Boot Windows 7 Off of External SSD?

So I currently have a Macbook Pro Retina (mid 2012) with 500gb of SSD. I have it split (320gb mac/180 win) because I use it for Final Cut Pro editing on the mac side and Steam/PC Gaming on the Windows side. I am considering purchasing a Transcend Jet Drive Updgrade kit to swap out my internal drive to a 960gb.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00JKCHMP0/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&coli d=1TN78YRCF5IMH&coliid=I3005EZ5353XU2&psc=1
I am thinking about leaving the 960gb internal as a solely Mac formatted drive and taking the leftover 500gb SSD and Transcend Casing and making it solely a Windows formatted drive. Theoretically this would mean I have a portable Windows machine, whenever I plug in the small casing via USB 3.0. This has raised some questions though...
Can you boot Windows form a USB 3.0 Externall SSD?
Will there be speed or preformance issues, specifically if I plan on gaming on the windows drive, or will it be as fast as it is usually when playing on the internal drive?

M. Video Productions wrote:
<snip>
Can you boot Windows form a USB 3.0 Externall SSD?
<snip>
No

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Boot windows 7 from an external ssd/thunderbolt drive

I have an iMac 27", Mid 2011, 3.4 Ghz i7 Quad core with a 2TB internal HDD OSX 10.7.5 and a MacBook Air 2014 - Mavericks.
I want to create either a 64Gb USB 3 Flash stick or, if necessary (as I would have to buy it) an external thunderbolt drive to run Windows 7 rather than partition my internal hard drive on either computer.
Basically I want to create a totaly portable windows boot drive to run windows 7 and some software I need for work (I just really hate using my slow, POS, work laptop) to run on either mac as I need it
Is this possible?
Will bootcamp recognise either of these types of drives to switch between OSX and Windows - I know USB drives are not recognised?
Can someone point me in the right direction on idiot proof instructions on how to create this?
Thanks for your help in advance

That is true, and may indeed work. You'll likely know during the installation of Windows if it allows you to select a partition on an external drive to install it to.
I'd be very interested in hearing your results.

Is it possible to boot windows solely from an external hard drive so that it does not affect the internal drive

Is it possible to boot windows solely from an external hard drive so that it does not affect the internal drive. I already know that you can partition the internal hard drive to do the very same. Idon't want to use any of the internal space to run windows so I'm asking if it is possible to use a flash drive or external drive through USB to run windows when it is plugged in.

Read https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5043762?start=0&tstart=0 to discover you can't do it.
Allan

Boot from internal Fusion or external SSD?

My wife surprised me with the base level 5K iMac. It has the 1TB Fusion drive. I wish it had been upgraded to an SSD but it's too late now, I'm stuck with it. I self-upgraded to 32Mb RAM already.
To get the best performance, would you recommend using an external SSD as a startup/boot disk, and running everything - OS X, apps, etc - from there?
Would I see meaningful performance benefits, or should I just stick with the Fusion Drive?

Fusion is SSD (at least in part).
It combines the SSD with a spinning HD. I think you can opt to divide it into 2 separate disks if you are willing to reinstall the OS (or do some major juggling).
I think the OS installer will try to force a fusion drive on supported Macs, but you may be able to clone or restore to each disk instead.
You could buy a large SSD & run it from Thunderbolt if you want, but fusion is intended to put the most used files on the SSD with the rest on the HD.
Some people don't like Fusion since it uses Core storage (& is new and confusing). Personally I'd give it a go to see if it performs well enough.

Running dead iMac from external SSD?

After watching a video on how to install an SSD in my early 2008 iMac, I bought an external USB enclosure and opted to simply boot off it, using my iMac's internal drive as a backup. This has worked great for more than a year. But last week, after 5 years of yeoman service, the internal drive died. The iMac still boots up fine off the external SSD. I would just like to know if there's any reason I shouldn't continue to use the iMac in this fashion. Any comments or advice appreciated.

Just tried to boot the newly cloned external SSD. Pressed the option key on startup to bring up the startup disk icons. Just got a gray screen. Did a hard shutdown, disconnected the two SSD's. Waited. Reconnected everything. Tried again. This time one SSD icon of the two came up but nothing happened when I clicked on it. Shut down again. Zapped the PRAM. Booted again. This time I got both SSD icons. Yay. But the cursor wouldn't move nor would the arrow keys do anything. Boo. This time I disconnected the SSD's and pulled the power cord from the back of the iMac. Waited a few minutes then reconnected. Booted again. Again got the single icon and the frozen cursor. I had the feeling that the dead (or almost dead) internal hard drive was somehow getting in the way of the startup process. I disconnected one of the SSD's and the remaining one booted fine. I re-connected the second one. It mounted. I opened up the Startup Disk Pref Pane. Only one of the SSD's showed up so I selected the one there. I re-booted & voila. All is sweetness and light. I think I'm going to have to open up the box and disconnect the comatose HD so I don't have to do this dance anymore.

Trouble booting Windows 8 from mSATA SSD drive on HP Envy

I’m having an issue booting Windows 8 from my mSATA SSD drive (I believe that’s the correct terminology, it connects directly to the motherboard.) I have a HDD that, it appears to me, it is trying to boot from. The bios does not let me specifically select the boot drive, just disk. I can boot from the SDD if I either remove the HDD or go through boot options and select to boot from an EFI file. A little background – I’ve had this running Windows from the SSD drive since I got it (installed that way) and using the HDD for storage. My SSD drive had been removed and Windows installed on the HDD (since this is the HP forum I won't get into how this happened when I sent my laptop in for an unrelated repair.) Seems I should be able to get it booting from the SSD again since it has not changed. I’ve since removed the partitions and reformatted the drive. I also tried setting up the EFI files on the HDD using BCDBOOT, maybe I didn’t need to/did it wrong/something else. Seems this is not an uncommon issue but trying various things I’ve not yet been successful. Any help would be appreciated.

Hi Ralph,
thanks a lot for the helpful information! But the problem still persists, and I don't know what's wrong about the installation. I again checked the case and device are fully compatible with Windows 8 on USB 3 and the current boot camp drivers are installed - so everything should work perfectly fine as Windows 8 does natively support booting from external USB-3-devices.
I personally still assume it's rather a driver related problem as the external SSD doesn't even show up whilst booting into the boot menu with "Alt" pressed - I can only choose to boot from the external SSD within the "start volume" menu in OSX (which then doesn't work out when rebooting, unfortunately). I mean, if there was a chance to boot from the external SSD with the configuration I got right now, but OSX/the iMac just "doesn't know" it shall boot from the external partition and therefore rather chooses the internal boot camp partition, the SSD would at least show up in the boot menu when pressing "Alt" on start-up, or do I go completely wrong? I even tried to rename the internal bootcamp partition (which did not work out) or disable it in order to prevent OSX/the iMac to boot from the internal bootcamp partition, but it didn't help: After rebooting it again chose the internal boot camp partition to start from.
Might the deletion of the internal partition be worth a try? Meaning is there a realistic chance that the issue might be caused by that? I would give it a try although I really don't wanna loose the internal boot camp partition for no good reason (btw: would it be possible to clone an image back from the external SSD to the internal HDD then?). Or do you maybe have any other idea what driver could miss resp. could be wrong about the installation so the boot process from the external SSD fails...?
Again MANY MANY THANKS in advance for your further assistance, everybody!!

Can I use an external SSD drive as main drive?

I would like to use an external SSD drive as my boot/operating drive. Basically a clone of my current HD but have the option of booting to and using the external SSD drive for system and apps and data. Is it possible and if so how?

Certainly can, however its a bad idea due to extreme cost and having to buy an awkward external enclosure for the microSATA or PCIe SSD
SSD and an enclosure like this:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/USB-3-0-mini-pci-e-mSATA-SSD-adapter-external-Enclosure- case-with-cable-driver-/221178575483
OWC sells better SSD enclosures however.
Also a bad idea due to BUS SPEEDS, and SSD are far too expensive, and you cant get enough storage to cover your internal conventional HD in its size
Clone your internal HD with an external 1TB conventional HD for $70

When I check my boot SSD drive using Disk Utility under Mavericks, I often get "Incorrect number of extended attributes" errors. But if I boot off an external drive and check the same SSD, no errors are reported. Is this a bug in Mavericks?

When I check my boot SSD drive using Disk Utility under Mavericks, I often get "Incorrect number of extended attributes" errors. But if I boot off an external drive and check the same SSD, no errors are reported.
This happens not just with the SSD in my Mac Mini, but with another SSD in my MacBook (both now running Mavericks). So far as I know, all of the kit I am using is in good order (despite the file corruption reports). So I am beginning to wonder if it could be due to a bug in Mavericks? Both SSD drives have been formatted to MacOS Extended (journaled) format. Should I have used a different format, I wonder?
Has anyone else encountered this issue?
Does anyone have a solution?
Or an explanation that might help my investigation of the issue?
Thanks guys,

I understand that the Corsair Force 3 is not one of the SSD drives that are supported on Apple Macs.
I did try downloading and using Trim Enabler, but the error message came up both when it was off and when it was on.
I understand that not everyone thinks Trim Enabler is a good program, though there is a new version out now, so I may give it another try.

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.

Could I boot off an external 1tb ssd instead upgrading internal to 512gb ssd?

Instead of going for the upgrades apple offers could i just buy an external 1 tb ssd and boot off that?
WHat will the disadvantages be? and will it be slower than if it were internal? if so why?

How would you connect the external SSD to the iMac?
If the bus used is slow then you would lost all the benefits of the SSD?
So what bus are you planning on using here?
Allan

Boot from external SSD cause freeze

I bought a Samsung 830 SSD ( 256 GB model MZ-7PC256D )
I planned to connect it to my 27" 3.5 GHz Intel i7 iMac (mid 2011) via thunderbolt with the Seagate GoFlex adapter and use it as primary boot drive.
I installed Lion (I'm running OS X 10.7.5) on the new external drive using the OS X Recovery.
Everything runs fine and very fast except that system randomly freeze.
I can't open/close apps and the spinning beachball appears. I can't do anything other than power-off holding down the power button.
I disabled the "disk sleep" option, disk seems ok (I checked the status and said verified) but system keeps freezing.
It appears that after the first freeze, soon occur a second one.
Also, I noticed strange(?) sound (something like tock) from the adapter/SSD during the normal use.
I searched for the word error in the Console at the corresponding freeze time and this strings came out:
17/12/12 18:04:06,000 kernel: SMC::smcInitHelper ERROR: MMIO regMap == NULL - fall back to old SMC mode
17/12/12 18:04:09,043 WindowServer: kCGErrorFailure: Set a breakpoint @ CGErrorBreakpoint() to catch errors as they are logged.
17/12/12 18:04:09,888 Finder: kCGErrorIllegalArgument: _CGSFindSharedWindow: WID 31
17/12/12 18:04:09,888 Finder: kCGErrorFailure: Set a breakpoint @ CGErrorBreakpoint() to catch errors as they are logged.
17/12/12 18:04:09,888 Finder: kCGErrorIllegalArgument: CGSRemoveSurface: Invalid window 0x1f
17/12/12 18:04:17,891 talagent: CGSConnectionRelinquishWindowRights(cid, newWindowNumber, reservedRights): CGError 1001 on line 619
17/12/12 18:04:17,891 talagent: CGSReleaseWindow(cid, wid): CGError 1001 on line 759
[Here the complete error log]
Any suggest?

I'm not certain this is the culprit, but the overall consensus that I've read online points to the fact that most (or all?) available external Thunderbolt drive enclosures that are *bus-powered only* (so no independent power brick with the enclosure) have difficulty providing enough power to SSD's that exceed ~240GB. And without enough power the system freezes or causes other errors.
Here's at least one thorough examination that came to this conclusion:
http://wolfgangtechnology.blogspot.com/2012/06/mac-with-seagate-thunderbolt-adap ter.html
The solution, from what I've read at least, is to find a Thunderbolt adapter with an independent power source or use a smaller SSD (under 240GB it seems) that is capable of running on bus-power only.
I'm looking into doing the same as you (using external SSD as primary boot drive) but there aren't that many relatively-affordable enclosures to choose from at this point (off the top of my head just the Seagate GoFlex, Buffalo Ministation, and Lacie offerings come to mind) and there's still an outstanding question as to whether the available enclosures support the SATA III spec to really get the most out of the fastest SSD's available today.
Of note, I believe this version of Seagate's adapter (the "Desktop" version) does come with its own power brick and could solve your problem, at least according to the article I linked above.
Hope this helps, good luck!

Installing Windows 7 on an External Thunderbolt SSD

I have an iMac 21,5" late 2012.
I want to install Windows 7 Professional Bootcamp on an External Thunderbolt SSD (Basic NTFS partition).
I tried the normal Bootcamp installation Guide but it wouldnt let me install on the external SSD drive.
I also tried using this guide http://www.intowindows.com/how-to-install-windows-7-to-usb-external-hard-drive-m ust-read/
But didnt work, probably because it's not for Mac users + not Thunderbolt.
Anyone got any ideas?
Thank you for reply!
Best Regards
Jonas

yeah thats what I tried with this guide, as I already have windows installed on the iMac but on the internal fusion drive (that doesnt work properly in Windows).
Thats why I want external SSDs booting windows when I edit videos (all my softwares are windows based).
Im gonna try a couple of more things, as I always say "there's gotta be a way!* hehe.
Ill be sure to post here IF I find a solution.

Can I use my Intel-based MacBook to boot into Windows 7 from an external HDD?

Okay, so I need to use Windows for some simple applications. Problem is, I don't have a Windows desktop anymore and while I have both Windows and Linux partitions along with Mountain Lion on my installed hard drive, I'm probably going to wipe said drive and just use the entire partition for Mountain Lion. That said, I'd like to use an extra hard drive I have lying around to boot Windows.
My questions are:
1. Does my MacBook support USB boot to Windows?
2. If my laptop does support this, can someone point me to a set of good reliable instructions to install Windows onto the external hard drive and boot into it by USB?
Thank you; have a blessed day!

You seem to have a triple boot system that was done using the 10.6 installer disk and a copy of rEFIt.
I know because I had the same thing once.
I can tell you what will happen if you decide to upgrade 10.7 or 10.8
1: The EFI and GUID is going to change, rEFIt hasn't been updated in ages since 10.7 started rolling out back in about June 2011. There will be adverse effects with rEFIt so I hear.
2: The 10.8 upgrader is going to barf at your triple boot system, it will upgrade the 10.6 partition but warn you that the 10.8 RecoveryHD partition (10.7 and 10.8 both install) that it normally installs at the very bottom of the drive will not be installed and you can't enable Filevault.
Intel Mac's can have only 4 bootable partitions on the drive, the 10.7+ installer is normally dealing with EFI, MacintoshHD, BOOTCAMP, RecoveryHD. It barfs at anything else it doesn't understand and will not install RecoveryHD partition, which on a non-Internet Recovery capable hardware is required to reinstall the currently upgraded OS X operating system version. But you can always go back to the 10.6 disks and wipe and restore that way or via 10.6 USB boot key.
http://www.maciverse.com/install-os-x-snow-leopard-from-usb-flash-drive.html
So with 10.7+ you'll have to use something like Carbon Copy Cloner for the OS X partition.
So since rEFIt is going to be hosed, so will your ability to use the EFI based program to boot into the three operating systems at boot time.
I assume you found this out and why you want to dump Windows on a external drive. However Apple's EFI doesn't recognize Linux as a boot option.
There is a rEFIt fork that will allow Linux to boot on a Mac: http://www.rodsbooks.com/ubuntu-efi/index.html
Windows as you now know can't be booted off a external drive, however if your use of it is minor, you may want to consider using a virtual machine to run it in OS X or Linux instead using the free VirtualBox.
Windows in BootCamp or Virtual Machine?
You should Carbon Copy Cloner the OS X 10.6 partition to a external GUID OS X Extended J (JHFS+) drive.
You can use WinClone 3 in OS X to clone the Windows partition to a external drive, but it's a backup only, no booting capability. Restoring it will boot on the internal drive of course.
Linux you should already know how to clone it to a external drive using dd.
I advise you use the 10.6 install disks to set up your new partition scheme, but your going to have to uninstall rEFIt and return the machine and firmware back to basic Apple factory system as possible before doing anything.
EFI doesn't get erased, it resides in NVRAM and the EFI partition, controls the at boot key commands to boot off OS X install disks, so it's important to uninstall rEFIt completely before upgrading OS X.
If the Windows version your using is XP, to install that first using BootCamp in a fresh 10.6 install and reverse clone using WinClone before upgrading to 10.7 or above. It will be grandfathered in, but can't be reinstalled later.

SSD as OSX boot/Windows boot

First off, let me say that I have searched, but still not getting exactly what I need. So here's the scoop;
1) Currently have late '08 MBP 5,1 with 124GB used on 320 HD
2) New '10 MP with single 3.2 GHZ
I'd like to purchase two 60GB Mercury SSD from OWC with sled converters and of course 1GB HD that comes with the MP
1) One for booting OSX and applications
2) One for booting Windows 7 Home
Is it possible to install Windows 7 on a 2nd SSD and boot from it? would I use Boot Camp for that?
Would someone kindly link me to a thread that discusses in detail, moving my files from the MBP to the MP?
Which files/folders do I put on the SSD for OSX?
Which files/folders do I put on the HD that came with the machine?
With the new format for the forum, I'm having a difficult time gleaning what I need using the search function.
Any other tips/ideas for this conversion would be gladly accepted.
Thanks in advance for the help
Paul

Boot Camp
Apple Boot Camp Support
60GB will be small for Windows 7. That will take about 40GB and you want to leave 10GB for updates, 10% for provisioning.
Yes, you can just boot from Windows 7 DVD and pull all the drives other than the one Windows will go to. No big trick there.
Migrate or Setup from your MBP, but I would clone the drive to a FW case is all, maybe even then pull the drive and install it internally - or use Target Disk Mode.

Cannot boot from external SSD ...

Hello,
I have just made a fresh install of Mavericks on a brand new Samsung 840 EVO SSD (I initially erased the drive and formatted it to Mac OS Extended Journaled, then created a USB installation drive and performed the installation on the SSD …). It all went well, the computer restarted during this 30 min or so process … However, the problem is when I try to boot in the Samsung SSD at startup having the ALT key pressed, I can only see the 10.8.5 and its recovery partition … Any ideas as to why it doesn't show up the SSD which is connected via USB 3.0 to my laptop ?
Also, even if I go in Mountaion Lion at the Start-up disk option and select the Samsung SSD with 10.9 it still boots into ML … Has anyone encountered this before ?
Thank you.
*non-Retina Macbook Pro 15 inch, mid-2012

Hi Ralph,
thanks a lot for the helpful information! But the problem still persists, and I don't know what's wrong about the installation. I again checked the case and device are fully compatible with Windows 8 on USB 3 and the current boot camp drivers are installed - so everything should work perfectly fine as Windows 8 does natively support booting from external USB-3-devices.
I personally still assume it's rather a driver related problem as the external SSD doesn't even show up whilst booting into the boot menu with "Alt" pressed - I can only choose to boot from the external SSD within the "start volume" menu in OSX (which then doesn't work out when rebooting, unfortunately). I mean, if there was a chance to boot from the external SSD with the configuration I got right now, but OSX/the iMac just "doesn't know" it shall boot from the external partition and therefore rather chooses the internal boot camp partition, the SSD would at least show up in the boot menu when pressing "Alt" on start-up, or do I go completely wrong? I even tried to rename the internal bootcamp partition (which did not work out) or disable it in order to prevent OSX/the iMac to boot from the internal bootcamp partition, but it didn't help: After rebooting it again chose the internal boot camp partition to start from.
Might the deletion of the internal partition be worth a try? Meaning is there a realistic chance that the issue might be caused by that? I would give it a try although I really don't wanna loose the internal boot camp partition for no good reason (btw: would it be possible to clone an image back from the external SSD to the internal HDD then?). Or do you maybe have any other idea what driver could miss resp. could be wrong about the installation so the boot process from the external SSD fails...?
Again MANY MANY THANKS in advance for your further assistance, everybody!!

Boot Windows 7 Off of External SSD?

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