Boot Camp on an External Drive

Does anyone know why Apple has chosen not to allow installion of Windows on an external drive? I don't think I am going to be willing to risk putting Windows on my internal drive.
Mac Mini (Intel Core Duo)   Mac OS X (10.4.5)  

Mike -- thanks for your input. I guess Windows is just a worrisome thing for us Mac guys. Part of what always gets me is unknown code that goes into Windows. I did a Google the other day to see if I could get a feel for the "roots" of the upcoming Vista.
Who knows what Vista is really based on -- a modification of NT that was in part based on DOS and VMS? From my limited experience, I am not sure there is enough shelf space to hold the manuals to run VMS successfully. Of course, why worry; Boot Camp and other things will change before Vista gets here.
The bottom line is that I will use all the Windows security fixes.
Mac Mini (Intel Core Duo)   Mac OS X (10.4.5)  

Similar Messages

  • Boot camp on an external hard drive

    Is it possible to use bootcamp and run windows on an external hardrive rather than the built in one with out sacrificing speed. Im looking to get a hard drive for all my windows stuff and I was hoping to be able to run windows straight from it but I understand that alot of them dont run fast enough to support running an operating system. Any suggestions as to a hard drive to look at getting. I'd be looking at something about 100 gigs. The most important thing would be running Vista or xp. Any suggestions? Thanks - Peter

    I belive there might be a way, I just haven't gotten around to trying this out.
    1) use disk utility to partition the external drive to ntfs (i think)
    2) attach this disk to a pc and install the OS
    3) install refit onto your mac
    4) attach the drive via fw800, or even better yet esata, to you mac.
    5) Start up your mac
    6) choose the win xp option from the boot menu
    7) install bootcamp drivers
    this seems, in theory, that it should work. but this would probably be an easier solution:
    1) use disk utility to partition the external drive to ntfs (i think)
    2) install XP onto your internal drive via boot camp.
    3) create a disk image of XP
    4) drop the files from the image onto your external drive
    5) install refit onto your mac
    6) attach the drive via fw800, or even better yet esata, to you mac.
    7) Start up your mac
    8) choose the win xp option from the boot menu for the external drive
    9) once you have determined that this works, you can delete the xp partition from your internal drive and you will have all the space of your external drive for XP
    I would def think about getting an esata drive and the express card for this solution though.
    http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20World%20Computing/MEAQ7320GB16/
    http://refit.sourceforge.net/

  • Can I install Boot Camp on an external disk?

    I have a MacBook Air ( version 3,2) and I am running out of space to install Boot Camp. I use Windows 7 by the way.
    Can I install Boot Camp on an external disk? How do I go about doing this? I have an Apple external super drive and I have two USB ports on my computer.
    Can I install the mac operating system on the external disk including the Applications and then install Boot Camp as per usual? How would I get the Windows 7 program to install on the external disk using the superdrive that I have?

    BootCamp will only install on an internal disk.
    If you are wiling to do some work,  do some Google searches, use third party tools, and make your own custom Windows install disc, then you might be able to get what you want, but there is no guarantee that it will work on your specific hardware.
    I researched this topic a year or two ago and found people claiming that using rEFIt and custom built Windows install discs, that they were able to do what you seek.  After reading through all the instructions, I found it much easier to upgrade the HD in my MacBookPro to a 500GB drive and just installed my BootCamp on the spare 180GB space from the upgrade.  That took me a little over an afternoon, and it was fully supported...

  • Understanding boot camp and formatting backup drive for it

    somehow i never got to fully understand how boot camp works in relation to OS X and i am wondering if someone can help me out here.
    1. can i install boot camp on a mac pro and have NO mac OS on the computer at all? i have an old install here on a drive that i am not using and my recollection is that this is what i was doing.
    2. if this is the case do i simply BACKUP this Boot Camp OS to an external drive that is formatted for windows?
    3. if i have another newer mac pro (as I do) - and i am running yosemite on it - can i just run an partition on this drive and install my Boot Camp install (or maybe i run the boot camp installer and it creates a partition for itself)?
    4. in the PAST i used WinClone to create a BACKUP of the Boot Camp installation and simply dropped this backup on my OS X desktop which was backed up. is there any good reason for me to PARTITION the backup drive with a part of it being /partitioned/ as windows drive so that the Boot Camp Partition was backed up to this windows partition? the lacie external drive install app seems to ask if i want to do this and i got to thinking there may be a more direct way to backup BOOT CAMP than running the WinClone backup manually once in awhile and having this image backed up with the rest of the OS X partition.
    thanks for any help.

    thanks Csound. this is a tad confusing for me.
    i guess hatter is saying he would like to see the Windows 7 boot camp on its own drive. and right now i am basically planning on /restoring/ the WINCLONE image backup from my 2006 MP to either this separate drive in bay 4 in the 2012 MP or a partition on the OS X drive in bay 1 (if i can "cleanse" it of all the stuff it had when it was on my older 2006).
    i guess i do this /through/ the WINCLONE user interface but is it going to somehow drop this boot camp partition on a separate drive that somehow has its /own/ mac OS install on it? you know what i mean? i mean - say i want to put this boot camp install on an empty drive in bay 4, so i format it with extended journaled and then go into winclone and start some kind of restore procedure of my backup to that drive? i guess i am confused big time about this.
    also, just so i am clear. is that 2 partitions per mac pro or per disk? i mean, i do have an OS X yosemite on my drive and i am planning on installing windows 7 by restoring from WinClone image

  • "Booting from Boot Camp Assistant created USB Drive...Failed to load BOOTMGR"

    Hi Apple Ppl of the Wrld: I need help I been working on installing windows 8 on my Mac.
    Spec of equipment:
    Mac Book Pro Mid 2012
    Bootcamp Version: Version 5.0.4 (473)
    Bootable USB Flash Drive: Type Scan disk 4 GB windows 8 pro iso image but without the driver and the 2nd Scan disk USB flash drive with 32 GB with the Bootcamp Drivers downloaded and saved to this drive.
    Please Note: I also have the original back up installation disc for Microsoft 8 Prof 64 from Microsoft where I purchased it from.
    1st Bootcamp is not recognizing the Original Microsoft 8 Pro backup disk from microsoft itself.
    Solution: I created the New Image from the Original Microsoft installed disc in my desk top and changed the extension to .ISO then burned the ISO image into the newly purchased DVD+R. Then I ran Bootcamp Once again and it get the following error message "The installer disc could not be found -- Insert your Windows installer disc and wait a few seconds for the disc to be recognized. Solution
    2: Created a bootable usb drive with bootcamp assistant successfully with bootcamp. Yes I close, ejected or un-mounted any image that was open or had been previously used then i restarted the Mac. Next, I start the bootcamp assistant tool once again then i get the same insert your windows installer disc message. 
    3: Then I try to resolve the installer disc not found issue: this are the steps i took: a). Lauch disc utilities
        1. Selected the top most drive 750 GB Macintosh HDD
        2. On the right you’ll see 5 tab buttons: First Aid | Erase | Partition | RAID | Restore.
        3. Choose Partition. Then I clicked + to add another partition size of the partition was 222 GB
        4. Change the Name of the Partition to BOOTCAMP
        5. Change the Format to MS-DOS (FAT)
        6. Click Apply to save the changes and then reboot your Mac and we’ll begin Windows installation.
        7. During reboot, press and hold the alt/Option key and you’ll be presented with drives to boot from.
        8. Use the arrow keys and return button to select the Windows yellow USB key drive containing your Windows 8 installation files.
        9. This will begin the Windows install. --> then i get the following message: "Booting from Boot Camp Assistant created USB Drive...Failed to load BOOTMGR".
    4: Take the Mac to best buy and let them resolve the issue and charge me like a million dollars for it :'( since i have no other idea who to get this bootcamp working at all. This has been a terribly lengthy issue and it is not as simple as it is claimed to be since i started with the Original Windows Disc Purchased from Microsoft and I have the Optical disc drive which it should be simpler from what I understand.
    Please can you help It would be of great help.
    <Email Edited by Host>

    from what i understand you are trying to install win 8 pro from a "backup disk" the one that you purchased from microsoft.
    this will not work, it is not an installer disk.
    you need to start the process again. erase the partition you made on your hdd. in disc utility click the minus button after selecting the bootcamp partition, then manually drag the divider down fully then apply.
    next, erase your usb then format it.
    download win 8 iso from here;
    http://getintopc.com/softwares/operating-systems/download-windows-8-pro/
    it is perfectly legal to use your purchased product key in this install.
    in bootcamp select the iso image you just downloaded, select your preferred partition size, check all 3 options.
    you have the support software on another usb but you wont need it so it can be discarded. the install will work far better with the iso and support on the same drive.

  • Installing boot camp on a second drive

    Hi All,
    First let me apologize for this long-winded post and also for my lack of basic knowledge when it comes to mac computer skills.
    I would like to install windows 7 on a brand new 500gb drive in a brand new mac pro.
    I was reading through the installation & setup up guide for boot camp and was stonewalled on page 6 it says;
    “If your computer has more than one internal disk and you want to install Boot Camp on a disk that isn’t in the first hard drive bay, remove the drives in the lower numbered bays. You can reinstall the drives after you install Boot Camp.”
    Ok that makes sense but if I remove the first drive how do I install boot camp since the first drive contains boot camp on it?
    The next question I have is; Can I make the whole 500gb drive one partition that will have boot camp, windows 7 and all the windows files on it or does it have to have just boot camp and windows 7?
    Thanks
    Mike

    Shutdown - pull OS X drive(s) - continue with install.
    You'll have to change to NTFS when you get to where to install.
    At that point you can even format or partition.
    As for the Assistant, well, some install Windows 7 on a drive without it (that can't be done with XP) and just leave one drive and boot from Win 7 DVD.
    "that will have boot camp...."
    There IS NO "boot camp." The assistant modified the partition table to include a standard MBR for booting Windows. And that would be on the #2 500GB.
    Until you install the Apple setup.exe drivers and services after Windows is installed from your OS X DVD, there is nothing in or on Windows that is faintly about boot camp. Unfortunate term. It also gets to become a control panel in Windows to change the default startup OS (why not call it Apple OS Switcher / Apple Startup Disk).
    There will be AppleTimeServices and AppleOSSwitcher services along with HAL and device drivers to enable them in Device Manager.
    As for lowered numbered and first drive bay, they must think Mac Pro owners are locked into and only boot from drive bay #1. and that Assistant is a very limited not very smart partitioning tool is true.
    So run Assistant but instead of restarting with the DVD and install, just shutdown. Pull all the other drives but 500GB. Then boot off the DVD.

  • Boot Camp For Lion -- USB ISO Method --"Booting from Boot Camp Assistant created USB Drive...Failed to load BOOTMGR"

    Hello, has anyone had experience with dealing with this speciifc problem?
    In short, upon rebooting, I am getting a black screen with a line of text that says, "Booting from Boot Camp Assistant created USB Drive...Failed to load BOOTMGR." Nothing happens after that.
    I am using Mac OS X Lion 10.7.4. I have an ISO of Windows 7 Prof. along with an 8GB usb drive. I changed the coding in my bootcamp program to allow for the normally first invisible option that allows creation of a USB Installation program using an ISO that is normally only for computers without an optical drive.
    I have that box checked, the check for new software box, and the install windows box checked. I went through the process of creating the USB, downloading the software, and partitioning the drive. Then on restart, I get the failed to load bootmgr error.
    Some people have suggested using two usb drives for this. I am trying that method but it does not seem to help thus far.
    Can anyone offer any help?
    Thanks.

    from what i understand you are trying to install win 8 pro from a "backup disk" the one that you purchased from microsoft.
    this will not work, it is not an installer disk.
    you need to start the process again. erase the partition you made on your hdd. in disc utility click the minus button after selecting the bootcamp partition, then manually drag the divider down fully then apply.
    next, erase your usb then format it.
    download win 8 iso from here;
    http://getintopc.com/softwares/operating-systems/download-windows-8-pro/
    it is perfectly legal to use your purchased product key in this install.
    in bootcamp select the iso image you just downloaded, select your preferred partition size, check all 3 options.
    you have the support software on another usb but you wont need it so it can be discarded. the install will work far better with the iso and support on the same drive.

  • Yosemite boot camp install on /separate/ drive?

    i have an existing windows 7 boot camp install that resides on a drive in my 2006 mac pro with my LION OS.
    i now have a 2012 mac pro.
    should i install windows 7 with boot camp on a SEPARATE drive or can i put it on a partition on the same drive as yosemite?
    thanks

    OK. thank you.
    so i /like/ the idea of having an internal CLONE of my OS in bay 1 on the drive in bay 2.
    in the past i have set this to happen nightly and i use WinClone (thanks hatter) to create a BACKUP of the Boot Camp install of Windows 7 and i drop this backup on the DESKTOP. this way i have a BACKUP of Windows on my boot OS and i also have one on the CLONE.
    just to confirm - no reason as far as you are concerned to change this?

  • Boot Camp 3 Nightmare - External Hard Drive

    Ok, so I install Snow Leopard and updated Boot Camp to version 3.
    Half the drivers failed to install for some reason.. I restarted and was greeted by a message: 'Windows is missng hal.dll please re-install'
    I didn't mind much I just wiped Windows and reinstalled the whole thing, I only use it for games anyway. Here is where the REAL problems started.
    Apple claims you can now read HFS from Windows using Boot Camp. Great, it reads my Mac partition on my internal hard drive, but NOT my HFS external hard drive that has all my games/applications on it. Fine, so I install Mac Drive 7 (which is what I previously used) and even THAT won't recognize it. The hard drive is displayed in 'safely remove devices' but not in 'my computer'. What is going on? I need this drive desperately and it works perfectly on OS X.
    I can't find anyone with this kind of problem, I don't want to boot from my external hd, I just want to READ it, not even write to it! Thanks for reading,
    Dan

    Update:
    Using Mac Drive 8 causes an even worse situation. It now mounts my external hard drive, and I can open it and see the first set of folders. At the same time windows does its stupid 'autoplay' search. After I see this first set of folders explorer crashes. I try to force end process and restart it but it doesn't even force close down the process properly.
    The situation just gets worse and worse so I in the end I had to force restart my computer. What is going on!!!

  • How do I back up my Boot Camp partition to external firewire drive?

    I have a 15 GB Windows XP Boot Camp partition (FAT32). I want to back it up to a 120 GB external Firewire drive. (I know the backup won't be bootable). In OX X Disk Utility, I formatted the external drive as MS-DOS (FAT). I planned to do the backup using the Windows Backup utility.
    However, when booted into WinXP, Windows will not recognize the external hard drive. I thought I might need to create a FAT32 partion of 32 GB or less on the external drive, but I apparently can't do this in OS X or Windows (since Windows doesn't recognize the drive).
    Any suggestions on how to backup the Boot Camp partition will be appreciated. I'm mainly interested in preserving all programs and data. Ideally, a clone could be created that could be restored back to the original partition in bootable form, but from studying this and other forums, it dosn't seem to be easy to do this for a FAT32-formatted volume.

    My goal was to create a bootable clone of my FAT32 Boot Camp partition, while at the same time increasing the size of the partition from 15 GB to 32 GB if possible. This is what I did:
    1. As suggested in this thread, I used Disk Utility to create a disk image. I formatted it as MS-DOS (FAT), and made it 32 GB in size.
    2. Used the Finder to copy all files from my 15 GB Windows XP partition to the new disk image.
    The following steps were only to determine if the disk image is a viable backup:
    3. Removed the internal hard drive with my original Win XP partition, and installed a new internal hard drive.
    4. Used Boot Camp Assistant to create a 32 GB Boot Camp partition on the new internal drive.
    5. Inserted my Win XP installation disk and started the Windows installation. Formatted the new partition as FAT32. (I used the long rather than the quick format method--not sure if this was necessary.)
    6. Continued the Windows installation to the point of restarting the computer, at which time I used the Option key to boot back into OS X.
    7. Used the Finder to copy all the files from the 32 GB disk image to the new Boot Camp partition. (This overwrote a few Windows files installed by the aborted Win XP installation.)
    8. Restarted and used the Option key to select the new 32 GB Boot Camp Partition. Windows booted as usual with all files, programs, etc. from the original 15 GB partition. Windows did complain about "new hardware" and required a restart, but all appears normal.
    This indicates that the disk image containing all the files from my original Boot Camp partition is a viable backup, and can be used to restore the partition if necessary. I'm not sure if formatting the disk image as MS-DOS (rather than Mac OS extended) was necessary, or not.

  • Boot camp without deleting external hard drive

    Hi,
    the external hard drive im using has 2 partitions. One for Time machine backups and one which I would like to use for Windows/Bootcamp.
    Is there a way to only delete/format the Windows partition without having to delete the partition used for back ups during boot camp?
    thanks

    Loner T wrote:
    Windows on an external drive is officially supported, but you can use this How to run Boot Camp on External Hard Drive?    A TM drive is onto typically used for non-TM purposes either, so please be…
    Auto-correct. .
    It is NOT supported. Windows-to-Go, Winclone or the link I provided are the options that you have.

  • Very slow to boot, even on an external drive

    A friend's 15" MacBook Pro, quad core i7,(older, not sure of the exact model) very slow to boot, and boots with the progress bar, then when you try to log in, it goes back to the login page. Often it will not start. Starts after resetting SMC.  Reset PRAM. Booted to the recovery disk, ran repair disk on drive, no errors, tried to run repair on the volume and the MBP shut down. Tried booting to an external drive and it boots to an empty desktop with a finder window like an extended desktop.Tried AHT, only the usual battery sensor error, 4SNS/1/40000000  TB3T-128.000. ran extended test, same thing, only the one error.
    So, how to back up this MB Pro before I try an erase and install. (short of removing the drive) It would seem to be a hardware error, but always want to try an erase and install. Any ideas or troubleshooting suggestions?

    Mike -- thanks for your input. I guess Windows is just a worrisome thing for us Mac guys. Part of what always gets me is unknown code that goes into Windows. I did a Google the other day to see if I could get a feel for the "roots" of the upcoming Vista.
    Who knows what Vista is really based on -- a modification of NT that was in part based on DOS and VMS? From my limited experience, I am not sure there is enough shelf space to hold the manuals to run VMS successfully. Of course, why worry; Boot Camp and other things will change before Vista gets here.
    The bottom line is that I will use all the Windows security fixes.
    Mac Mini (Intel Core Duo)   Mac OS X (10.4.5)  

  • Boot Camp Partition Size/External HDD recommendation

    After updating software, hardware, downloading Boot Camp Asst, and installing Windows XP Pro (have not yet downloaded Mac drivers or software, nor have I submitted registration of my WinXP Pro software, still have 29 days), I realized that I set the partition size too small and need to resize it. I read in other postings that I can copy the Windows partition to an external HDD from the Mac OSX side, then run Boot Camp again, delete the "too small" Windows partition, then run Boot Camp again and reset the partition size larger. Does anyone have detailed instructions to do this?
    Also, can anyone suggest an external HDD for this purpose? I need to be able to share files between a PC and my 17" MBP running OS X 10.4.6. Specifically, I need to share (for editing purposes) audio files created with PC-based software with the Windows side of my MBP. The PC has XP Pro and MacDrive6 for Windows installed. I read the "Sharing a FireWire drive between Mac and PC" document on "The X Lab" website and, based on this, am leaning toward getting a FW (not USB) HDD and formatting it in Mac OS Extended format (not sure how to do this but cross that bridge when I get there). Does this sound reasonable? When I run Boot Camp again and have to choose between NTSF and FAT32 should I choose NTSF? Will I also need "SharePoints" or other software to share the Mac's FW drive with the PC?
    I may have the option to share and backup files over the workplace network (if I take the time to set it up). Does anyone know if there advantages/disadvantages to this option?
    Thanks for answers to these questions. Any help would be very much appreciated. Best!

    Frank,
    You might want to check the Boot Camp discussions:
    http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=1165
    In case no one in this part of the board knows.

  • Can you run boot camp on an external HD for your Mac?

    Hello,
    I have a 500GB external Drive that I was thinking about doing boot camp on it if it would work to run Windows on it.
    Sean

    Basically, no. You may want to use a product such as Parallels Desktop.
    (28928)

  • Booting Windows Off An External Drive

    I have (access to) an Intel Mac Mini which is quite capable of running Window in Boot Camp, although it doesn't currently have Windows installed or Boot Camp set up.
    I have a Macbook which runs Windows XP in Boot Camp.
    I have an external hard drive that I can use to make a bootable clone of my Windows XP boot camp partition.
    Can I use a bootable copy of Windows XP on the external hard drive to boot the Mac Mini, which doesn't have a boot camp partition of its own and hasn't had Boot Camp set up yet?

    Oh well. I'm familiar with booting Mac OSX from an external drive; I make occasional bootable backups in CCC and make other backups by creating a disk image clone in Disk Utility; since DU can't make an image of the startup drive, I boot from my previous CCC backups to do it. (It also means I can boot Leopard rather than Tiger on my PowerPC box; I've found Tiger is very slow to identify my USB backup drive, while Leopard mounts it instantly.)
    It's a pity Windows doesn't boot of an external drive; I can't install Boot Camp on the machine in question because it's not mine and its owner wouldn't let me. If I could boot off an external drive and not touch its startup disk (which Windows wouldn't be able to see anyway due to lack of HFS+ support), I'd be able to use it.

Maybe you are looking for