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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)

Posted on Aug 10, 2011 10:59 PM

Reply
3 replies

Aug 12, 2011 8:45 AM in response to arborium

I finally found a solution to "trick"the Windows install!


The first install will run also from external drive. The problem ist the reboot!


On every reboot simply plug out your external DVD and press option-key. Select Windows harddisk and the installation

will continue. Plug in your external DVD once you see "Starting Windows".


Repeat this on every reboot until Windows is installed!


That´s it.

Can't install Win7 as Lion Bootcamp with external optical

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