Bootcamp Windows on External SSD

Question

Bootcamp Windows on External SSD

You can indeed put Bootcamp Windows on an external SSD. I discovered this by searched for that sentence on Google (or roughly that). The how-to guy from 9-to-5 Mac has full directions on You Tube. And the only cost seems to be Windows -- this one's about 10 Pro-- and the use of VMWare and a piece of freeware called, I think, Win2USB, something like that.

It is tricky, in that there's a lot of steps, and you have to get them right. It took me two tries to get it going. But it will work. Good luck.

https://9to5mac.com/2017/08/31/how-windows-10-mac-boot-camp-external-drive-video /

iMac with Retina 5K display, macOS Sierra (10.12.5)

Posted on Jul 26, 2018 4:52 PM

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Answer 1

Loner T

Level 9

59,536 points

Aug 6, 2018 3:57 AM in response to James Hassinger

This looks clean.

Disconnect all external peripherals, except the Mouse/Trackpad and Keyboard
Run a SMC and NVRAM Reset
- How to reset the System Management Controller (SMC) on your Mac - Apple Support
- Reset NVRAM or PRAM on your Mac - Apple Support
Download the ISO from Microsoft's Software Download page
Run BC Assistant and follow the steps to install Windows
If you run into any issues, post all error messages

Reference How to install Windows on your Mac with Boot Camp - Apple Support

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Answer 2

Jul 26, 2018 5:43 PM in response to James Hassinger

You can use a virtual machine to put Windows on an external drive. Neither Microsoft nor Boot Camp support installing Windows natively on an external drive. Of course there is a version of Windows that does support this and if you want to know more the Microsoft site would be the place to get additional information.

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Answer 3

Loner T

Level 9

59,536 points

Jul 26, 2018 7:03 PM in response to James Hassinger

James Hassinger wrote:

You can indeed put Bootcamp Windows on an external SSD.

To what purpose? You have violated the Microsoft licensing agreement.

This disk is not portable to another Mac or PC, due to differences in drivers, which are specific to the Mac hardware on which you installed the Widows originally.

If you move this disk to an identical Mac elsewhere, then it will work, but that is a very limited use scenario.

If this was an exercise in learning, then indeed it is possible.

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Answer 4

Jul 29, 2018 9:02 PM in response to Loner T

I have a 1 TB Fusion drive on my 2015 iMac, and it’s rather full. I wanted to use a fast SSD, and the Samsung T5 is very fast. I knew it would be hard to move, but I am using it to work from home. Seemed to me rather obvious. The Windows terms of use are a lot more flexible than they were, and this demo shows that first, you virtualize it, you add the Bootcamp drivers, and reinstall the thing to the external with Win2USB, A regular .exe from a solid Windows thing.

Or I could but a 1 TB SSD and use iFixit to install... uh, no.

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Answer 5

Loner T

Level 9

59,536 points

Aug 4, 2018 5:50 PM in response to James Hassinger

James Hassinger wrote:

The Windows terms of use are a lot more flexible than they were...

From Microsoft Retail License Terms in 2.b which states

Device. In this agreement, “device” means a hardware system (whether physical or virtual) with an internal storage device capable of running the software. A hardware partition or blade is considered to be a device.

Under Enterprise or Education licenses, Windows To Go: feature overview does allow a 'nomadic' installation. Hence it depends on what you original license is.

James Hassinger wrote:

Or I could but a 1 TB SSD and use iFixit to install... uh, no.

Consider another option. Install macOS on an external disk, which is allowed under Apple's License, and dedicate the internal 1TB to Windows. In your current setup, or under this option, you have to carry an external disk with an OS, which can be either Windows or macOS, your choice. 😉

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Answer 6

Aug 4, 2018 5:57 PM in response to Loner T

After two sessions with Microsoft and Apple Support, I decided to take your advice. I bought a 1 TB Samsung T5, and cloned my Fusion drive to it. It boots up perfectly, and is many times faster than the Fusion.

Now, I'm not sure how to proceed with installing Windows 10 on my normal boot drive. Is booting up into Macintosh HD, not Macintosh SSD, and using Bootcamp the only way? I don't have enough room for the partition I want. I could erase the drive, install a minimal Mac partition, and then use bootcamp to do it. Any suggestions?

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Answer 7

Loner T

Level 9

59,536 points

Aug 5, 2018 6:33 PM in response to James Hassinger

James Hassinger wrote:

Now, I'm not sure how to proceed with installing Windows 10 on my normal boot drive. Is booting up into Macintosh HD, not Macintosh SSD, and using Bootcamp the only way?

If you use the T5 SSD to boot from, the 2015 iMac will get confused.

James Hassinger wrote:

I don't have enough room for the partition I want. I could erase the drive, install a minimal Mac partition, and then use bootcamp to do it. Any suggestions?

Yes, I would also recommend the same method. Install the same version of macOS again (do not switch to a higher version) which is minimal. Do not reduce the macOS partition to be smaller than the size of the SSD part in your Mac. I suggest leaving about 250GB on the HDD aside as part of macOS. The reason is the SSD part is 120GB, so we leave 2 x 120 + overhead on the HDD, in case the SSD fails. This leaves about 750Gb for Windows on a 1TB HDD, or 1.75TB on a 2TB HDD. If you have a 3TB HDD, I recommend slightly over 1TB of the HDD be left for macOS.

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Answer 8

Aug 5, 2018 8:03 PM in response to Loner T

Thank you very much. I now have a bare bones install of MacOS 10.13.6 on my old Macintosh HD, the full installation on Macintosh SSD (USB 3.1 Samsung T5, but all I can get from Boot camp is that it won't install on anything but the startup--and not on any disk where File Vault is in progress. But I have it turned off. it's not in progress, and this is the boot drive at present. Ever come across that?

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Answer 9

Aug 5, 2018 9:36 PM in response to James Hassinger

Jamess-iMac:~ jimhass$ diskutil cs list

CoreStorage logical volume groups (1 found)

|

+-- Logical Volume Group 1B727DF4-84CB-458C-8787-C49C6DD548E8

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

Name: CoreStorage Fusion

Status: Online

Size: 1022898851840 B (1.0 TB)

Free Space: 45056 B (45.1 KB)

|

+-< Physical Volume 9EF39FA9-50DC-497A-BC86-1DF7A3F4EEA5

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

| Index: 0

| Disk: disk0s2

| Status: Online

| Size: 23553724416 B (23.6 GB)

|

+-< Physical Volume 79656B26-D17A-49DB-B75F-FC941E148B98

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

| Index: 1

| Disk: disk1s2

| Status: Online

| Size: 999345127424 B (999.3 GB)

|

+-> Logical Volume Family F0DA5E75-0E5C-49DB-A887-97D65A254839

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

Encryption Type: None

|

+-> Logical Volume 93662594-BA77-4FCC-8A57-646ED650BECE

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

Disk: disk2

Status: Online

Size (Total): 1021994074112 B (1.0 TB)

Revertible: No

LV Name: Macintosh HD

Volume Name: Macintosh HD

Content Hint: Apple_HFS

LVG Type: Fusion, Sparse

Jamess-iMac:~ jimhass$

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Answer 10

Loner T

Level 9

59,536 points

Aug 5, 2018 8:18 PM in response to James Hassinger

FV2 runs in the background. Can you post the output of

diskutil cs list

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Answer 11

Aug 6, 2018 11:35 AM in response to James Hassinger

It worked. Now I'll have to contact Windows Support because it thinks, now, that I have other installations. Sigh. But thank you for all your help.

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Answer 12

Loner T

Level 9

59,536 points

Aug 7, 2018 1:22 AM in response to James Hassinger

Excellent. Microsoft should be able to transfer the license to your new installation.

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Answer 13

Aug 8, 2018 2:32 AM in response to Loner T

I signed into my Microsoft account, and it activated. Thanks a lot.

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Answer 14

Loner T

Level 9

59,536 points

Aug 8, 2018 3:20 AM in response to James Hassinger

Excellent. Please remember to backup macOS, Windows and create a Windows System Restore point.

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Bootcamp Windows on External SSD

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