installing windows on High Sierra 2011 with no optical drive

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installing windows on High Sierra 2011 with no optical drive

MacOS High Sierra 2011. I have no optical drive so I can't even get past step 1 in Boot Camp Assistant. From the very start it says "You need an optical drive to install Windows...." so I read more - you burn a DVD - and it's like a down the rabbit hole story of others trying the dvd and still getting the same boot camp message as they did when they tried to make a USB installer - "the Installer disk could not be found" message, again, and they eventually had to find a work-around not using boot camp assistant at all. SO.... I research that and see these instructions: "After you create a FAT partition with Disk Utility, "check the output of sudo fdisk/dev/disk0 to confirm you have MBR, to help you install windows in BIOS mode...." and right about here is where my head explodes. What a nightmare. Should I just buy a PC? LOL...

MacBook Pro

Posted on Aug 17, 2020 3:51 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Loner T

Level 9

59,513 points

Aug 26, 2020 8:33 AM in response to ang800

ang800 wrote:

When I bought this MacBook used, I noticed a slot for an optical drive, and for all I knew, it had one, but it's a dead end - nothing in there. I'm not sure if the original owner removed it honestly, since they did a few things to add 1TB to it. Odd that there's a slot for it though.

Your MacBook Pro (15-inch, Late 2011) - Technical Specifications is supposed to have a built-in Optical drive. If it was removed Windows installation can be painful.

And to answer your previous question, Model Identifier is MacBookPro8,2. If you're on to something, do tell. Thanks!

Your Mac officially only supports W7/W8.1. You can use a Virtual Machine engine (Parallels, VMware Fusion, VirtualBox) and cloning to get around the absence of an Optical drive, but repairing Windows is also problematic.

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Answer 2

ang800 Author

Level 1

8 points

Aug 24, 2020 7:32 PM in response to Loner T

Well my question above states pretty clearly right there in the beginning that I don't have an optical drive. So... in answer to your question. No. I don't have an optical drive. I have an external cd/dvd, however bootcamp says right up front that I cannot do it with an external drive. Here's a screenshot of bootcamp upon opening.

Hey, thanks for your interest in my question, but unfortunately, I still have the big problem of not being able to load windows onto my Mac. Please let me know if there are any suggestions! I'm determined to accomplish this.

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Answer 3

ang800 Author

Level 1

8 points

Aug 25, 2020 6:58 PM in response to Loner T

When I bought this MacBook used, I noticed a slot for an optical drive, and for all I knew, it had one, but it's a dead end - nothing in there. I'm not sure if the original owner removed it honestly, since they did a few things to add 1TB to it. Odd that there's a slot for it though.

And to answer your previous question, Model Identifier is MacBookPro8,2. If you're on to something, do tell. Thanks!

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Answer 4

ang800 Author

Level 1

8 points

Aug 26, 2020 8:41 AM in response to Loner T

It sounds more painful than just buying a new hard drive for my old PC. I'll just do that so I can run my windows stuff on a separate computer. Shame. Thank you so much for your input on trying to solve this!

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