Boot Camp on External Hard Drive

I have a 2008 Macbook Pro 15-inch running Lion(10.7.3). I want to install windows 7, but i want to use a external hard drive. Is that possible?

BCA is a one trick pony.
If you intend to use the internal you have two ways:
Put a tiny OS X and use BCA and devote most of the hard drive and leave minimum for OS X
or
disconnect the external and boot from Windows DVD and then delete all the partitions and give the whole drive over to Windows (it will format, you don't need to) and have 100% Windows only - no BCA used (just download the support drivers) in which case knowing how PITA BCA is, you might still need that tiny OS X is.
Clone OS X where you need it with Carbon Copy Cloner to clone Lion and Lion Recovery

Similar Messages

  • How to run Boot Camp on External Hard Drive?

    I use my mid-2012 11" MacBook Air for gaming and school work. My hard drive is filling up fast, and I was hoping I could use an external hard drive and Boot Camp to run Windows for my games, thus freeing up most of my hard drive.
    My questions are:
    1) Is this possible?
    2) What equipment would I need to do it?
    3) What would I be looking for in an external hard drive for this purpose?
    4) If I did this, would I be able to unplug and replug my external hard drive without causing a problem?
    5) What version of Windows should I use?
    The program I will be using for my games is Steam.

    For the MacBook Pro Retina and Windows 8.1 the setup procedure was the following:
    Step -1: Make sure your Thunderbot drive works, stable and reliable.
    Step 0. Make sure you have a complete Time Machine backup of you Mac OS hard drive. Seriously. Very easy to mess things up completely.
    Step 1. Get a Windows 8.1 64 bit iso. You might want to try it out first before committing money to it. For that you can download an official 90 day Windows 8.1 Enterprise evaluation from Microsoft. It's somewhat hidden from mainstream experience, but search engines help you there.
    It is important to use 64 bit, as 32 bit will not work.
    Step 2. Get a USB flash drive. 8 GB USB flash drive worked fine for me.
    Step 3. On Window box or from virtualized Windows machine make a bootable setup USB. I have used Rufus for that. Make sure you have selected "GTP partition scheme for UEFI computer" and FAT32.
    I've tried MBR partition scheme, but it hasn't worked for me.
    Step 4. Once bootable setup USB is created, shutdown everything. Plugin your external thunderbolt drive and bootable setup USB flash drive. Hold ALT (Option key) to choose from what thing to boot.
    Step 5. If you are lucky you will see yellow "EFI Boot". Yellow usually meens 'external'. That meens you are going to boot into setup from USB flash drive. Go for it.
    Step 6. In 5-10 minutes you should get into Window setup. Whenever you are asked, always choose "Custom" or so, till you get to the hard drive selection screen. You should see list of many partitions coming from 2 drives - one internal and one external.
    WARNING: Be super careful here!!!!!
    Step 7. Convince Windows to install itself on the drive that is external. You might have to delete all of the partitions of the external drive and leave it completely unpartitioned. This will make Windows autoconvert it's partition scheme to GTP.
    WARNING: Think twice before deleting any partitions; do not delete any partitions on your internal drive.
    Step 8. Let Windows install itself. I recommend turning off windows autoupdate for now, especially drivers part of it, since Windows 8.1 autoudate seams to be pushing buggy drivers at the moment.
    Step 9. If you are SUPER lucky after reboot (and holding ALT/Option) you should see gray "EFI boot" that will boot Windows from external drive.
    Step 10. Download and install Apple latest bootcamp drivers, things should work normally once those drivers are installed.
    Step 11. Enjoy!

  • Help, need help booting XP from external hard drive

    Hi all, i can't seem to get XP to boot from my external hard drive.
    OK, heres the story. i have an imac. i use bootcamp to run OSX and XP. things are good. but i run out of space, so i buy myself a 2tb bare drive and swap it out. so i put the original internal with OSX and XP into an external firewire/usb enclosure. I install refit. I hold option on startup and it shows that i have a windows and a mac OS i can boot from the External firewire disk. looks great, but when i choose the windows from the Ext disk, it doesn't boot, instead it loads windows7 on my new 2tb internal disk.
    i hear its hard to boot windows XP from an external disk. my professor told me it has something to do with the boot.ini file on the XP disk... something about changing the value of the "rdisk" to 1, which i have done.
    i am not trying to reinstall xp, rather just boot from it because i have so many applications/plugins that i do not wish to reinstall.
    Does anyone know if this is possible?>> Logon to windows7, and create a system image/backup of the system FROM the XP external disk? and then reinstall XP on that disk, then restore back onto itself? that way i won't have to reinstall.
    anyone have any ideas?

    Hi boi,
    you can't start ANY windows OS from external HD...

  • How do I boot Leopard from external hard drive?

    I'm currently staring off into space... my 3 month old MBP seems to have finished its painfully long boot and all that appears the Leopard background. The local Mac guru isn't available until Monday but did tell me I need to boot from my external hard drive. Um, how do I boot from external hard drive?
    The cause of the problem: inserting flash drive powering up.
    Tried safe boot. Only difference was iCal reminder popped up in space.
    Mac guru told me do NOT use install disks!
    Help!
    AR

    Apple support has told me that you cannot boot a MBP from an external drive when Leopard is installed on a MBP.
    That is just plain wrong.
    1) Hook up your external drive. Use FireWire for better performance.
    2) Launch Disk Utility and highlight the actual drive icon at the left. Click on the Partition tab.
    3) In the Partition section, click on the Options button. Click on the radio button for "GUID Partition Map". This is the option you must use in order for a drive to be bootable on an Intel based Mac. Click OK.
    4) Set up your partitions however you want and click the Partition button at the lower right.
    From here, you can either clone your internal drive to the external, or install Leopard on it from scratch.

  • My Macbook air flash had gone for a month and I saw Apple's Macbook air flash storage drive replacement program. I'm not sure whether that program is still available for the broken device or not. Now, I'm booting from the external hard drive. Thank you.

    My Macbook air flash had gone for a month and I saw Apple's Macbook air flash storage drive replacement program. I'm not sure whether that program is still available for the broken device or not. Now, I'm booting from the external hard drive. Warranty has gone in October 2013..
    I want to send back my macbook air back to apple store. The problem is that I bought it from US and now, I'm using it in Myanmar. If the program is free of charge for my device, it's worth trying to send back to US. Since mine is broken, I'm afraid Apple will take charges for reparing.
    So, if anyone having the same problem as me, I would like to get suggestion....
    Thank you!!

    I have no idea about how to handle the international aspect of your question.
    But here is the Apple writeup about the problem and the remedy.  Maybe that will help you.
    http://www.apple.com/support/macbookair-flashdrive/

  • My computer shows the grey screen that says i need to restart when i tray and boot from an external hard drive

    It shows the grey screen that i need to restart when i try to boot from an external hard drive. both drives have snow leopard

    Kernel Panics? Don't panic too!
    "You need to restart your computer" (kernel panic) message appears (Mac OS X v10.5, 10.6)

  • Boot OS from external hard drive?

    Hi, I'm currently planning on getting a Macbook Pro laptop. However, I don't like Mac's OS X and I was wondering if it's possible to install Vista and Linux onto the computer THEN move all of Mac's OS onto an external hard drive where I'm able to boot up if I choose to. You might suggest to just get a laptop with Vista already on it to save the trouble, but I'm doing this because the new Macbook Pros have the specification and I like [i.e. graphics card, processor, ram, price] and unlike customized laptops like Alienware, the new Macbook Pros are not as expensive and somewhat in my price range. So:
    1. Is it possible move the Mac's OS to an external hard drive to boot up when I want?
    2. Would this cause any problems if it's possible and I install Vista and Linux?
    3. Can Geek Squad agents help me do such a thing?... can they work on Macs and with Linux? [I've never used the Geek Squad service except asking a couple of questions so I don't know your policies.]
    4. If so, roughly how much would they charge? [I would do this by myself since I'm pretty computer savvy, but if it's a reasonable price I would rather go to the Geek Squad instead of risking messing up a brand new computer.]
    Any other information would be great. Thanks for your time.
    Message Edited by joka on 10-30-2008 04:15 PM

    Hi joka!
    You post an interesting question which puzzles
    me.  I just did some casual surveying of
    Mac enthusiasts around me and learned that they are often loyal because of the
    way Mac Book Pro is manufactured. However, all of them agreed that Mac OS X is
    one of the reasons they own a Mac and that it would seem more practical to get
    a PC in your scenario.  I understand why some
    customers want to tap into the coolness factor of a Mac Book Pro – yet may need
    Vista or XP for business. This is simple enough to achieve using Boot Camp. What
    you want to achieve may be possible, but not practical because of slower data
    transfer rates to external hard drives.  Perhaps
    if you still want a Mac, then you would be better off leaving all three OS
    choices on the ample Mac internal hard drive and use the external drive for
    storage?  Anyone else have suggestions?
    Matthew|Community Advocate | Best Buy® Corporate
    Visit our Channel on
     Private Message

  • Booting Windows on External Hard Drive

    Is it possible to set up an external hard drive with one or more Windoze partitions so I can boot from them? If so, will the drive also boot a Windoze machine? Also, what is the oldest version that will work with a 2.2 GHz MB?
    Message was edited by: MacInAction7

    Windows does not boot from external drives.
    For Boot Camp installations:
    Windows XP Home Edition or Professional with Service Pack 2 or later, or Windows
    Vista Home Basic, Home Premium, Business, or Ultimate
    Important:
    You must use a single full-install Windows installation disc (Service Pack 2 is required for Windows XP installations). Do not use an upgrade version of Windows and do not install an earlier version of Windows XP and attempt to update it later to SP2. Use only 32-bit versions of Windows.

  • How can I boot images on external hard drives with an older OS

    Hi,
    I recently bought a new MacBook Pro Retina (running OS 10.9.2 Mavericks), because I had to give back my „old“ one (bought in February 2013, running OS 10.8 Mountain Lion), which was only a loan from University.
    So here comes my problem: I used Carbon Copy Cloner to create bootable images of my old MacBook on two independent hard drives. I tested these images and they both booted perfectly well on the old MacBook. As it turns out, I cannot boot from these images on my new MacBook Pro, I just get a crossed grey circle (both images work perfectly well when I boot from my internal hard drive and I just use them as external drive, by the way). Is it really correct, that it is not possible to boot a system with an older OS as the OS of the MacBook? Why? I really would like to have the option of booting these images, since I have some applications installed I might want to use from time to time in the future (and I don’t want to migrate all applications to my new MacBook, but prefer a clean install). As I understand, it would be necessary to update the images to Mavericks. But how do I do this when I have no computer which is able to boot them?
    I still have a very old MacBook from 2007 running OS X 10.5 (Leopard) and I also tried booting the images with this computer - didn’t work either. Would it help to update this to Snow Leopard? What OS would I need to boot my Mountain Lion images?
    Any help on this is highly appreciated!
    Thanks!

    Hi!
    Thanks for your prompt response. The reason I don't want to migrate all apps is that I had installed a lot of scientific applications on the Mt-Lion MacBook that I will definitely not use in the future, some that I might use only very rarely, and I can migrate only the complete applications folder (and I have only a 256 GB hard drive). Of course I could deinstall the unused apps manually after the migration, but I am not 100% sure, if this procedure completely removes all the stuff from the libraries and preferences, etc. Moreover I also started playing with some time ago with server applications like apache server etc. and since I am a complete newbie in this field, I have to admit, I really don't know how to uninstall these things properly. So I figured a clean install for the new MacBook would be the best. Well, maybe I will migrate everything and remove the unnecessary stuff afterwards manually. I am just a bit disappointed, because I didn't anticipate these problems with the images...
    Just one further question: Is it correct, that if I find a way to update my images from Mt-Lion to Mavericks (if that is possible at all?), this would make them bootable again?
    Thanks!

  • Mac won't boot up if external hard drive is on

    I just purchased an external hard drive to use for my Time Machine backups. The "installation" instructions said that with the computer off, to power up the e.h.d., then power up the computer. Well, the computer is evidently trying to boot up from the e.h.d. - the white screen/apple logo sits there for 5 minutes, then it restarts but cycles through the same thing over & over. Called Apple Care & we simply turned the e.h.d. off and booted up just fine. Then turned the e.h.d. back on & my first Time Machine backup went fine.
    Shut down for the night. Turned the computer on this a.m. (external drive still on) and the same rigamarole - no successful start - happened again.
    My question: should I just turn the external hard drive off when I turn the computer off (I use it only for Time Machine backups) or should I stress & sweat over finding a solution or, last resort, return it?

    I would contact the manufacturer of the hard drive for a firmware update.
    It is strange that this drive in particular should have a problem, as it was one of the ones demoed at the Stevenote, and shown on the Time Machine initial advertising. If a firmware update doesn't solve the problem, return the drive, and get a better rated drive that is known to be compatible with your version of the operating system.

  • How do I boot from an external hard drive?

    I have a MacBook Intel. I attached a USB hard drive and made a partition for an system image and another for Time Machine. I did a system Restore to the Image partition. I would like to test it to see if I can back up to it. Is there a key or something that I have to hold down to be able to choose which disk to boot from (internal or external)?
    also, I created the system image for the external hard drive by using the Restore command with the source as my current hard drive and the output as the external partition. There did not seem to be any other options. Is there something else I should have done?
    The drive is formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and I chose the Intel set up (GUID ?).
    The OS is Leopard

    Is there a key or something that I have to hold down to be able to choose which disk to boot from (internal or external)?
    Hold the "Option" key when booting.

  • How do I boot from an external hard drive if my MacBook Pro only recognizes the internal drive?

    Hi there, I recently got the white screen of death (w/ circle slash) on my 13" 2009 MacBook Pro. Most people are saying that it is hard drive failure, so I am trying to boot it from an external hard drive to save some of my data before having it repaired. Unfortunately, every time I press "option" while it boots, it only shows the internal drive on the grey screen. I have my external drive connected, but it won't recognize it. What should I do?
    Thanks!

    Welcome to the Apple Support Communities
    You can only start from an external drive if OS X is installed there. If not, it won't appear as a bootable volume because there isn't any operating system inside it.
    As you have a Mid 2009 MacBook Pro, it's better to start from the Mac OS X disc that came with your Mac. Insert it and hold the C key while your Mac is starting. After starting, go to Utilities menu > Disk Utility, select "Macintosh HD" in the sidebar and repair it. If you can't get it repaired, take the computer to an Apple Store.
    If the hard drive can't be repaired, the only option to recover your files is to use an application as DiskWarrior, but it's expensive and it's not sure that it will work, because it may fail

  • Can I boot to an external hard drive with Windows OS installed on it to play games?

    Hello,
    I am getting a Mac in the near future for work, and was wondering if it was possible to take my current PC's hard drive and connect it to the Mac with the high speed thunderbolt cable, then book to the external hard drive to play games in windows. In my research I have not seen much about this. I understand that BootCamp works, and am willing to do this, but with the new Macbook Pros that were released, there is very little storage space for two partitions.
    Any help would be great,
    Also, I know that the performance would not be stunning, but my performance is already lacking because I only have AMD integrated graphics on my machine.
    Thanks

    A virtual machine is a software system such as VMware Fusion or Parallels which provides a software environment within which a different operating system, such as Windows can run. The files which make up the virtual machine itself (e.g., where Windows and any Windows based software, such as Microsoft Office, reside) can be located on an internal or an external drive. Only the virtualizing program itself needs to be on the boot drive. The connection between an external drive on which the virtual machine files reside will be faster than the external drive itself if the connection is USB 3.0 or Thunderbolt because the speed of an external HD will be the limiting factor. If the external is an SSD, the connection used might make a difference. But a virtual machine will still be slower than a physical machine (i.e., computer) because  hardware is faster than the software emulation of it whether the hardware is Windows in BootCamp or a real PC, as BobTheFisherman says.
    If you mean the new Retina MacBook Pro (Late 2013), the internal storage isn't a hard drive, it's an SSD on a PCIe bus. OWC, among other vendors, may one day develop an upgrade method as they have for the SSD's in earlier rMBP's but for now, what you order is what you get.

  • MBP Late 2010, How can I install Win7 Boot Camp using External Optical Driv

    Hello:
    I have a new MBP purchased in February. It's not the 2011 model. I replaced the Optical drive with an SSD drive and put the optical drive in an external enclosure. The Optical drive works great, reads, writes, etc. My Windows 7, Pro 64bit DVD works also, tested on a PC.
    I use the Boot Camp assistant to create a partition. It them reboots and never starts up from the optical drive. I get an Apple logo alternating with a stop sign.
    I have got back to OS X by starting with the Option key and choosing my OS X volume.
    I tried booting to the DVD by using the option key, that did not work. I then choose the EFI option which allowed me to hit any key and appeared to boot from the external optical drive. Windows setup screen came up and I hit enter to start the file loading process. It eventually stopped when the progress bar was all the way across the screen. Then nothing.
    Questions {Please give definitive answers, not guesses, thanks :)}
    1) Is it possible to setup a boot camp Windows installation without an internal optical drive? Yes/No.
    2) If yes, how?
    3) I see the rEFIt utility has helped some but I read mixed reports. Will this help me boot and run Windows setup from an external optical drive? I don't want to install it if it's not known to be a certain fix.
    4) Is my only options to reinstall the optical drive?
    I chatted to OWC the vendor that sells the bracket. They had no idea how to install a Windows BC partition without an internal drive.
    I am seriously discouraged by what seems to be Apple wanting to control everything. I had a Mac Pro and Air book in my future but now, it's on hold.
    Thanks in advance,
    Kevin

    I tried what you are doing with a 2007 MBP, and could not get any Windows CD s to boot from an external optical drive, firewire or USB.
    I think this is fundamental to Windows which won't boot from an external USB drive either even on a Windows machine (although I believe there may be complex ways of achieving this). I don't think this is Apple trying to control the world.
    I ended up taking the MCE Optibay out and putting the original optical drive back in.
    Just possible that something has changed between a 2007 MBP and 2010 MBP, but I doubt it.
    If you want the second internal HD, you have two options:-
    1. Put the Apple optical back in, install Windows, then take out the optical and refit the SSD. The external optical will still be able to install windows apps and data etc, just not boot any windows install CDs or utilities (like Paragon rescue disks). You will not be able to do a Windows repair install without refitting the optical.
    2. Parallels, which has come a long way in the last two years. I am 99% certain that Parallels will install from an external optical.
    Message was edited by: Mike Boreham
    Message was edited by: Mike Boreham
    Message was edited by: Mike Boreham

  • Can OS X boot from an external hard drive's partition?

    I purchased a 500GB external hard drive in hopes of: 1. creating a bootable backup copy of a freshly installed version of Snow Leopard, and 2. a backup of files which I don't want on my Macbook (ie. school files from 8 years ago).
    If I divide the external hard drive into 2 partitions, can OS X still boot from a partition? I heard from somewhere that OS X can only boot a volume, but not a partition...
    As usual, thank you for any help you can provide!

    miceblue425 wrote:
    I purchased a 500GB external hard drive in hopes of: 1. creating a bootable backup copy of a freshly installed version of Snow Leopard, and 2. a backup of files which I don't want on my Macbook (ie. school files from 8 years ago).
    Yes.
    If I divide the external hard drive into 2 partitions, can OS X still boot from a partition? I heard from somewhere that OS X can only boot a volume, but not a partition...
    Two names for the same thing: partition = volume.
    As usual, thank you for any help you can provide!
    Most external HDs are bootable. But some Western Digitals won't boot a Mac. Their list of which ones should and +should not+ boot: http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc.cfg/php/enduser/stdadp.php?pfaqid=1787. But note the disclaimer that they don't support it +*at all.+*
    For setup instructions, see #1 in Formatting, Partitioning, Verifying, and Repairing Disks.

Maybe you are looking for