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How to install Windows 7 via USB on a 2010 Macbook (No Optical)

S

seether220

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Dec 3, 2013
4
0
Ok, finally ran into my first problem with Mavericks. It's a doozy. Please if anyone has any advice, let me know.

My bootcamp partition was acting a little buggy. I also wanted to make the partition larger, so I went ahead and erased it, made a larger partition and was getting ready to install windows 7.

Unfortunately, little to my knowledge, bootcamp assistant is programmed to not allow installation of Windows via USB if your computer had an optical drive in it's factory delivered form.

I have removed my optical drive in favor of a second hard drive and encased my original superdrive into an External USB hub.

There apparently used to be a solution involving editing the plist.info text document to allow USB installation. However, as of MAVERICKS, this document is now locked and unable to be edited.

I was running windows 7 fine until I scrapped it, and now I have no way to re-install windows short of going through a laborious process of re-installing my optical drive into my laptop, installing, and then re-installing my hard drive back in. The only reason is due to a software bias for my series of laptop because it "used to have" an optical drive.

Does anyone know of any way that I can bypass this issue to get Windows Re-installed to a bootcamp partition on a mid-2010 macbook pro without using the optical drive?

Thanks in advance!
 
RahulRulz

RahulRulz

macrumors member
Sep 18, 2013
32
0
London
I own the same MacBook Pro mid-2010 (2.66 GHz) and I have enabled a USB Install on it.
Let me guide you how to Enable USB Install

1. Go for Applications/Utilities/Bootcamp Assistant/ right click > Show Contents copy Info.plist to Desktop as a Backup.

2. Open Terminal and type:
Code: 
sudo nano /Applications/Utilities/Boot\ Camp\ Assistant.app/Contents/Info.plist
It will open Info.plist now move down to "DARequiredROMVersions" and add your Bootrom Version (to get BootRom Version open System Information from Spotlight) at top First.

3. Move Down and find "PreUSBBootSupportedModels" and delete Pre from the word, It should be "USBBootSupportedModels" also add Model Identifier at Top First.

4. Now Save and Exit by Press "control + X" then " Y " and "enter"

5. Now go to Mac AppStore and Install xCode.

6. After xCode is installed open Terminal again and type:
Code: 
sudo codesign -f -s - /Applications/Utilities/Boot\ Camp\ Assistant.app/Contents/MacOS/Boot\ Camp\ Assistant
now It will ask to read License Agreement, Hit enter to read Agreement and press "control + q" to exit License Agreement.
after that I will ask you to agree the terms of Software type "agree" and hit enter.

7. Done. now You can install Windows using USB Flash Drive.

If get any Problem or having Difficulty, Post here
although I am going to make a Tutorial on it later.

Have fun.
 
S

seether220

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Dec 3, 2013
4
0
RahulRulz said:
If get any Problem or having Difficulty, Post here
although I am going to make a Tutorial on it later.

Have fun.
Click to expand...

Thank you for the help Rahul! I followed your instructions and it worked flawlessly up until bootcamp assistant got to the "restart" phase.

In the past, the computer would restart and go into the installation mode to install windows. However, the system seems to just get stuck on the apple logo.

I did a force restart and held "option" to review my boot options. The usb drive did not appear as a boot option.

Did I miss a step? Everything worked flawlessly up until that point.

Thank you!
 
Last edited:
S

seether220

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Dec 3, 2013
4
0
Upon further inspection, when the computer restarts to the "windows default" OS, I get the message "no bootable device".

It seems the machine does not want to boot from the USB drive with windows installation on it. Know of any way to bypass this?

Thank you!
 
J

japmeet

macrumors newbie
Jul 7, 2013
18
1
RahulRulz said:
If get any Problem or having Difficulty, Post here
although I am going to make a Tutorial on it later.

Have fun.
Click to expand...

Hi Rahul, I'm trying to install windows 7 on a macbook 5,2 (mid 2009, white, non pro) and the superdrive on it has gone bad. I was able to make a bootable usb windows 7 by modifying the boot camp assistant plist file (DARequiredROMVersions, USBBootSupportedModels; I used Macbook5,2 in USBBootSupportedModels)
The drive partition went smoothly as well, however when the system restarted I got the infamous 'no boot device' error. I was able to get back into mac using the option key during startup but I'm unable to figure out how to force the macbook to boot from the usb instead of the superdrive.
Did I miss something out ?
 
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