Running out of space and would like to move my bootcamp to an SD card... Possible?

[Obioban]

I got the 128gb MacBook air and it's getting tight. I occasionally need to boot into windows for car programming, but I certainly don't need full SSD speed. The 30gb windows partition is just killing me.

Is there any way to move it to an SD card and be able to boot from it as I am now on the SSD partition?

[BeeJee]

Originally Posted by Obioban

I got the 128gb MacBook air and it's getting tight. I occasionally need to boot into windows for car programming, but I certainly don't need full SSD speed. The 30gb windows partition is just killing me.

Is there any way to move it to an SD card and be able to boot from it as I am now on the SSD partition?

It would probably be better to set up a virtual machine rather than an SD card. I use VAG-COM on Windows 7 through Parallels and it works great.

[Obioban]

Originally Posted by BeeJee

It would probably be better to set up a virtual machine rather than an SD card. I use VAG-COM on Windows 7 through Parallels and it works great.

Eh, virtual machines get pretty painful pretty quickly with 4gb of ram, in my experience.

Is it possible to boot it into windows from an SD card?

[Pharmscott]

There are lots of posts about this. Search the forums. Start here:

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1402854

[Obioban]

Originally Posted by Pharmscott

There are lots of posts about this. Search the forums. Start here:

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1402854

All the threads I found, including that one which I read before I made this, are about storing virtual machines on an SD. I'm looking to boot from an SD card using boot camp.

[wolfpuppies3]

+1 to Parallels, much easier to use and much less of a space hog. Give really really strong consideration to upgrading your very small SSD size while you are at it.

[Pharmscott]

Originally Posted by Obioban

All the threads I found, including that one which I read before I made this, are about storing virtual machines on an SD. I'm looking to boot from an SD card using boot camp.

Gotcha. Sorry I wasn't really that helpful then.

[oneMadRssn]

Originally Posted by Obioban

I'm looking to boot from an SD card using boot camp.

I would also be interested to hear of people's experience with this. I cannot think of why it shouldn't work.

[DisplacedMic]

Originally Posted by Obioban

I got the 128gb MacBook air and it's getting tight. I occasionally need to boot into windows for car programming, but I certainly don't need full SSD speed. The 30gb windows partition is just killing me.

Is there any way to move it to an SD card and be able to boot from it as I am now on the SSD partition?

this is an interesting thread. i hate to be a selfish threadjacker but if you could do it over would this issue inspire you to upgrade the HD if you could do it over?

it's an extra $200 to go to 256 and $500 to 512

as for your question - a few months ago i was having trouble even mounting an sdcard reader using vmware winxp.

as for bootcamp, I don't think you can setup bootcamp on any external drive. as in BC assistant won't even give you the option. i suspect they bult that in as a handicap for piracy prevention reasons. The irony there is you can install lion+ on a sd card and run THAT without the hd but that's obviously not what you're looking to do given the amount of time it sounds like you spend in a VM/win environment

[JohnnyComeLatly]

I'm working my way around to Windows, but I have just recently started playing with Ubuntu booting from a micro USB memory stick (32GB). So far, it's working great installing IRC, TorBrowsers, TrueCrypt, and a slew of CPU/resource intensive things.

So, the way you do it is to create a bootable image on the thumbstick. There's a few websites out there than can help you. Then, as you boot your MBA, hold the "Option Key." You'll see your normal boot partition, the recovery partition, and then your bootable USB. Use the arrow (my trackpad wasn't working at this point) to move over to USB, and then press enter key. You'll boot from the USB. With Ubuntu, I'm wanting to say I've got about 20 of the 36 gig available. I bought a second USB to try Windows later.

No bootcamp needed. No VM, and not only does everything work, I can also mount my internal SSD drive. The trackpad works as well once it's booted, which I mention because some websites I researched said they had to use an external mouse. I didn't need to, nor have I tried it yet.

[digitalhen]

Do you actually need OS X? I run just Windows 7 on my 2011 MBA 11", and it runs fantastically - the battery life is actually better as well.

[DisplacedMic]

Originally Posted by digitalhen

Do you actually need OS X? I run just Windows 7 on my 2011 MBA 11", and it runs fantastically - the battery life is actually better as well.

whoa - that's the opposite of a hackintosh.
what should we call that?

Mindows
Hindows
Hacbook
Wacintosh
stepinthewrongdirectiontosh?

[digitalhen]

Hilarious!