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Is it possible to boot windows from and external drive?
Booting windows
- Thread starter TheMagicPirate
- Start date
Soldato
I'll say "no" but if you can it'll be an ugly hack I've not come across.
"The FIRMWARE upgrade is what allows Windows to run the Mac, not Boot Camp. Bootcamp is just a simple interface that guides you.
Once you install the firmware upgrade which allows for BIOS, then boot from the Windows CD (hold C during startup) and follow the regular Windows setup procedure while selecting your external drive partition to install Windows on to.
After installation, according to http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=75459 "Press Option-Command-Shift-Delete during startup to Bypass primary startup volume and seek a different startup volume (such as a CD or external disk)". At this point, you'll be able to select your external drive to boot from. Since Windows will be installed there, you'll boot Windows.
Note: I would use Boot Camp to create the driver CD which will allow Windows to support your Mac's hardware properly. "
Thread discussing it - http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=191777
Doesnt anyone ever google anymore
Once you install the firmware upgrade which allows for BIOS, then boot from the Windows CD (hold C during startup) and follow the regular Windows setup procedure while selecting your external drive partition to install Windows on to.
After installation, according to http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=75459 "Press Option-Command-Shift-Delete during startup to Bypass primary startup volume and seek a different startup volume (such as a CD or external disk)". At this point, you'll be able to select your external drive to boot from. Since Windows will be installed there, you'll boot Windows.
Note: I would use Boot Camp to create the driver CD which will allow Windows to support your Mac's hardware properly. "
Thread discussing it - http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=191777
Doesnt anyone ever google anymore
Last edited:
Thread discussing it - http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=191777
Doesnt anyone ever google anymore
Ive been interested in this topic and read about 5 pages into it - none have succeeded fully yet - at least not with a FireWire External enclosure, USB HDD however works but without pagefiles support...
Edit:
If you've got a firewire HDD, best thing to do is bootcamp it to a 5GB(?) partition then store all windows files on your external HDD, that way you can still boot into XP but the main bulk is in the external.
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I was going to say why not just use a very small windows partition and an external hdd for it?