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Bootcamp on fusion drive

L

leo.andres.21

macrumors regular
Original poster
Oct 14, 2008
227
32
Centre of the Attention
Hi everyone,
I've recently removed my optical drive to install an SSD into the original drive slot and hdd into the optical drive spot and used terminal to make it a fusion drive with help of a few guides on the internet.
Now that is done, everything is flawless, though I now wish to install windows in boot camp, and when I run bootcamp, it requires me to have an optical drive. It won't show the option to create a USB drive to install windows from.
So I want to know if there are anyway I could do it, as buying an external enclosure for my old superdrive should be last resort (I know it's not expensive or anything)
 
M

Mike Boreham

macrumors 68040
Aug 10, 2006
3,724
1,733
UK
leo.andres.21 said:
Hi everyone,
I've recently removed my optical drive to install an SSD into the original drive slot and hdd into the optical drive spot and used terminal to make it a fusion drive with help of a few guides on the internet.
Now that is done, everything is flawless, though I now wish to install windows in boot camp, and when I run bootcamp, it requires me to have an optical drive. It won't show the option to create a USB drive to install windows from.
So I want to know if there are anyway I could do it, as buying an external enclosure for my old superdrive should be last resort (I know it's not expensive or anything)
Click to expand...

Putting the old superdrive in an external will not do it.

You may find ways based on rEFIT but its a hard road which I never succeeded with.

You have two obstacles, (1) no internal superdrive need to boot Windows on Macs originally, and (2) Fusion Drive.

A sequence that might work is:

1. Revert the Fusion drive to two separate disks, SSD and HDD.
2. temporarily refit the internal superdrive in optical bay
3. Partition the HDD or SSD, depending on sizes and whether you want the Bootcamp to be on a partition of your SSD or HDD
4. Install Bootcamp on a partition.
5. Remove Superdrive and refit the HDD or SSD you took out
6. Recreate the Fusion drive from the the drive and partition not using windows.

Very outline stuff, and very high risk, especially that recreating the FD will make the Windows partition unbootable. That may be where rEFIt comes in.

I had a home-brew Fusion Drive in an MBP and used Parallels, much faster than most Bootcamp people think, and has no need of Superdrives, and quite happy on Fusion Drives.
 
L

leo.andres.21

macrumors regular
Original poster
Oct 14, 2008
227
32
Centre of the Attention
Mike Boreham said:
Putting the old superdrive in an external will not do it.

You may find ways based on rEFIT but its a hard road which I never succeeded with.

You have two obstacles, (1) no internal superdrive need to boot Windows on Macs originally, and (2) Fusion Drive.

A sequence that might work is:

1. Revert the Fusion drive to two separate disks, SSD and HDD.
2. temporarily refit the internal superdrive in optical bay
3. Partition the HDD or SSD, depending on sizes and whether you want the Bootcamp to be on a partition of your SSD or HDD
4. Install Bootcamp on a partition.
5. Remove Superdrive and refit the HDD or SSD you took out
6. Recreate the Fusion drive from the the drive and partition not using windows.

Very outline stuff, and very high risk, especially that recreating the FD will make the Windows partition unbootable. That may be where rEFIt comes in.

I had a home-brew Fusion Drive in an MBP and used Parallels, much faster than most Bootcamp people think, and has no need of Superdrives, and quite happy on Fusion Drives.
Click to expand...

Wow, it is very complicated. You are 100% sure using an external/USB DVD drive won't help me at all? Just to prevent me from buying stupid unnecessary things.
 
M

Mike Boreham

macrumors 68040
Aug 10, 2006
3,724
1,733
UK
leo.andres.21 said:
Wow, it is very complicated. You are 100% sure using an external/USB DVD drive won't help me at all? Just to prevent me from buying stupid unnecessary things.
Click to expand...

Call it 99.9%. I never succeeded on three macs, and took part in many threads where people said the same, but I seem to remember someone claiming they had done it.

What I outlined above may well not work. I would be interested in knowing whether anyone has had Bootcamp working on a Fusion Drive. I think Windows would have to be on the one partition which you have outside the actual FD.
 
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