what format should my usb drives be for boot camp

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what format should my usb drives be for boot camp

I am Installing Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 on my late 2012 Mac Mini. I have the S/W on my desktop as an .iso format, and my test to check if Boot Camp would find it worked. Now I will be getting an USB drive (my 4GB wasn't big enough so will use it for the drivers), so before going on this process trying to cover all bases. I'm assuming an 8GB thumb drive should be enough. I'm also assuming the 4GB drive formatted in FAT should be ok since Windows 7 has to read it, does the drive for the disk image have to be MAC Ext'd or FAT?

Any help on this is appreciated, I'm pretty new to all this stuff and hate running into problems during this process will be hairy! Any other pointers is greatly appreciated.

Mac mini, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2)

Posted on Dec 13, 2012 10:14 AM

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Answer 1

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VikingOSX

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Dec 13, 2012 10:26 AM in response to jdemelo11

From the Bootcamp manual, p.4:

Boot Camp Assistant erases the flash drive, and copies to it the Windows 7 ISO image and software drivers that let Windows work with your Mac hardware.

Just plug in the USB stick and let Boot Camp Assistant do the rest.

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Answer 2

Dec 13, 2012 2:34 PM in response to jdemelo11

Did you install the 32bit or 64 bit version of Windows?

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Answer 3

Dec 13, 2012 2:41 PM in response to Yaser Herrera

Bootcamp only supports 64-bit Windows 7 Home Premium SP1, Ultimate, or Professional.

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Answer 4

Dec 13, 2012 3:32 PM in response to VikingOSX

Well I think that's new to 2012 Macs. I have plenty of 2011 Mac Minis using 32 Bit Windows. I was just wondeirng if Jdemelo11 managed to find some work around for the 2012 models. I'm guessing it'd be some combination of creating a Windows install USB from 2011 mini and then individualing downloading the necessary drivers if Boot Camp refuses to install them all.

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Answer 5

Dec 13, 2012 3:55 PM in response to Yaser Herrera

Ok, my bad. 32-bit or 64-bit. Apple Boot Camp criterion.

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Answer 6

jdemelo11 Author

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Dec 13, 2012 7:58 PM in response to jdemelo11

I still have not installed the Windows, that will be tonight, but I got the 64bit version. I have seen in different posts on here some problems with 32bit. The fellow at Tiger Direct suggested the 64bit too. Most YouTube videos on this subject had mentioned 64, so stuck with that suggestion.

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Answer 7

Dec 14, 2012 5:52 AM in response to jdemelo11

I am running 64-bit Home Premium. No worries.

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Answer 8

jdemelo11 Author

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Dec 22, 2012 10:26 PM in response to jdemelo11

Got Win 7 64bit installed with a few problems.

From the start I'm unable to use my wireless magic mouse. It shows up under Bluetooth devices, but can't get it to sync up.

After getting the wireless keyboard synced & working had a number of updates to install. After that the keyboard is not functioning and can't be synced.

Any suggestions, not of the questions I put into this section came back with a solution, might be the question I ask? Can someone link a post in the discussion forum to solve this.

Message was edited by: jdemelo11

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Answer 9

mende1

Level 10

93,538 points

Dec 22, 2012 10:26 PM in response to jdemelo11

Have you installed the Boot Camp drivers? If not, press X key while your computer is starting to boot into OS X, open Boot Camp and download the drivers onto a DVD or USB to install the drivers on Windows

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Answer 10

Dec 23, 2012 6:33 AM in response to jdemelo11

Try the Bootcamp forum and the Bootcamp Support Manuals. You issues are discussed and answered frequently in the Bootcamp forum.

http://www.apple.com/support/bootcamp/

https://discussions.apple.com/community/windows_software/boot_camp

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Answer 11

jdemelo11 Author

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15 points

Dec 24, 2012 2:11 PM in response to BobTheFisherman

Thanks for the links Bob, found a post referencing Bluetooth Collaboration under the device mgr in Win7.

iOS caused me to click mende1 by mistake, obviously I would have installed Bootcamp drivers, but I guess there must be some who don't.

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