Install Windows 10 Via Bootcamp
Jul 08, 2017 Before you install Windows, stop and think about whether or not Boot Camp is the best choice for your needs. There are a couple of drawbacks to consider. When you use Boot Camp to install Windows on your Mac, you’ll need to re-partition your drive, which is going to take up quite a bit of your available drive space. Is possible to install Windows 10 via bootcamp, on a drive that is not the main drive? I am running 10.11 (el capitan), which is the highest OS that my machine seems to be able to run. EDIT No, I am not using an external drive, but an internal drive (the Mac Pro has 4 internal SATA bay for drives). Sep 06, 2016 Yes, i have tried to download the necesarry software to install windows 10 on my macbook air 2014, but after my mac boot to windows, there is no sound to guide me through the installation process. For now, i give up. Installing windows 8.1 via bootcamp without vision Guide - March 4, 2016 - Ashley - 13 comments. Aug 12, 2019 An external USB flash drive with a storage capacity of 16GB or more, unless you're using a Mac that doesn't need a flash drive to install Windows. A 64-bit version of Windows 10 Home or Windows 10 Pro on a disk image (ISO) or other installation media: If installing Windows on your Mac for the first time, use a full version of Windows, not an.
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I’ve been using a late 2013 Retina Macbook Pro as my primary computer for almost two years. It meets all my needs in my day job and is light enough to carry everywhere even while flying around for work.
While I love the time flying affords to switch offline and catch up on some well deserved gaming, mobile gaming can be bit bland and Mac OS X doesn’t run my favourite games like Skyrim without some fairly unreliable and poorly performing hacks via Wine.
But what about Bootcamp? I was in a very limited place, the 256GB SSD quickly fills up and I couldn’t spare the space to partition and install Bootcamp Apple’s way.
Enter the Samsung Portable SSD T1, this speedy little drive is small enough to hang off the side of my Macbook without getting in the way and a bump or two won’t damage it.
Unfortunately Windows refuses to install to any USB based storage which has historically been far too slow to run a fully fledged operating system.
But that’s no issue for the T1 which by Samsung’s own estimates can reach up to 450MB/s. It’s more than fast enough to run Windows as if it were running directly on the internal drive.
Luckily with the power of virtualisation it’s easy to bypass these pesky limitations and get Bootcamp running entirely off the external USB SSD drive without making any changes to the internal SSD.
Read on to find out how!
What you’ll need:
You’ll need a few things to complete this guide:
- A Mac which supports booting from a USB Device (see Apple Support: Mac computers that support Windows 10)
- A USB 3.0 SSD similar to the Samsung T1 (a flash storage device will not be fast enough)
- A spare USB drive with a minimum of 2GB of storage to copy the Bootcamp Drivers over to Windows.
- Basic understanding of VirtualBox and installing Windows.
Download Windows 10 Installation
Windows 10 is available to download from Microsoft and allows a grace period to license the installation. Windows 10 can be purchased from the Microsoft Store.
Follow the prompts to download Windows 10 installation disk.
The download is 3.7GB so it may take some time, the next steps will prepare your system to install Windows 10 to the USB SSD.
Download Bootcamp Software for Windows 10
Apple offer a prepackaged driver installation for Bootcamp.
Thanks to Reddit user sadalhayat for identifying this link.
Once this has downloaded copy it to a spare USB drive separate from SSD you will be using to install Bootcamp. Save this for later.
Mac OS X cannot write to the Windows drive out of the box. For this reason you will need to use a separate drive to copy the Bootcamp Software into the new Bootcamp Installation.
Install VirtualBox
Are you wondering why VirtualBox is the next step? Don’t worry, we’re taking advantage of the virtualisation technology to kick start the installation of Windows 10.
We will be using VirtualBox to mount the USB drive as a virtual hard disk inside the Virtual Machine. This bypasses the limitations imposed by the Microsoft Installer preventing us from installing Bootcamp the Apple way.
Download and Install VirtualBox
If you don’t already have VirtualBox, it can be downloaded from their website. Once you have downloaded the package, use the installation package to get up and running with VirtualBox.
Identify your USB Drive’s device location
Open up the Terminal and type:
This command will list all the connected drives on your computer. Browse through the list until you find your storage device. Free audio clips funny video.
The text highlighted red “/dev/disk2” is the information we need. This information will tell VirtualBox exactly which storage device it needs to access.
Please note this information may be different on your machine. Read the list carefully to match the address of your USB SSD.
Disconnecting Mac OS X from the USB SSD.
Before we connect VirtualBox to our USB SSD you will need to completely unmount the SSD from Mac OS X to allow VirtualBox full access to the USB SSD.
This can be done by searching for Disk Utility in Spotlight then
- Choosing the External USB Device
- Choosing Eject in the top Menu
Create a Virtual Disk mapping to the USB Drive
This is where the magic starts. We will be using VirtualBox to mount the USB SSD as a normal hard disk in order to trick the Windows 10 installer into thinking it is using a normal hard drive.
First we need to create a Virtual Disk File for VirtualBox so it knows what storage device we are accessing.
Below is the command we will be modifying to create the Virtual Disk file
You can copy the entire command with the exception of the last part “/dev/diskX” which will need to be changed to the drive number you identified in the previous step.
In my case it is “/dev/disk2”.
Installing Windows 10 to the USB SSD via VirtualBox
Now that we have everything organised we can start the installation of Windows 10 via VirtualBox.
We will need to give VirtualBox elevated permissions to access our handy bootcamp.vmdk file.
In your terminal type:
This will force VirtualBox to run as the root user and have permission to access the USB SSD.
Creating Virtual Machine
In VirtualBox choose “New” and type “Windows 10 Bootcamp” and click Continue.
Change Memory to “512” MB and click Continue.
On the Hard Disk screen choose “Use an existing virtual hard disk file” browse to your home directory and select the newly created “bootstrap.vmdk”.
Installing Bootcamp, from a Virtual Machine
Now that we have scaffolded the Virtual Machine, connected the hard drive and downloaded Windows 10, it is time to install Windows 10 onto our shiny new USB SSD.
Back in VirtualBox we will need to mount the Windows 10 Installation ISO into the virtual DVD drive.
- Open the Virtual Machine’s Settings Panel.
- Select the Storage tab on the top of the Settings Panel.
- Select the Empty DVD Icon.
- Select the CD Icon next to the Optical Drive, Choose Virtual Optical Disk File and select the Windows 10 ISO file.
- Select OK to save the new settings.
Run the Normal Windows 10 Installation
Follow through the standard screens to begin the Windows 10 installation.
Clicking next and agreeing to the terms and conditions is all you really need to do here except for the following points:
When you meet the installation type screen, select “Custom”.
When you are asked where to install Windows, just delete any existing partitions and select “Next”.
Don’t worry, Windows can only see the USB SSD drive you assigned by VirtualBox, your Mac’s existing partitions are not accessible here.
Important! Don’t let windows restart!
This is the most crucial step to successfully installing Bootcamp on an external USB 3.0 SSD
When Windows 10 is restarting, make sure you prevent Windows restarting inside the Virtual Machine and completing the installation.
- When you see the VirtualBox BIOS screen select the Red Close Button
- Choose “Power off the machine”.
- Choose OK to power off the Virtual Machine.
That’s enough Virtualisation!
Now that we’ve completed the first phase of the Windows 10 installation, we don’t need to use VirtualBox anymore.
This completes all the steps required on the Mac OS X side of the installation.
Reboot your Mac into Windows
It’s now time to restart your Mac and boot into Windows 10. Power off your Mac and hold the Option key until disk icons appear onscreen.
Let Windows 10 install
If everything went well Windows 10 should start booting and begin the initial installation.
Just follow through the screens and fill in your details as required.
Windows 10 may reboot during the installation. If this occurs, make sure you press the Option Key and select the Boot Camp Drive to continue the installation.
Install Bootcamp Software
Plug in the spare USB Drive we copied the Bootcamp Software to earlier and run “AppleBCUpdate.exe”.
This will start the Bootcamp installation software to install drivers for the Apple Keyboard and Mouse, Wireless, Graphics and other devices in your system.
That’s it!
If everything went according to plan you should now be able to boot directly into Windows 10 whenever the USB SSD is connected to your computer!
My experience has been rock solid, and I can enjoy all the benefits of running Bootcamp on my Mac to run Windows Applications and Games without sacrificing the valuable storage space of the internal SSD.
Install Windows 10 Via Boot Camp 2017
Did you find this article helpful? Let me know in the comments section below!
Keep in mind Microsoft and Apple never intended for you to run Bootcamp this way. Make sure you never disconnect the USB SSD from your system while Windows is running!
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I did repair my early 2009 mac pro 4.1; and after installing a gtx970 I did realize that I may use it also for windows gaming.
Although my main drive is just a boot for OSX, which is a 90 GB SSD drive; the rest of my home directory and application support is on a SATA mechanical drive. Is possible to install Windows 10 via bootcamp, on a drive that is not the main drive? I am running 10.11 (el capitan), which is the highest OS that my machine seems to be able to run.
EDITNo, I am not using an external drive, but an internal drive (the Mac Pro has 4 internal SATA bay for drives)
How To Bootcamp Windows 10
1 Answer
Below is a quote taken from the Boot CampInstallation & Setup Guide (copyright 2013).
• If you have a Mac Pro with more than one internal disk and you want to install Boot Camp on a disk that isn’t in the first hard drive bay, remove the drives in the lower- numbered bays. You can reinstall the drives after you install Boot Camp.
So, it is possible to install Windows via Boot Camp, on a drive that is not the main drive. The maximum Windows that Apple officially supports is Windows 8.1 (64-Bit). Microsoft says you should be able to upgrade an existing Boot Camp Windows 8.1 installation to Windows 10.
Everything I have posted so far is by the book. However, you are proposing going off script by directly installing Windows 10. Officially, the answer is no, but unofficially the answer probably is yes. If you try, expect to encounter Scarecrows. In other words, expect error messages from Apple as some point during the installation that will say you can not proceed. There is usually are one or more ways to bypass any problems that you will encounter. You can try posting a problem here and see if anyone can suggest a solution.
Here is some advice.
Installer Windows 10 Via Bootcamp
- Burn the Windows 10 ISO to a DVD. You may need a DL DVD.
- Install a BIOS booting Windows.
- Before installing, make sure the Widows Support Software has been copied to a FAT formatted flash drive.
- Select the Master Boot Record partitioning scheme when using the Disk Utility to erasing the flash drive.
Bootcamp Reinstall Windows 10
BTW, you do not need a license to try Windows 10. You can download and install without a Product Key. If you choose to keep Windows 10, then you will need to purchase a license.
There is always the possibility that Windows 10 is not compatible with your processor. I assume the Windows 10 installer would inform you, if this was the case. I have encountered PCs where I could install 64 bit Windows 7, 8 and 8.1, but not Windows 10. Basically, the processor did not meet the requirements given below. (This was taken from the Microsoft web site: Minimum hardware requirements, Section 3.1 Processor)
- Compatible with the x86 or x64 instruction set.
- Supports PAE, NX and SSE2.
- Supports CMPXCHG16b, LAHF/SAHF, and PrefetchW for 64-bit OSinstallation
On the other hand, I came across the Microsoft website: Windows Processor Requirements, which states:
Install Windows 10 Via Boot Camp Windows 7
Intel Xeon processors are supported on Windows 10 Pro for Workstations and Windows 10 Enterprise only
Apparently, you can download and try Windows 10 Enterprise for free. See the Microsoft Evaluation Center website.
If you do not use the Boot Camp Assistant to install Widows, then you should follow the instructions provided by Microsoft. For BIOS booting Windows, the instructions for partitioning can be found at the BIOS/MBR-based hard drive partitions website.
I would recommend placing the System partition on the first (main) drive and then placing the Windows and Recovery partitions on a second internal drive. You could combine the Windows and Recovery partitions, if you wish. This System partition is only appropriately 100 MB in size, so the partition should have minimum impact on the space for macOS.
Free idm download and install. Note: The Microsoft instructions do no include the Mac requirement that any drives that share macOS and a BIOS booting Windows must by Hybrid partitioned.
David Anderson