rEFInd on MBP 2010 (6,2) macOS 10.13.6 (HSierra) is not booting Win10 install on USB

[michael lin]

The MBP 2010 falls under the category of "Install Windows on your older Mac".

I followed the install instructions I believe I have rEFInd installed correctly on the MBP. I also built a a pair of bootable USB drives with the Win10 ISO using unetbootin--one partitioned with MBR and another with GUID. But when I choose Win/USB at the rEFIind screen, both drives fail with a no device found, insert bootable media and press any key error.

However, I tried both USB drives on a 2014 macbook air in the category of "Install Windows on your newer Mac", and both USB drives correctly boot into the Windows installer. So I'm sure the USB drives are bootable.

What can I try next?

[joevt]

Burn Windows to a DVD?

[michael lin]

ding! ding! ding!

DVD seems to be working, but:
1) I had to find the Apr2018 win10 iso because i only had a 4.7GB DVD blank,
2) [correction] I had to boot the DVD from the rEFInd "3-circles/EFI" icon–-the "Win" icon gave me a "the selected disk is of the GPT partition style" error

[joevt]

I guess MBP 2010 is not new enough for UEFI Windows boot so you have to use BIOS (legacy) Windows boot. USB might not be known to legacy boot.

You didn't use BootCamp Assistant from the latest version of macOS that is supported by your MBP? That would have all the istructions for doing the Windows install. It will convert your internal disk to GPT/MBR hybrid to allow BIOS (legacy) boot.

There may be ways to do UEFI Windows install/boot (maybe using OpenCore) but that might not be the safest or most compatible method.

[michael lin]

BootCampAssistant kept crashing on my MBP 2010/6,2 with HighSierra.

but a correction from above: the "3-circles" icon is actually an EFI boot, and the "Windows" icon a BIOS/legacy boot. I had followed a HOWTO and correctly formatted the internal disk to GPT/MBR hybrid, but apparently the BIOS/legacy boot still recognized the disk as GPT and would not install. But a retry with the 3-circle/EFI boot seemed to solve the problem.

BTW, I did download the Boot Camp Support Software 5.1.5621, but a full install seemed to corrupt the Win10 boot and I had to start over. I deleted the nVidia drivers and repeated the process and it seemed to work. But a "system restore checkpoint" would have saved me a lot of time. Even so, not all the bootcamp drivers seem to work, i.e. generic drivers for keyboard, trackpad, display and bluetooth does not work. But it's OK for now.

[joevt]

I usually use Driver Genius to keep my Windows drivers up to date after installing BootCamp drivers. BootCamp drivers are mainly useful for supporting the features of Apple keyboards and displays. I don't use the BootCamp Control Panel to change the startup device - instead, I'll just hold option key during boot if I need to boot something different.

[Andrey Filipenkov]

the easiest way to install windows in (U)EFI mode is to use dism tool in windows CLI, I've used it successfully multiple times on the very same machine (don't have DVD drive for many years). Here's an example:

# W: - where to install, S: - ESP, T: - installer

# list indexes to find what to pass to the next command
dism /Get-ImageInfo /ImageFile:T:\sources\install.wim

# last option can be dropped
dism /Apply-Image /ImageFile:T:\sources\install.wim /index:8 /ApplyDir:W:\ /CheckIntegrity

# this is what Bootcamp Assistant does, can probably be skipped
dism /Image:W:\ /Add-Driver /Driver:T:\$WinPEDriver$ /Recurse /ForceUnsigned

# create boot entry in UEFI mode
bcdboot w:\windows /s s: /f UEFI

Of course you need to format your volume appropriately before doing this (e.g. with diskpart).

You can also achieve the same with Winclone's CLI utilities (no need to purchase the app).