[Tutorial] Installing Windows 7 on Macbook 13" Late 2009 using Boot Camp

I just got a Macbook (the late 2009 one) this week and wanna use Windows 7 as my primary OS, but I want to learn to use Mac OSX 10.6 (Snow Leopard) as well. There were some problems I faced and got the solutions from reading some forums. So I wanna save the solutions & steps how to solve those problems here.

Tutorials Index
1. Installing Windows 7 using Boot Camp (OS X 10.6 & Macbook 13" Late 2009 Unibody). This only installs 2 partitions which are Mac and Windows partition respectively.

2. Installing Windows 7 without using Boot Camp (OS X 10.6 & Macbook 13" Late 2009 Unibody). This doesn't mean not to use Boot Camp at all. We still need to install Boot Camp for drivers in Windows. This tutorial will explain how to make 2 Windows partitions using Disk Utility in Mac OS X 10.6.

3. Installing Wireless (WiFi) Driver in Windows 7 on Macbook 13" Late 2009 Unibody

4. Fixing slow booting in Windows 7 on Macbook 13" Late 2009 Unibody

5. Fixing the internal mic Macbook 13" Late 2009 on Windows 7


The first one is the tutorial using Boot Camp. The reference is from here. There are some steps different from the the reference because the reference using OSX 10.5.

To install Windows 7 on your Mac using Boot Camp you will need the following:

1. A Windows 7 installation DVD
2. Your OS X Snow Leopard installation DVD
4. At least 10GB of empty hard drive space on your Mac (you can probably get away with less but you’ll have almost no room to install anything other than the OS)
5. An hour if all goes well, up to 5 hours if not
6. Though not absolutely required, it’s a VERY good idea to have a complete and up to date Time Machine backup of OS X – it really came in handy for me. Because part of the process involves partitioning your drive, there’s always the distinct chance something will go wrong and everything will be wiped out.
7. Patience, possibly a great deal of it. Having a book handy will also help kill time during the partitioning, installing etc).


Installing Windows 7 via Boot Camp

1. Here goes. First thing – close absolutely every open program you can. That includes those things running in the Apple Menu that you always forget about. Don’t worry about killing the Dock or Dashboard – having those running is fine.
2. Now open a Finder and navigate to Applications -> Utilities and double-click Boot Camp Assistant.


3. Click Continue on the initial Introduction screen. Ignore the fact that it doesn’t mention Windows 7 as a possible OS to install.
4. Now you have to decide how much space you want to allocate to Windows 7. You might be able to get away with going as low as 6GB, but I would highly advise against it. You’ll have almost no space left over to install software, and your page file in Windows might cause frequent crashes. I opted for 20GB, which left me with just a bit over 16GB to use after installing Windows 7.
To change the amount of space to dedicate to Windows 7, click the small divider between Mac OS X and Windows, and drag it to the left.



5. Once you’ve determined how much space you want to allocate to Windows 7, click the Partition button.



6. The partitioning itself doesn’t take particularly long. If you receive an error, proceed to step 10 of the “How to install Vista with Boot Camp” tutorial. It provides all the troubleshooting info you need to resolve partitioning issues. Once you’ve cleared up any problems, or if everything just goes smoothly, proceed with the next step in this tutorial.



7. Now insert your Windows 7 DVD and click the Start Installation button.


8. Your Mac will restart, and Windows 7 will boot. You’ll be prompted with a window asking you which partition you want to install Windows on. Select the one with BOOTCAMP in the Name column. Selecting anything else may wipe out OS X or cause serious problems. Then select the Drive options (advanced) link.


9. With the BOOTCAMP volume still selected, click the Format link.


10. Click OK.


11. And Windows 7 will begin to install. It’s a fairly boring process, so you may want to grab yourself a cup of coffee or your beverage of choice. It will reboot and you need to hold Alt/Option button to boot from Windows partition.


12. You’ll be prompted to select your language, keyboard layout etc. The rest of the Windows 7 installation process is very straight forward.

13. Insert your OS X DVD. When prompted, select Open folder to view files. Then go to Bootcamp folder and double click setup file there



14. The Boot Camp installer will launch. Click Next to begin.


15. Select I accept the terms in the license agreement and then click Next again.


16. Make sure that Apple Software Update for Windows is checked, and click Install.


17. The Boot Camp installer will do its thing, and install all the required drivers.


18. Once completed, click Finish.


19. And yet again you’ll be prompted to reboot.