8 GB USB storage device, or external drive formatted as MS-DOS (FAT) to install the downloaded drivers.

AlwaysLearning613 wrote:

OK, I'm confused now.

My understanding from our previous message thread(and other online stuff) is that BCA won't install windows into the HD that is in the optical drive. That is the whole reason, in my mind, to install windows into the SDD, which is in the main HD bay. So I don't have to mess around with swapping drives.

It is not Windows, but Bootcamp Assistant, which will not allow Windows to be installed on a machine anywhere else other the Main Bay PCI/SATA drive and also needs the internal Optical drive (because it was the original configuration of your Mac). BCA, using the Model Identifier of your Mac, will set the Windows CSM-BIOS layer to boot from the internal Optical drive. You do not have much control. If your Mac supported it, you could directly (without BCA) install Windows on HDD using an external Optical drive.

I have an external optical drive with a Windows ISO file. I also have Windows ISO file and the BCA support software on a USB drive.

So why do I need to mess around with swapping drives?

Can't BCA install windows into the SDD that is in the main HD bay? Do I need to have an optical drive in the computer in order to do that?

Yes, you do need the internal Optical drive to install Windows, if you use BCA.

In step 6 you say to create a CS volume. I don't know what that is, and don't know how to do that. I'm running 10.8.5, not yosemite.

Mountain Lion 10.8.5 will suport CS (aka CoreStorage aka Logical Volume Manager) but that is not the default. In Yosemite, it is the default. You can run diskutil list and post the output and your current SSD/HDD can be checked. My advise would be to install both OSes on SSD, for speed. OS X CS can intelligently move data blocks between SSD/HDD, but Windows cannot, and will perform better if installed on SSD.

This is the Disk layout (including a CS volume) on my 2012 Mini. This one had its NTFS/HDD part removed because i did not need it. This has a 256Gb SSD/750Gb HDD. The 750GB HD+128GB of SSD have been combined into a CS volume.

macmini-i71:~ $ diskutil list

/dev/disk0

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: GUID_partition_scheme *750.2 GB disk0

1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk0s1

2: Apple_CoreStorage 749.3 GB disk0s2

3: Apple_Boot Boot OS X 650.0 MB disk0s3

/dev/disk1

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: GUID_partition_scheme *256.1 GB disk1

1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk1s1

2: Apple_CoreStorage 128.0 GB disk1s2

3: Apple_Boot Boot OS X 134.2 MB disk1s3

4: Microsoft Basic Data BOOTCAMP 127.2 GB disk1s4

/dev/disk2

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: Apple_HFS Macintosh HD *869.5 GB disk2

macmini-i71:~ $ diskutil cs list

CoreStorage logical volume groups (1 found)

|

+-- Logical Volume Group 8F730824-DB37-4EB2-A98E-24A6CBEA676F

=========================================================

Name: OSX-FusionHD

Status: Online

Size: 877296615424 B (877.3 GB)

Free Space: 0 B (0 B)

|

+-< Physical Volume 53EE1BF1-4663-40E6-A266-375386CC2FBB

| ----------------------------------------------------

| Index: 0

| Disk: disk1s2

| Status: Online

| Size: 128000000000 B (128.0 GB)

|

+-< Physical Volume AB3225B8-C562-4488-AC1E-227939FECCE0

| ----------------------------------------------------

| Index: 1

| Disk: disk0s2

| Status: Online

| Size: 749296615424 B (749.3 GB)

|

+-> Logical Volume Family FB470807-8A64-4285-94EB-6E8E50AFA03C

----------------------------------------------------------

Encryption Status: Unlocked

Encryption Type: None

Conversion Status: NoConversion

Conversion Direction: -none-

Has Encrypted Extents: No

Fully Secure: No

Passphrase Required: No

|

+-> Logical Volume 9EAB05A8-8FF3-489E-95C1-8C9BC06EE250

---------------------------------------------------

Disk: disk2

Status: Online

Size (Total): 869519048704 B (869.5 GB)

Conversion Progress: -none-

Revertible: No

LV Name: Macintosh HD

Volume Name: Macintosh HD

Content Hint: Apple_HFS