Q: Boot Camp Assistant "Windows 7 Installer disc could not be found"

Please create an ISO image of the W7 DVD and put it on the USB with Bootcamp Assistant.

From Boot Camp 5.1: Frequently asked questions - Apple Support

Can I install Windows from an ISO image?

To find out if your Mac supports that feature, open Boot Camp Assistant, then click the Continue button. If you see a checkbox labeled “Create a Windows 7 or later install disk,” your Mac can install Windows from an ISO image.

From DVD or CD sharing: Using Remote Disc - Apple Support

Note: These types of discs or activities are not supported by DVD or CD sharing:

• DVD movies.
• Audio CDs.
• Copy protected discs such as game discs.
• Install discs for an operating system such as Microsoft Windows (for use with Boot Camp), or Mac OS X.
• Burn a CD or DVD

To use the above mentioned discs with a computer without an optical drive, use the MacBook Air SuperDrive or the Apple USB SuperDrive. For assistance with remote installing Mac OS X v10.6 or earlier, refer to Reinstalling software using Remote Install Mac OS X.

Lightwave wrote:

 

Thank you! I bought Windows 7 on a physical DVD (it's the Home Premium 64bit disc). Hope that was the right thing to do?

Yes.

 

So let me get this straight. I can either use this DVD directly on a superdrive plugged in to MBP, or else burn a copy to the USB stick.

 

MBP will not install from an external SuperDrive due to Windows installer limitations, because it has no driver for the SuperDrive.

How exactly do I do the latter since my own DVD reader right now is by remote disc on my iMac?

 

Create an ISO using the following procedure on the iMac and then copy it over the network to the MBP or create an ISO by attaching the SuperDrive to the MBP. Use Bootcamp Assistant to point to this ISO when creating the USB for installation.

From Disk Utility 12.x: Duplicate a disk, CD, or DVD

Step 7 will give you an ISO, that you can then copy to the MBP.

Duplicate a CD-RW or DVD-RW

Disk Utility can’t create usable copies of discs with an incompatible format or discs that are copy-protected. (These include most commercial movie DVDs and audio CDs and some software and data discs.) To copy music from an audio CD to another CD, use iTunes, not Disk Utility.

To burn a disc, you need an optical drive in your computer or connected directly to your computer. You can’t burn a disc using a remote optical drive.

1. Open Disk Utility, in the Utilities folder in Launchpad.
2. Insert the CD or DVD disc in the optical drive, and select it in the list at the left.
3. Choose File > New > “Disk Image from [disc name].”
4. Type a name for the disk image.
5. Choose an option from the Image Format pop-up menu.
   • Choose “compressed” to create a smaller disk image.
   • Choose “read-only” to create a disk image that’s quicker to create and open.
6. Click Save.
7. After Disk Utility creates the disk image, eject the original CD or DVD.
8. Select the disk image in the list at the left, and choose Images > Burn.
9. When the Burn Disc dialog appears, insert a blank CD or DVD, and then click Burn.

You can continue using the disk image to create as many duplicate discs as you need.

Are you using Remote Disc over wireless?

Are you using Disk Utility ?

This does not sound correct. Can you check the size of the DMG? In DU, if you click on the left pane and select the entry below the SuperDrive, that should be it. It may be creating a DMG of your internal disk, which can take a long time.

Even though this article comes from Parallels, it is a set of OS X steps. Please see http://kb.parallels.com/en/4917. At the end of Step 10, you should have your ISO image.

Lightwave wrote:

 

Now I'm putting it on the root directory of my USB drive and will try to run Boot Camp again.

Move it over to the Desktop on the MBP and run Bootcamp Assistant and create a USB which will have both the W7 ISO and the BC drivers and you can also partition the disk and install Windows.

 

Before I do this, one more question since you seem to know about this: Do I really need Boot Campat all? The main purpose of all this is for my MacBookPro to humiliate itself to look like a PC, so I can get my employer's VPN and work at home.

 

This may be a silly question, but what kind of VPN client do you want to install? I know Juniper SSL VPN and Cisco AnyConnect work on OS X and Windows both.

 

Can Parallels 10 support a Windows VPN? If so, which will be better?

There may be some issues, depending on your network configuration. Usually if your Mac is set for a bridged connection (see http://kb.parallels.com/en/4948) it will allow a VPN pass-through.