How to use bootcamp without a usb

You need a method to use the ISO (wherever it is located on your iMac) to be available across boots. If it is on a OS X file system and OS X is down or being rebooted, you will lose access. The USB can be used to put it on a media along with BC drivers. It needs to be 8GB.

If you have a 8GB USB2 stick, copy the current contents to the OS X side and save them, and use it for installing Windows, and once complete, reformat it and put the saved contents from the OS X side back on the USB.

Another option is to burn the ISO to a physical DVD and use an external Optical drive and on 2013+ Macs, you can directly install with BC Assistant.

Your iMac Late 2014 should be the Retina 5K. It supports UEFI, so an EFI installation is possible. If you have a 3TB Fusion drive, it requires special treatment due to FAT and Windows needs. Even though Windows supports GPT, the MSR part (in step 4) must reside in a FAT partition which cannot be after 2TB address space on disk. OS X also creates its EFI as diskNs1, where s1 is the first slice.

1. Backup OSX.

2. Create a partition large enough for the Windows ISO and add 2GB. Burn the ISO to this partition.

3. Use BCA and download the BC drivers. They are stored in /Library/Application\ Support/Bootcamp in a DMG files called WindowsSupport.dmg. Copy this file somewhere other than this directory. You will need it after Windows is installed. You will need a USB for this step even though the saved file is used. The USB can be 1-to-2 GB. It is to allow BCA to write the contents of the DMG to it.

4. Create a partition for Windows and format it as Free Space. This will be split into MSR (128MB) and MSD partition (this will become NTFS).

5. Boot your iMac from the partition in step 2, by holding the Alt key when booting up.

6. Install Windows to the partition created in step 4.

7. Install BC drivers from the DMG saved in step 3.

From Applications -> Utilities -> Terminal, go to the directory where the ISO file is located and run the following two highlighted commands.

ls -lgh Win10_1607_English_x64.iso

-rw-r--r--@ 1 staff 4.1G Jul 17 17:28 Win10_1607_English_x64.iso

openssl md5 Win10_1607_English_x64.iso

MD5(Win10_1607_English_x64.iso)= 88b98698600511dcd69596df92b242e5

Please be aware that your 2011 Mac does not support W10 as noted in Use Windows 10 on your Mac with Boot Camp - Apple Support . A clean install of W10 will cause issues. Install W7/W8.1 first and then upgrade to W10, so get working 'grand-fathered' drivers.

RealNoNamer wrote:

did you not read the post

I want to use boot camp, but I don't have a big enough usb I don't use. I also don't want to buy a new one so is there away to use boot camp without a usb or cd

From Boot Camp: System requirements for Microsoft Windows operating systems - Apple Support

To install Microsoft Windows using Boot Camp, you need the following:

• An Internet connection
• An administrator account in OS X to use Boot Camp Assistant
• The keyboard and mouse or trackpad that came with your Mac (If they aren’t available, use a USB keyboard and mouse)
• A minimum of 2 GB of RAM, 30 GB of free disk space are recommended if you are installing Windows for the first time, or 40 GB of free disk space if you are upgrading from a previous version of Windows
• An authentic Microsoft Windows full install disc or ISO file
• A built-in optical drive, or a compatible external optical drive is required if you are using an install disc
• 8 GB USB storage device, or external drive formatted as MS-DOS (FAT) to install the downloaded drivers

Before you install Windows, you should use Software Update to make sure OS X and your computer's firmware are up to date.

also what do you mean by available across boots like I can boot the windows hard drive(cus I can do that)

There are 4 reboots for Windows installation at a minimum, and all installation media necessary must be physically available across each of these, which means it cannot be stored on a OS X file system on your Mac. It must be stored externally on persistent media.

Can you do the following

If you have a 8GB USB2 stick, copy the current contents to the OS X side and save them, and use it for installing Windows, and once complete, reformat it and put the saved contents from the OS X side back on the USB.

You can install Windows over the network using https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj938037.aspx and specifically read https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj938037.aspx#BKMK_Assumptions.

If you have other questions, I suggest you start at How to install Windows using Boot Camp - Apple Support.

If you are more comfortable with re-installation and have your information backed up, please go ahead. Remember to use Boot Camp for Mac: Remove Windows from your Mac and not use anything else to remove Windows.

Do you know how built a custom Hybrid MBR?

Do you know how burn ISO to the internal hard disk and boot from it?

Do you know how to manipulate NVRAM using the Terminal?

Do you know how to install Windows using EFI?

If the answer is yes to ALL OF THE ABOVE, you can do it.

Lukebluetiger wrote:

I have no USB compatibility because of the "MBR Partition error" and my DVDs aren't compatible with Mac

Depending on the year/model of your Mac and OS X version, your Mac may not even support a USB installer. We can help you better if you provide more details and error messages about the steps and possibly a screen shot of the errors.

It doesn't support USB installation, it's a 2011 Mac, I've gotten windows 7 on it before with a DVD but that's broken and all other DVDs aren't compatible so this is basically what I'm doing now. Disc is broken from being too scratched.

Do you have a blank DVD-R SL Media? If yes, then use your Product Key to download W7 ISO from https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows7 and burn it to the blank DVD and try to boot from it. Your built-in Optical drive must be able to read/write CDs and DVDs.

Please ensure that the ISO's MD5sum has been verified with the source, otherwise your burned DVD will not work.

Once verified, right-click on the ISO, choose Burn, expand the Burn dialog, enable Verify and Mount options, choose the slowest available rate and burn. If the DVD does not mount properly, please post back with the error message.

If you booted into Recovery and booted back normally, this has no impact on the burning of the DVD. You can use VMware and Winclone to install it, if your Optical drive is not working. Your issue is related to the media, more than the drive.

Unfortunately, this requires a re-installation.

The usual method using a VM and clone solution, is

1. to start the installation using the VM engine and shutdown the VM, before the Windows installer restarts, after the copying files part is complete.

2. Clone this virtual disk to the physical partitioning

3. Boot from this partial Windows partition, and continue the installation where it left off.

Instead, if you use the USB Installer, the only mode it will work on a 2011 Mac is via EFI Boot, which creates the installation type you have.