Can't install Win7 as Lion Bootcamp with external optical
It's rare that a problem occupies so much of my time without my being able to resolve it. This one is really a massive pain.
I replaced my internal optical drive (MBP 17" Mid 2010) and now use an OWC DataDoubler to run 2 hard drives at the same time, a Mercury Extreme Pro SSD and the original 500GB HD.
I am trying to install bootcamp solely for the purpose of flashing the SSD to the latest firmware (I use Fusion for everything else).
I was successful with this procedure on a Mac Pro with internal optical, so I know it works. I am very reluctant to take apart the laptop again, uninstall the SSD/reinstall the optical drive, I would just prefer to install a bootcamp partition in the laptop and flash it there.
I absolutely cannot get WIn7x64 to boot from the external optical, neither can I get a USB key to boot (created using the Windows USB Download Tool.)
http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msstore/html/pbPage.Help_Win7_usbdvd_dwnTool
I have tried rEFit, booting with another computer running firewire target mode, restoring the .iso to the bootcamp partition, using fdisk to select it, and then trying to option-boot into that; everything I can think of.
It just doesn't work! I am a VMware Fusion user and I have heard of some users who may have used Parallels or Fusion to get the files into a bootcamp partition and then make it bootable, however I don't understand how to do that. When I install a Fusion Guest into that partition, it just comes up as a .vmwarevm file.
Any help sincerely appreciated.
MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7)