Q: How to run Boot Camp on External Hard Drive?

The question you attempted to answer is "How to run Boot Camp on an External Hard Drive"

The answer is that you can't.

I'm fairly certain you can though, assuming you know what you're doing. And besides, that question itself is pointless since Boot camp can be completely bypassed with the method I used. Waste of time...

OK. I am more interested in the OP's question, but you can go on as you wish about your method,

I'm out of here.

Hm, more interested in wasting time with Bootcamp's limitations rather than just installing Windows directly? Ok enjoy You're welcome!

Actually, Csound1, was more interested in answering the original poster's question rather than feeling the need to try to "grandstand".  If you actually read the whole thread you replied to, you would see that "your solution" was already discussed as a possible answer, except it was offered in a reasonable time frame for the original poster who asked the question, not 9 months later.

I understand that, but the main reason I even posted at all was in response to your totally inaccurate/incorrect responses to his questions, 9 months old or not. Any 3D game will require a capable graphics card, and virtual machines do not supply this in any form. So 1 out of 1,000,000 games would work, barely. And you can't just say "generally speaking, no it won't work" when in fact it does, and it did 9 months ago when you responded. I was booting into Windows from USB drives since the very first intel macs in 06, just to see how they handled intense games and applications in Windows. No one is grandstanding here, but to sit there and argue about the thread topic and answering only the question at hand, is a poor excuse when you're presented with better solutions; which Myshiko and I did... Earlier in the thread I did see Mishiko's replies, but he used the Seagate Goflex external adapter, and I wanted to update it since the Seagate Backup Plus adapter is the definite way to go (now) for external booting into Win/Mac OS.

Crank, your meyhod is old and unexcitimg, and this thread does not exist so you can show off how wonderful you are.

Showing up 9 months ago might have helped, now you are just late, and off topic.

Just to educate you guys in case you didn't know, these support forms can be accessed by anyone with a search engine and a question similar to the OP's, at any point in time. CrankTurner is simply providing an alternative method for people to achieve a goal similar to the one stated by the OP. Because he was the only person to provide a viable, working alternative solution to the OP's (and any other person's) question, he should be thanked, not attacked for providing a different solution to your "You can't" approach. So thank you CrankTurner.

Alright Crankturner...

I've tried your method. I've got an iMac with a external thunderbolt SSD attached to it. I formatted the SSD with 2 GUID partitions, one as Journaled and one as FAT. I booted to my windows installation disc, selected the FAT partition, it wanted to format it so I did, it's now marked as "primary," but it's unable to install to the selected location Error 0x80300024 (location) which makes sense since Windows hates thunderbolt. So what exactly didn't I do that you did to make this work?

Thank you very much Sushiboy That's the way I look at it. I always stumble upon forum threads and usually go to the end to find what solutions people did or didn't have. When I see flame wars I usually move onto the next one, so dumb. But thanks

That is interesting. Windows, so I've heard, will only install to a newer iMac that has only USB3.0 bolts, by using an external DVD drive only - NOT from an SD or USB Windows installation ISO. The Thunderbolt SSD has to be of an exact chipset also, in order for Windows to "like it" and install/boot to it. Is the SSD TB drive an all-in-one set, or are you using a TB dock with a separate 2.5" SSD ? Windows 7 or 8? Hopefully 7...

clone your macintosh hd using carbon copy cloner to the ext hd.

boot from to mac osx from the ext drive, start your bootcamp process etc.

erase your mac hd partition from the ext hd. and you'll have your bootcamp windows on the ext hd.

Hi,

It's absolutely possible to run BootCamp from an External Drive (ie : windows installed on an USB drive)

The windows installation program refuses to install itself to an external USB Drive.

That's not a problem, there's a way to install windows installation files on an external USB drive, and once booted from it, Windows will finish to install itself from said drive.

I tested it with Windows 8.1 x64 and it work perfectly from external USB drive!!

here's how to do so :

You will need :

- your windows 8.1 ISO file (choose x64 because Apple Bootcamp tools are meant for x64)

- a running PC (on windows 7 or 8) real or virtualised

- a blank external drive (at least 16GB)

/!\ WHOLE DISK WILL BE ERASED, I cannot be responsible for data loss /!\

this software :

- Apple Bootcamp drivers (obtained from the BootCamp setup)

- Microsoft AIK tool : http://www.microsoft.com/en-US/download/details.aspx?id=5753

- Power Iso (create a virtual drive, unless you're using a Virtualised Window) : http://www.poweriso.com/

If you don't have Windows ISO, you can download a demo there : http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/evaluate-windows-8-1-enterprise

or try windows 10 : http://preview.windows.com/

On your existing PC Setup, do the following steps (each command will be in uppercase to increase readability, type them in lowercase, if there's a space between words, insert a space obviously) :

1 - install Windows AIK, once done navigate to this folder : C:\program files\Windows AIK\Tools\Amd64\

2 - in this folder, move the file imagex.exe to the root folder of your C:\ drive

3 - launch the CMD line tool (clic on the Start menu, in the search bar type CMD, then launch it from the menu)

4 - at the prompt, type DISKPART and hit Return Key

     the command line will be like this DISKPART >

5 - type LIST DISK and hit Return Key

     It will list each available drive on your PC with a Disk number (DISK 0 ; DISK 1; DISK # ; etc...)

6 - Choose the disk you want your windows 8.1 installed onto and type accordingly SELECT DISK # and hit Return Key

(# being the number of the disk you want to use (ie SELECT DISK 2) and hit Return Key (according to our example the prompt will state that disk 2 is now the selected disk). Just to be sure of what you did, you can type LIST DISK again, and you will see a * in front of the disk you will erase and prepare for the installation of windows. If you want to be absolutely sure that you selected the right disk, you can unplug the disk and type LIST DISK again and repeat the above steps.

7 - Type CLEAN and hit Return Key

     DiskPart succeeded in cleaning the disk

8 - Type CREATE PARTITION 1 and hit Return Key

     DiskPart succeeded in creating the specified partition

9 - Type SELECT PARTITION 1 and hit Return Key

     Partition 1 is now the selected partition

10 - Type ACTIVE and hit Return Key

     DiskPart marked the current partition as active

11 - Type FORMAT FS=NTFS QUICK and hit Return Key

     DiskPart successfully formatted the volume

12 - Type ASSIGN and hit Return Key

     DiskPart successfully assigned the drive letter or mount point

13 - Type EXIT and hit Return Key or close the window

Following 14 to 16 steps will allow you to have the window 8 ISO mounted as a drive. If you are doing this with Parallels Desktop or VMWare fusion, just mount the .iso file as a drive in the CD/DVD Drive section of the software and go to step 17

     14 - Install PowerISO

     15 - Clic on the "Mount button", and select "Set Number of Drives Menu", choose "1 Drive"

     16 - Then clic on the "Mount button" again, then "Mount Image". Select your windows 8.1 ISO file and clic "Open"

Following steps are for everyone

     Please note your drives letters before proceeding :

          What is your Windows CD drive Letter ? My Windows Drive letter is E:

          What is your external Hard drive letter ? My USB Drive letter is G:

     So remember to change the letters for your system accordingly.

17 - Verify that your Window installation drive is properly mounted : clic on the Start menu then Computer, then check the drives (in my case, my Virtual CD Drive is the letter E:)

18 - Open CMD tool again, but this time as an Administrator : clic on the Start menu, then in the search bar type CMD, then right-clic on it in the menu and select Run as Administrator

19 - Type  C:\IMAGEX.EXE /APPLY E:\sources\install.wim 1 G:\ and hit Return Key (remember to change the letters to fit your setup)

    there's several spaces in the above command ligne.

     You'll see the ImageX Tool for Windows running, with a percentage [   X% ] Applying progress. It'll take 8 to 12 minutes to complete.

20 - Now we'll make the USB Drive Bootable. Type  BCDBOOT G:\WINDOWS /S G:

     Boot files successfully created

You're Done !!

Now, plug the USB Drive to your Mac. Start it and hold the ALT Key, and choose the Windows USB Drive that you used all along.

Windows will boot, and then will reboot the computer. at the boot chime hold ALT key and again choose the Windows drive to boot from.

Once on the Windows desktop appears, plug your Apple Windows Drivers USB keydrive and install the Bootcamp drivers.

After a while, the installation will be done, you just have to reboot Windows, hold ALT again at startup to choose the Windows drive, and voilà !

You just completed the installation of Windows on an external drive, and you can boot it whenever you want. The best part of this is that you can use your Windows USB Drive only when you want to use Windows, and free all that space from your internal Hard drive.

You're Welcome

Hi Pierre.

It's a great guide you have created, and i have followed step-by-step, to have Win7 on an external USB3 disk to my Mac Mini.

But every time i try to boot up on the Win7 disk, it just says Windows is starting and then it is blue screening!

I don't know what i've done wrong, have you heard of anyone with issues like this?

Kind Regards

Pierre Nummelin

PS. i'm a brand new MAC user, and i'ed rather not mess up my new MAC Mini with Winows, that's why i'm interested in having it
installed on a seperate disk.

Fuberman,

You won't "mess up your new mac mini with windows" as long as you're using the Boot Camp Assistant. I've done it this way for sooooo many years, mostly because it's the only real option. If you ever want to revert back to your factory hard drive settings, you can undo the boot camp partition with a few clicks and things are back to normal.

On a peripheral note, I'd also not be too keen on running my Windows partition via USB 3.0 even if it were possible simply due to bandwidth. I'd rather use Thunderbolt, again...if it were supported.

A third option depending on how hands on you'd like to get...you could always install a second hard drive in to your mac mini and have it be dedicated to Windows. I've done this with my current model mac mini and it's worked just fine for some time now. If you need help with that, just ask.