Trouble booting after migration from real PC to BOOTCAMP

Winclone
1

I used Winclone 8.2 to make a WIM image of a hard drive out of an HP Pavilion on a 2012 Macbook Pro Rentia (Macbook10,1) running a fresh install of MacOS Catalina (10.15.7).

After the initial backup image, I ran sysprep on the HP laptop, then made the image I would use to install on the Macbook. I created the BOOTCAMP partition in Disk Utility (half of a 1TB internal SSD; OWC Aura Pro SSD Media) formatted in MS-DOS (FAT). I then used Restore Image to populate the BOOTCAMP partition with the image. I also used the Bootcamp Assistant to put the Apple drivers on a USB flash drive, then used Winclone to inject the drivers into the Windows volume.

After restarting and trying to boot into the Windows disk, I got a black screen with a flashing cursor. I tried using Winclone to “Make EFI Bootable” (after disabling SIP in the Mac Recovery menu). That gave me another boot option called EFI Boot. Selecting that option freezes the Macbook (requiring me to hold down power to shutdown and power back on). I tried the “Make Legacy Bootable” option, but that gets me back to the flashing cursor.

I’m not sure what else to do to get this to work. Any ideas?

Diskutil -list

/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *960.2 GB disk0
1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk0s1
2: Apple_APFS Container disk1 480.0 GB disk0s2
3: Microsoft Basic Data Windows 480.0 GB disk0s3

/dev/disk1 (synthesized):
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: APFS Container Scheme - +480.0 GB disk1
Physical Store disk0s2
1: APFS Volume Preboot 90.3 MB disk1s2
2: APFS Volume Recovery 525.8 MB disk1s3
3: APFS Volume VM 1.1 GB disk1s4
4: APFS Volume Macintosh HD - Data 96.8 GB disk1s5
5: APFS Volume Macintosh HD 11.1 GB disk1s6

2

Well, I was able to make figure out a solution that doesn’t involved me starting from scratch. Here’s my journey:

  1. SIP has been left disabled.
  2. Reformatted partition using Disk Utility to ExFat.
  3. Created install media via BootCamp Assistance and Windows ISO.
  4. Restarted, black screen with flashing cursor.
  5. Restarted and chose MacOS.
  6. Installed OWC bootcamp drivers.
  7. Restarted, no bootable drive.
  8. Restarted and chose EFI Boot.
  9. Windows would install due to partition not being MBR.
  10. Reformatted partition using Disk Utility to MSDOS (FAT).
  11. Used Bootcamp Assistant to install Windows (first two options unchecked, already did them).
  12. Windows came up, then black screen with flashing cursor.
  13. Waited longer, windows setup came back.
  14. Installed Windows Home (no product key) on BOOTCAMP partition using external drive setup by Bootcamp Assistant
  15. Completed initial setup (local account, security questions, etc).
  16. Ran Bootcamp installer and restarted (unplugged external drive after restart began).
  17. Restarted to MacOS (note only two boot volumes show up at this time, BOOTCAMP and Macintosh HD).
  18. Made WIM image of current BOOTCAMP partition using Winclone 8.2.
  19. Restored WIM image of HP laptop to BOOTCAMP partition using Winclone 8.2.
  20. Mount external install drive and injected drivers from the WinPEDriver directory.
  21. Uplugged external drive and selected Windows boot drive
  22. Black screen with flashing cursor (waited 30 mins).
  23. Plugged in external drive, restarted and external drive (Windows, not EFI Boot).
  24. Installed Windows on BOOTCAMP drive (again) and restarted.
  25. Windows went through several “getting ready” screens.
  26. Completed initial setup (local account, security questions, etc).
  27. Ran Bootcamp installer and restarted (unplugged external drive after restart began).
  28. Made recovery drive.
  29. Restarted and chose MacOS.
  30. Restored WIM image of HP laptop to BOOTCAMP partition using Winclone 8.2.
  31. injected drivers from the @WinPEDriver$ directory.
  32. Installed OWC bootcamp drivers.
  33. Restarted, black screen with flashing cursor.
  34. Plugged in recovery drive.
  35. Restarted and chose MacOS (Windows, not EFI Boot).
  36. Chose Troubleshoot > Startup Repair.
  37. Completed initial setup (local account, security questions, etc).
  38. Ran Bootcamp installer. Screen went black due to adaptive brightness. Shined a light though apple logo to see when done.
  39. Restart into Windows, screen may still be dark. Plug/Unplug power cord. Cycling power turns everything back on.
  40. Now time to set everything back up and do Windows updates.

Now, obviously most of that is unnecessary, but I was trying incremental fixes. What I think it comes down to this:

  • Real PC: Run sysprep as an administrator. (If sysprep fails, check logs in “C:\Windows\System32\sysprep\Panther”, and probably need to refer to help guides on how to remedy), then remove hard drive.

  • MacOS: Use Winclone to make WIM image of drive from Real PC (make take a while, open the log to check status).

  • MacOS: Install the OWC Dual Boot Enabler (drivers for the OWC SSD drive).

  • MacOS: Install a fresh copy of Windows 10 from a downloaded ISO using Bootcamp Assistant (keep a copy of the drivers and the BOOTCAMP setup on a flash drive).

  • Windows: Make a recovery disk from the fresh install (may want to install the Bootcamp drivers first).

  • MacOS: Use Winclone to overwrite the BOOTCAMP parition with the WIM image. Inject the drivers saved by the Bootcamp assistant (WinPEDriver directory).

  • Reboot. If it hangs with a flashing cursor (give it a few minutes) then use the Windows recovery disk to do a repair (not restore or recovery). Once you finish the initial setup with Windows (required even if there’s existing users), Install the Bootcamp drivers off the flash drive.

Hopefully this will help someone else with a 2012 Macbook Pro Retina using an OWC SSD.