Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Can I install windows onto a flash drive in my ExpressCard/34 slot?

I

Illegit

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 24, 2007
26
0
I want to buy a ExpressCard/34 SSD and install it into my MacBookPro. Then using Boot Camp, I would like to install Windows onto it. Is this possible?

Also, when installed, will the SSD Express Card be discrete and flush with the side of the MacBook Pro?
 
Cromulent

Cromulent

macrumors 604
Oct 2, 2006
6,802
1,096
The Land of Hope and Glory
Illegit said:
I want to buy a ExpressCard/34 SSD and install it into my MacBookPro. Then using Boot Camp, I would like to install Windows onto it. Is this possible?
Click to expand...

No idea.

Illegit said:
Also, when installed, will the SSD Express Card be discrete and flush with the side of the MacBook Pro?
Click to expand...

How can anyone possibly answer this without knowing what card you are buying? You need to provide details if you want help or information.
 
F

Finnian59

macrumors newbie
Jul 9, 2010
3
0
Anchorage
Illegit said:
I want to buy a ExpressCard/34 SSD and install it into my MacBookPro. Then using Boot Camp, I would like to install Windows onto it. Is this possible?

Also, when installed, will the SSD Express Card be discrete and flush with the side of the MacBook Pro?
Click to expand...

Based on MId year 2010 MBP - yes.
I've got a 500 GB internal SSD drive with OS X Lion and and a shaved 5 gb drive as a Lion Bootable/Restore disk with disk utility.

I picked up the Wintec Filemate 96GB SSD card and installed it with two partitions, 45 GB for Boot Camp with Windows 7 (bootable) and 1 partition for Data 45 GB - accessible by both the OS X partition and the Boot Camp partition.

Doing this - The Boot Camp drive with Windows 7, is formatted in NTFS and the 2nd partition is formatted in HFS+ which both the NTFS and OS X Lion will read and write to.

THere are a ton of articles out there about boot camp and external drives not working, I'd guess this one counts as a 2nd internal drive due to the cards ESata connection. It's nice. Both drives are SSD, and both windows and OS X are really fast. Holding Option key allows booting into Boot camp to launch either Mac OS X or Windows.
 
B

Black Russian

macrumors newbie
Jan 21, 2012
4
0
Kentucky
I hope this will work...

Finnian59 said:
Based on MId year 2010 MBP - yes.
I've got a 500 GB internal SSD drive with OS X Lion and and a shaved 5 gb drive as a Lion Bootable/Restore disk with disk utility.

I picked up the Wintec Filemate 96GB SSD card and installed it with two partitions, 45 GB for Boot Camp with Windows 7 (bootable) and 1 partition for Data 45 GB - accessible by both the OS X partition and the Boot Camp partition.

Doing this - The Boot Camp drive with Windows 7, is formatted in NTFS and the 2nd partition is formatted in HFS+ which both the NTFS and OS X Lion will read and write to.

THere are a ton of articles out there about boot camp and external drives not working, I'd guess this one counts as a 2nd internal drive due to the cards ESata connection. It's nice. Both drives are SSD, and both windows and OS X are really fast. Holding Option key allows booting into Boot camp to launch either Mac OS X or Windows.
Click to expand...

Awesome - this is the first post I've seen that confirms that the 96 GB Wintec Filemate ExpressCard34 SSD can be used for dual boot with Windows.

My dilemma was whether to risk spending money on an ExpressCard SSD without knowing whether it'll work as a dual boot drive. I use an early-2011 17" MBP, which I need to boot into Windows so that I can run a CAD suite (SolidWorks, which runs only under Windows), AND I want to have Windows and SolidWorks on a separate, easily removable drive (I use my MBP for work and personal projects, so I decided it's best to keep them on separate drives) - that's how I came up with the idea of getting an ExpressCard SSD for this purpose. So, I hope I'll be able to reproduce what Finnian59 did on his 2010 MBP. We'll see...

If anyone else has a similar story to share, please do.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom