Mac OS on external drive with a partion for Windows

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Mac OS on external drive with a partion for Windows

I have an SSD on my internal drive, but i want to have Mac OS on an external drive i was hoping that i could get the Windows with bootcamp the easy way that you can do it with the internal drive.on it

but When i tried to do it said you should eject the drive. I take it the only way to do it is on another external drive if i do it that way can i clone it and put it on the external drive i have put Mac OS on the other PARTITION.The internal SSD is only 250 gb i was hoping to get the two

iMac Line (2012 and Later)

Posted on Jul 10, 2020 7:23 AM

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Answer 1

Kurt Lang

Level 9

68,726 points

Jul 11, 2020 7:28 AM in response to Blues-breaker

That was a bit hard to follow. Mainly, I don't know what 1TB and 2 M have to do with each other, or even what 2 M means.

Buy anyway, sure, there's nothing stopping you from doing that on the external. Install the Mac OS on one partition, and put the VM's Windows image on the other.

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Answer 2

Kurt Lang

Level 9

68,726 points

Jul 10, 2020 8:29 AM in response to Blues-breaker

You didn't post a link to the video, but I get the idea.

Unknown to me since I've never tried it. As far as the OS is concerned, Windows in a VM is just a really big disk image file on your drive. So it may work to install Windows in a VM, shut down the VM, then move the image to the external drive. Then launch the VM again and point it to the external for Windows.

That's just off the top of my noggin. No idea if it will work.

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Answer 3

Kurt Lang

Level 9

68,726 points

Jul 10, 2020 7:25 AM in response to Blues-breaker

Only the Enterprise Edition of Windows can be run on an external drive. This is a limitation imposed by Microsoft.

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Answer 4

Jul 11, 2020 4:59 AM in response to Blues-breaker

This is another idea idea is if I put it on the internal drive and cloned it to put it on the external drive, would that work the same way? I would only allocate a small portion of the internal drive for Windows.

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Answer 5

Jul 11, 2020 10:44 AM in response to Kurt Lang

Sorry i will explain it.A 1TB NVMe M.2 SSD external drive with Mac OS on one partition i want to put Windows with Bootcamp on the other Partition.

i tried to do this using the external drive as my main drive i was hopping this would work, but no such luck.https://youtu.be/Hmm9Q-T0oTo?t=3 Now i want to know if i did this on my internal drive and gave it a small partition would i be able to clone the Windows partition and put it on my external drive with Mac os on it?And when i have done that deleting the Windows partition and making the internal drive just for Mac os again..If went that way i suppose i would have to get Winclone.https://youtu.be/aXv7kQGkdOk?t=3

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Answer 6

Jul 10, 2020 7:34 AM in response to Blues-breaker

Wold i be able to put Windows on a partition of the external drive with Mac os it is a 1 tb 2M SSD. To use this method in this video with Parallels Desktop?

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Answer 7

Kurt Lang

Level 9

68,726 points

Jul 10, 2020 11:30 AM in response to Tesserax

Your noggin is in proper working order. ;)

😆 Luck. I truly didn't know the answer since I've never tried or tested it. But good to know you can do it from a VM.

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Answer 8

Jul 10, 2020 7:40 AM in response to Kurt Lang

I have it on a T5 SSD .I have just got a new computer i understand i want be able to use it with my new computer.Last time i did it with with Jeff 9 to 5 Mac his videos are good. i have had this for two years.

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Answer 9

Tesserax

Level 10

158,280 points

Jul 10, 2020 8:53 AM in response to Kurt Lang

FWIW ... With Parallels, it does. You can also use Parallels Transporter to create a VM from an existing Windows installation. Regardless where the VM exists, you can configure Parallels to locate/use this VM. Your noggin is in proper working order. ;)

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Answer 10

Jul 11, 2020 4:23 AM in response to Kurt Lang

You have got it there kurt, with VM Fusion or Parallels Desktop doing it on either of those to get it on an external drive for Windows.But can i put is on a 1TB 2 M drive with Mac OS on one PARTITION and Windows on the other partition?I was hoping i could use it the way you can do it with the internal drive.

I can ,t do it on the internal drive as it is only 250gb.

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Answer 11

Kurt Lang

Level 9

68,726 points

Jul 11, 2020 10:57 AM in response to Blues-breaker

Yes, that would be how you'd get it there. I have WinClone, and use it to backup and restore my Windows partition.

Per earlier, only the Enterprise Edition of Windows allows installation to an external drive. Since Boot Camp won't set up a Windows partition on an external drive, you'd have to go through these steps.

Create a Boot Camp partition on your main drive.
Install Windows Enterprise.
Purchase WinClone.
Create an MS-DOS partition on your external drive the same size as you created in Boot Camp.
Use WinClone to duplicate the Boot Camp install of Windows to the external drive. It will automatically change the format of the drive/partition on the external to NTFS.
Use Boot Camp to remove the Windows install on the main drive.

There is one option for running other versions of Windows (Home or Professional) from an external drive. But you must use a Thunderbolt external drive housing. Since Thunderbolt is a direct extension of the computer's bus, Windows sees the external as if it were an internal drive and will boot. Though you still have to go through the above steps to get the Windows install onto the external drive.

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Mac OS on external drive with a partion for Windows

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