me two whole days to install Windows 7 on my old Mac. I met all kinds of problems and tried hard finding way to fix these problems. Now I know how to do it in a right way, so I write this post to share it. I hope it may help you. If you have any question or problem, you are welcome to leave a comment.

Why it is so hard to install Windows 7 on a Old Mac?

Because it is not official supported. Apple says:

All Intel-based Macs support Windows 7 using Boot Camp 3.1 except these:

iMac (17-inch, Early 2006)
iMac (17-inch, Late 2006)
iMac (20-inch, Early 2006)
iMac (20-inch, Late 2006)
MacBook Pro (15-inch, Early 2006)
MacBook Pro (17-inch, Late 2006)
MacBook Pro (15-inch, Late 2006)
MacBook Pro (17-inch, Early 2006)
Mac Pro (Mid 2006, Intel Xeon Dual-core 2.66GHz or 3GHz)

Anyway, I have managed to install 64-bit Windows 7 Ultimate on my MacBook Pro without using a Superdrive, and video, audio sound, iSight... all are working fine. I will share how I install Windows on this post. I believe the same method should work on other old model MacBook Pro, MacBook, iMac.

Note: why I install Windows 7 without using the Superdrive? Because I remove the optical disk drive for a second hard disk drive. If you have Superdrive, you may try to use it.

Newer Macs support boot Windows installation image from USB drive (with rEFIt), but these old models will fail.

Here is how I did install Windows 7 on my old MacBook Pro:

What you need:

• a copy of Windows 7 ISO image file
• rEFIt, a free boot menu and maintenance toolkit for Intel Macs. I used rEFIt 0.14.
• NTFS tools like Paragon NTFS for Mac OS X, Tuxera NTFS for Mac (You may use trial version)
• VMware Fusion (You may use trial version), the virtual machine. (No, we will not run Windows with this virtual machine, and I will tell you how to install a real Windows on your MacBook)
• Boot Camp Assistant would not work on a disk with more than one partition. The disk you install Mac OS X should have only one partition (using GUID partition table), and you have Mac OS X system installed on it. And it should have more than 25G free space left for Windows 7 installation.

Part one, Windows 7 installation

Backup important data on you Mac before the installation, and use my guide at your own risk!

1. Make a partition for Windows 7
Make a Windows 7 partition with Boot Camp Assistant (/Applications/Utilities/Boot\ Camp\ Assistant.app). Follow the instruction until the windows installation part. The partition should be large than 25G. The original files of Mac OS X will be kept, no data would be lost, backup-backup-backup anyway.

You will ask to save Windows Support file. This file contains hardware drivers for Windows system. Save this file.

2. Install rEFIt
Download and install rEFIt. Reboot your mac after the installation. (You may uninstall rEFIt after the Windows 7 have been installed.)

3. Install a NTFS tool
Install NTFS tools like Paragon NTFS for Mac OS X, Tuxera NTFS for Mac (You may use trial version). Reboot your mac after the installation. (If you press and hold option key when you boot your mac, you should now see rEFIt boot menu, but save it for later.)

4. Install VMware Fusion
Download and Install VMware Fusion. You can use the free trial edition. I used 4.0. After VMware Fusion is installed, run it for once. Then follow the instruction on this post installing Windows 7 to the Boot Camp partition with VMware Fusion.

After the first reboot of Windows 7 installation, If you are lucky, you should finished the windows setup with no problem (if so, skip to the driver part of this post). If not, like me, you may meet problems with this file when Windows is booted:

	File: \windows\system32\winload.exe

or

	\boot\bcd

stay claim, below is how to fix the problem. (thank dextro)

5. Reboot your Mac to Mac OS X.

6. Delete all files on the Boot Camp Windows partition.

7. Mount Windows 7 installation disk image, and copy all the files on the disk to Boot Camp partition.

8. Reboot your Mac while holding option. Select Windows partition from the rEFIt boot menu

9. Go on as a normal Windows installation. Install Windows on the same bootcamp partition that contains windows installation files.

10. After the installation, you should have a normal Windows 7 now. Delete the folders and files of the installation to save some disk space (keep "boot" and other Windows system folders and files ).

You may also uninstall rEFIt, NTFS tool and VMware Fusion on the Mac OS X now.

Part two, Hardware Drivers for Windows 7 on Old Macs

Boot Camp Windows Support you downloaded when Boot Camp Assistant making the partition contains most of the hardware drivers.

Like Intel945Setup.exe for Intel 945 motherboard, AppleRemoteInstaller64.exe for IR remote receiver, SigmaTelSetup.exe for SigmaTel High Definition Audio, AppleiSightInstaller64.exe for the iSight camera. Try these files first if you find any hardware need driver. I found almost all the hardware drivers for My old MacBookPro2,2, except one -- Radeon X1600 Graphics card. (I believe it is the video card that stop Apple from supporting Windows 7 on my MacBook Pro and other iMac and MacBooks.)

ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 Graphics card driver for 64-bit Windows 7

It seems there is no official Windows 7 driver for ATI Mobility Radeon X1600. Here is how to modify a desktop one to make it workable on a mobility version.

I quote the guide from here. I tried it with catalyst driver 9.3, because it's said newer catalyst driver will not work with this modification.

1) download the latest catalyst driver for the Radeon x1600 from ATI/AMD (the desktop version, not the laptop) for vista 64 bit (i know, it's not windows 7, but it will work, trust me, i did it)

2) start the install and let it extract the drivers to the c:\ATI but then quit as soon as it goes into the installer

3) open C:\ATI\Support\9_3_vista64_win7_64_dd_ccc_wdm_enu\Driver\Packages\Drivers\Display\LH6A_INF\CH_76829 in notepad

4) find the line that has [ATI.Mfg.NTamd64.6.0] and change it to [ATI.Mfg.NTamd64.6.1]

5) directly under that add this to a new line:
"Radeon X1600 Mobility" = ati2mtag_RV530, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_71C5

6) goto Control Panel -> System and Security -> Administrative Tools -> Computer Management and on the list goto device manager

7) Under Device Manager goto Display Adapters and expand it, right click on the adapter there (should be standard vga display, maybe) and go into properties

8) Click on the driver tab and then the update driver button

9) Click on Browse my computer for driver software, then on let me pick from a list of deice drivers, then on the button have disk

10) click on browse, goto C:\ATI\Support\9_3_vista64_win7_64_dd_ccc_wdm_enu\Driver\Packages\Drivers\Display\LH6A_INF\ and select CH_7682

11) Click on Rdeon X1600 Mobility (should be the only adapter in the file) click next. A promt for windows security will come up click on install driver anyways

Now, Windows on my MacBook Pro works fine. Thanks to all that help me, and I hope this post may help you!

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