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Q: Can I boot into Windows XP from a firewire enclosed Hard Drive? Boot Camp

I understand you can install XP (as long as it has service pack 2 or 3) on an Intel Mac using Boot Camp, but I was wondering if it would be possible to take a HD from a PC computer which already has XP installed, and, using an firewire HD enclosure, boot the Mac into XP from that. Would this be feasible?

Posted on Aug 19, 2014 6:21 PM

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Q: Can I boot into Windows XP from a firewire enclosed Hard Drive? Boot Camp

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  • by Ralph Landry1,

    Ralph Landry1 Aug 19, 2014 6:26 PM in response to branchport
    Level 8 (41,782 points)
    Aug 19, 2014 6:26 PM in response to branchport

    BootCamp and the copy of Windows have to be on the internal drive, not an external drive.  See:Boot Camp 5.1: Frequently asked questions

  • by branchport,

    branchport branchport Aug 20, 2014 1:51 PM in response to Ralph Landry1
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Aug 20, 2014 1:51 PM in response to Ralph Landry1

    Yes, but not exactly. The page says:

    "Can I install Windows on an external drive?

    No. Installing Boot Camp on an external hard drive is not supported."

     

    But I don't want to install Windows, I want to boot my computer into it.

     

    It also says:

    "External FireWire disks are not recognized by the Startup Disk control panel in Microsoft Windows. To start up from a bootable external drive, press and hold the Option (Alt) key while the computer starts up, then select the external disk."

     

    I don't mind if external disks won't appear under Windows, as long as I can still boot into it.

     

    I found another helpful post:bootcamp windows 7 Firewire external drive NTFS?

     

    Here someone writes:

    "I still use Windows XP with my Mac but still never had such a problem with my two Firewire external HDs (one FW400 and one FW800).

    And I did a lot of things with these

     

    Partioned one for use with OSX and Windows (one HFS+ partition; one NTFS partition); copied my complete MP3-collection (180GB) from one external HD to the other; etc.

     

    All without any kind of glitch or slowdown."

     

    So it seems this person was successful in booting XP from an external drive. Windows 7 or Vista on the other hand will encounter problems booting, which that tread explains.

     

     

    In another thread (Boot camp on an external hard drive) someone wrote:

     

    "I believe there might be a way, I just haven't gotten around to trying this out.

     

     

    1) use disk utility to partition the external drive to ntfs (i think)

     

     

    2) attach this disk to a pc and install the OS

     

     

    3) install refit onto your mac

     

     

    4) attach the drive via fw800, or even better yet esata, to you mac.

     

     

    5) Start up your mac

     

     

    6) choose the win xp option from the boot menu

     

     

    7) install bootcamp drivers

     

     

    this seems, in theory, that it should work."

     

     

    So from what I gather, I think this method would probably work, I just want to know if anyone had any specific knowledge regarding this subject.

     

    From here I only have two questions:

    Is it possible to take a working drive from a PC which already has XP installed, and change the format to ntfs under OSX without damaging the drive or OS?

    And, would I need a version of XP with service pack 2 or 3, or will anything do, since we are not installing it with Bootcamp, we are only running it under Bootcamp at this point.

     

    Thanks for any help!

  • by Ralph Landry1,Helpful

    Ralph Landry1 Aug 20, 2014 6:44 PM in response to branchport
    Level 8 (41,782 points)
    Aug 20, 2014 6:44 PM in response to branchport

    You cannot have Windows XP installed on a dricveand then chage the format...format change entails erasing all ontent.  Mac OS X cannot write to an NTFS format, it can oNly read the drive.  Mac OS X can read and write to the FAT32 drive format.

     

    You do not create a BootCamp partition on the internal drive and hen boot a system on another drive.  Windows must be installed on the BootCamp partition.  What you are talking about doing does not work.

     

    If you want to run Windows, make life easier and just install the BootCamp partition where it belongs, on the startup disk and hen install Windows on that partition.

  • by branchport,

    branchport branchport Jul 22, 2015 9:01 AM in response to Ralph Landry1
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 22, 2015 9:01 AM in response to Ralph Landry1

    Thanks for your input. You're absolutely right, even if it was possible to do, it is certainly easier to just install Windows the way it's meant to (guess I found out the long, hard way!).

     

    If anyone else is following this topic, you might take interest in these links (especially the later one):

     

    http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=217079

     

    http://refit.sourceforge.net/help/usb_disk.html

     

    (Cashed version)

  • by Ralph Landry1,

    Ralph Landry1 Jul 22, 2015 9:30 AM in response to branchport
    Level 8 (41,782 points)
    Jul 22, 2015 9:30 AM in response to branchport

    Great to hear you've gotten the install sorted out.  And thanks for posting your results, many don't do that and leave things just hanging in the air.