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Issue with Mac. HDD is completely wiped, CD drive does not work, Reinstall (usb)?

S

stevesta717

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 12, 2010
2
0
I needed to wipe my entire mac HDD as there was an issue with something, bad move i guess now, however, i am planning to reinstall windows on the mac using a bootable USB. At the moment, there is no os on the macbook whatsoever.

Yes it would be a wise move to just reinstall mac osx first however i do not plan on using it at all, this mac was given to me and i prefer to use windows, ive used windows perfectly in the past before.

Currently i only have access to a windows computer, an 8gb usb (for the win 7 installation), 4gb usb (using rEFIt) and the mac itself.

I have attempted several times mounting the bootable win7 image to the USB. Ive tried multiple formats NTFS, FAT32, even HFS+. Despite the macbook being able to recognize the windows boot option in rEFIt, once selected and chosen the mac does not boot from the usb, and the windows installation does not open, it simply goes to the second boot option which is the HDD (where no os is currently installed)

Advice please?
 
Windows cannot be installed to anything but the single SATA disk in your MacBook. An installation into USB is not possible.

You have the option to install Windows only to the MB or to make two partitions and install OS X and Windows. I will describe the 1 system option first.

1. Windows only as OS

You boot your MB either with the Windows or the OS X install DVD. If you use the Windows DVD you will end up with an MBR partition scheme. If you use the OS X disk you can also choose a GUID partition scheme. This is the partition scheme that Apple uses for dual boot. You can partition the drive with one partition in FAT and Windows will recognize that partition and convert it to NTFS later when you install Windows. You can also make two partitions, one with HFS+ and one in FAT. The HFS+ partition can be left empty and can be used to install OS X later if you change your mind. This is the most flexible partitioning but it eats disk space.

2. Windows and OS X

You install OS X. Then you use Bootcamp to split the partition for Windows off and install Windows.

Those are the choices that I see.
 
The only three reliable methods for getting Windows to Boot Camp on a Mac are:

  1. Use a CD/DVD in the internal SuperDrive (USB ODDs don't usually work).
  2. Create a partition on the internal drive with the Windows installer info on it.
  3. Install to the Boot Camp partition with VMWare Fusion.

B
 
The only three reliable methods for getting Windows to Boot Camp on a Mac are:

  1. Use a CD/DVD in the internal SuperDrive (USB ODDs don't usually work).
  2. Create a partition on the internal drive with the Windows installer info on it.
  3. Install to the Boot Camp partition with VMWare Fusion.

You could always install OS X to an external USB HDD and use that to perform the install. That works fine.

B
 
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