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How to install Windows 7 on extra Internal Disk

Apple's latest "Boot Camp Installation & Setup Guide" does not provide clear instructions to accomplish what I believe to be possible. A review of this forum for past articles provides more clues, but still leaves me wondering what are the actual steps to achieve my goal:


Install Windows 7 on my MacPro on an internal disk that is not in the first hard drive bay. I want to make the Windows disk it's own single partition, and keep my MacOS on it's own drive as it currently exists.


Here's what Apple's latest guide states:


"If you have a MacPro with more than one internal disk and you want to install Boot Camp on a disk that isn't in the first hard drive bay, remove the drives in the lower numbered bays. You can reinstall the drives after you install Boot Camp."


I have a call in to Apple Support and it was immediately bumped up to Engineering because none whom I spoke with were able to answer the question. In fact, they told me that no one had ever asked the question before!


So I would like to understand the actual steps. Could I boot from the Windows CD and choose the internal disk I want to install it? Do I need Boot Camp to load and install the Apple supplied Windows drivers?


MacPro 2.66 GHz Quad-Core Xeon, 8 GB 1066 MHz DDR3, 3 internal drives. OS X 10.9.4

OS X Mavericks (10.9.4), 8 GB RAM

Posted on Jul 31, 2014 11:05 AM

Reply
17 replies

Jul 31, 2014 11:19 AM in response to Bob Owen

You can download the appropriate Bootcamp drivers (specific to your hardware) on to a USB drive and keep it aside.


If your drives are numbered 0,1,2,... and you want to install on 2, either you can remove 0 and 1, or the Bootcamp assistant can be pointed to appropriate drive.


The Bootcamp drivers can be installed from the USB after the windows installation, but some drivers on the USB may be needed to allow your peripherals (Keyboard, Mouse) to work. You need to check only the 'Download the latest Windows support software from Apple' and point it to a FAT formatted USB.


The Windows installer can also select the appropriate drive provided it is formatted FAT (it will be converted to a NTFS drive during the installation).

Aug 2, 2014 10:19 AM in response to Loner T

The disk I want to put Windows on is named "Windows HD". Here is the diskutil list from my machine:


Macintosh:~ bob$ diskutil list

/dev/disk0

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: GUID_partition_scheme *160.0 GB disk0

1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk0s1

2: Apple_HFS Windows HD 159.2 GB disk0s2

/dev/disk1

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: GUID_partition_scheme *640.1 GB disk1

1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk1s1

2: Apple_HFS Macintosh HD 639.3 GB disk1s2

3: Apple_Boot Recovery HD 650.0 MB disk1s3

/dev/disk2

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: Apple_partition_scheme *500.1 GB disk2

1: Apple_partition_map 32.3 KB disk2s1

2: Apple_HFS Video HD 500.0 GB disk2s3

/dev/disk3

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: GUID_partition_scheme *2.0 TB disk3

1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk3s1

2: Apple_HFS Time Machine Backups 2.0 TB disk3s2


Does this mean the Windows HD disk is already in the first hard drive bay; /dev/disk0?


My lack of clarity stems from the Apple instruction to remove my OSX boot drive. I have Windows 7 DVD install disk. Thank you for the help.

Aug 2, 2014 12:00 PM in response to Bob Owen

1. Using Disk Utility, create an image of the Windows 7 DVD (use CD/DVD master). It will create a file named something.cdr in a directory of your choice.

2. Run diskutil info on disk0. The ioreg command may also be needed.

3. Run bootcamp assistant and download Bootcamp drivers and point to the .cdr from step 1. You will need a USB with at least 8GB of disk space.

4. This will become your external boot drive.

5. Using information from 2, we need to remove drives that are not designated for Windows.

6. Boot from the USB and install Windows on the available (and designated) drive.


Usually the four bays should get numbers in sequence, but drives can be replaced, so the numbers are not a guarantee of the order.

Aug 2, 2014 4:28 PM in response to Bob Owen

If you look at About This Mac -> More Info -> System Report -> SATA/SATA Express, it should show you the bay number of each drive.


From mac pro drives not listed in order in Disk Utility


"A second method of ID in DU is to right click on a partition of the HD of interest and choose Reveal in Finder so you can actually see it on your desktop. Of course, there's also the Connection ID: "Bay #" which shows when the HD is selected. With those methods of identification, it's unlikely you'll pick the wrong one."

Based on your diskutil output, shutdown the machine and remove all drives which are not 160GB, it will only leave the Windows HD. You will have to boot from the USB that you built earlier, because you will not have a boot drive after you remove the other three disks.

Now you cam install Windows using the entire drive. Make sure the drive is formatted as FAT before you start installation, unless you plan to install using the EFI method, which has it's own challenges.

Aug 2, 2014 8:57 PM in response to Loner T

Hi Bob Owen, apologies for jumping on your thread, but I've have a similar situation to yours as well.


Hi Loner T, I've managed to get Win7 installed onto a separate SSD after removing my other HDDs, I had to do the installation this way becos my drives were in a RAID Stripe. But now, I can't seem to get Windows to boot up when the other drives are back on again. Would you happen to know why? Is there really a need for bootcamp? I'm fine with like holding on to the option key during startup to select OSs.

Aug 2, 2014 9:21 PM in response to magnum79

@Magnum...

The issue is probably related to the MBR that is used by Bootcamp, and RAID drives that can create problems for discovering the Bootcamp drive. The ALT key seems to do a much better job of detecting OSes, than does Startup Disk.

From Boot Camp 5.1: Frequently asked questions

I have a Mac Pro with a Mac Pro RAID card (Redundant Array of Independent Drives). Can I install Boot Camp on my Mac Pro?

Boot Camp does not support the installation of Windows onto a Mac using a Mac Pro RAID card or software RAID.

Aug 21, 2014 8:23 AM in response to Loner T

Ok, I completed the Windows 7 install. However, I did not figure out how to get the Mac to boot from the USB drive after following your instructions. I ended up booting from the Win 7 DVD loaded in my optical drive and installing the Windows support software from the USB drive. Here are the steps I used to accomplish the install. My Windows HD, the target of my Windows installation, was in Bay 3.


Steps to install Windows 7 on MacPro disk


  1. Run Disk Utility.
    1. Erase/format the additional hard drive as FAT.
    2. Erase/format USB drive as FAT.
  2. Run Boot Camp Assistant
    1. Download latest Windows support software to USB drive.
    2. Point to target hard drive and go-to next step.
    3. Exit Boot Camp Assistant.
  3. Load Windows 7 DVD (64-bit) into Mac’s optical drive.
  4. Shut down Mac.
  5. Open Mac and remove (disconnect) all hard drives except for target drive for Window 7 installation.
  6. Start Mac
    1. Mac should automatically start up from Windows 7 install disk in optical drive.
    2. [follow instructions in Apple’s latest “Boot Camp Installation & Setup Guide, Step 3: Install Windows on your Mac, p. 6” © 2013 Apple Inc.
    3. My machine accessed the Windows support software on the USB drive as part of the install process.
  7. Shut down Mac.
    1. Reinstall hard drive(s) in lower numbers bays that were removed in step 5) above.
    2. Restart Mac and follow instructions to set the default operation system; “Boot Camp Installation & Setup Guide, Step 4: Install the Windows support software, p. 9” © 2013 Apple Inc.
  8. You’re done!


Thank you for the help!


FYI - Last voice message from Apple support technician a couple of weeks ago was that they did not know how to accomplish what I was going to do. Guess they are focusing on the mobile market and don't have much experience with 'old' technology...

Aug 21, 2014 8:30 AM in response to Bob Owen

Thank you for posting concise instructions. This should also help future MacPro installers who have the older MacPros.


FYI - Last voice message from Apple support technician a couple of weeks ago was that they did not know how to accomplish what I was going to do. Guess they are focusing on the mobile market and don't have much experience with 'old' technology...


Perhaps the new iPhone6 is on the way. 😉

Mar 31, 2015 1:29 PM in response to Bob Owen

Hello, I believe I am trying to do a similar thing (excuse my ignorance if I'm not, not really computer savy) I habe a late 2011 MacBook Pro and have removed the HDD (as it crashed) and have replaced it with a SSD, whilst doing this I removed the optical drive and placed another SSD in its place with the intention of having windows and Mac on seperate SSD's however when I run boot camp the windose disk starts, however it shows a message "cannot find bootmgr" could some one please explain if the soloution posted (removing the Mac os SSD) would work? If not the could anyone advise?


Thanks Eliot

How to install Windows 7 on extra Internal Disk

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