Q: Late 2011 MBP El Capitan Windows 7 Boot Camp No internal optical drive (LOSING MY MIND, PLZ HELP)

I have currently erased my SSD and am starting over from scratch. So I can try anything there is to do.

Will a USB installer work without an OS X partition? If I only make a MBR FAT32 partition on my SSD and press Option while booting, select the usb and install Windows, will it allow me?

I tried this with the external drive and got a blinking cursor black screen yet again. Haven't tried with a USB yet. Is OS X required if I go completely without it/bootcamp?

The external drive I opened up only has a sata ribbon cable plugged into the pcb which has a mini usb out soldered on board. I don't have a connector that could allow me to plug it into the mac at this time (unless I remove the main SSD bay's connector which is pointless.

I've checked and it didn't work. I have OS X on my 32GB USB, booted from it and formatted the internal SSD. Booted from the external DVD and it gave the blinking cursor. Booted from the USB and got EFI boot a few times (I made sure it was an active partition and all that. Used rufus to make it, used cmd/diskpart to make it and used disk utility itself to make it. All without luck).

Currently I've erased everything and have a fresh/new SSD ready to clean install El Capitan.

You mentioned that editing the info.plist will allow the USB method. As far as I've tried, editing the preusbsupported and ROMboot stuff only allowed me to make bootcamp create a bootable usb not install from one. Because the multiple times I did this I failed with messages like "no bootable device" or "cdrboot: no mbr" or efi boot or blinking cursor.

Are you sure modifying the .plist will allow bootcamp to install from a USB Windows 7 device in El Capitan?

If so, please let me know what exactly to modify. In the mean time I'll fresh install OS X.

If there is no guaranteed way to do this without an internal superdrive or use of VM/winclone, I think I will just wait until I can buy and install an internal drive again. Bothering with .plist's, enabling rootless (system integrity) over and over has left me out of patience since it never seemed to work properly.

I really appreciate all your help!

Mark

I have already read those posts before I clean installed last week and did not have success.

Sorry I'm not sure what you meant. Do you want me to plug a blank USB or one that has bootable Windows 7 already on it? I currently can't create one from BCA because I haven't edited any .plist since I clean installed.

Hahaha, I was gonna go down that route soon enough.

I have read that optical drive replacement guide too but my external was not compatible as it has no SATA connector.

I think I'll just purchase another optical drive and try placing it inside the Mac eventually.

I understand you've answered hundreds of these questions, sometimes the exact same ones, so no worries! I appreciate all the help anyway.

However, one last attempt to save me some money wouldn't hurt.

- I know the Late 2011 MBP officially only allows internal optical drive boot camp installation.

- If I remove the "pre" from the "usbsupported...etc" in the info.plist... does this allow USB installation or bootable USB installer creation . It was never clear to me whether the modification only allows installation or creation of a usb (which I can do without trouble regardless). If it won't allow usb boot camp installation no matter what, then I don't have any reason to fiddle with the .plist.

The main reason I'm hesitant to use VM's/winclone is because it leaves me with an unofficial/unclean bootcamp supported device. Just feels bad.

Since the external optical drive method never worked for me, USB is my last bet before I purchase an internal optical drive.

So if you are sure that the 2011 MBP won't result in a clean official boot camp enabled usb windows 7 installation, then I'll rest the case.

Mark

Model Identifier: MacBookPro8,2

Boot ROM Version: MBP81.0047.B2C

SMC Version (system): 1.69f4

Ah, unlucky.

Thanks!