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Windows on RMBP - What can I expect?
- Thread starter intz2nu
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I call BS. I haven't tried it but I would be shocked if EFI on rMBP did not support booting from a USB CD-ROM.
I suspect the customer support agent @ Apple that the OP spoke to was confused, or OP misinterpreted what he said. Possibly the CS agent was confused because Apple's own OS no longer ships on CD, nor (as of Mavericks) is it recommended that OS X be burned to DVD for installation. Possibly CS agent was confused because what Freyqq said is actually correct:
The Bootcamp drivers for Windows *used* to be included on the OS X installation DVD. It was partitioned such that if you put the DVD in the machine while you were running Windows, you would see Bootcamp installation files for Windows instead of OS X install files. So for Bootcamp, it used to be that you would install Windows from CD, then install Bootcamp drivers from OS X DVD while booted into Windows. Of course, again, as stated earlier, OS X no longer ships on optical media, so the Bootcamp drivers have to be installed a different way. That different way is to put them on a thumb drive and then install them from the thumb drive while you are booted into Windows. Either the Apple CS agent got confused because he knew something about this but he internalized that knowledge as "Windows itself has to be installed from a thumb drive", or OP misheard/misunderstood CS agent who was actually trying to explain this concept. (Since OP was complaining about a malfunctioning SuperDrive, though, I suspect the former. Maybe CS agent did not understand why OP was calling, though, only hearing "I'm trying to install Windows under Bootcamp" and missed the part about "my SuperDrive isn't reading the Windows install disc".)
Anyway, IF your SuperDrive is in fact defective, it should be easy to prove, and to get Apple to service it (assuming it is still under warranty), as long as you eliminate the Bootcamp part of it from the equation and just concentrate on the functionality of the drive itself. If you put the Windows disc into the drive while it is plugged into the computer and booted into OS X, can you see the contents of the disc? How about another DVD if not the Windows disc? Have you tried putting in a CD instead of a DVD to see if the problem is that it is having trouble reading one type of disc vs. the other? Have you tried hooking the SuperDrive up to a different Mac? (Which, come to think of it, would also be a great way to prove whether or not the problem is the drive or rMBP EFI's support for booting off of external optical media: plug your very drive into a different, older Mac, and see if you have the same problem booting off of the Windows install disc.) Can you borrow a SuperDrive from someone else and try it with your Mac?
Process of elimination, people.
-- Nathan
I call BS. I haven't tried it but I would be shocked if EFI on rMBP did not support booting from a USB CD-ROM.
I suspect the customer support agent @ Apple that the OP spoke to was confused, or OP misinterpreted what he said. Possibly the CS agent was confused because Apple's own OS no longer ships on CD, nor (as of Mavericks) is it recommended that OS X be burned to DVD for installation. Possibly CS agent was confused because what Freyqq said is actually correct:
The Bootcamp drivers for Windows *used* to be included on the OS X installation DVD. It was partitioned such that if you put the DVD in the machine while you were running Windows, you would see Bootcamp installation files for Windows instead of OS X install files. So for Bootcamp, it used to be that you would install Windows from CD, then install Bootcamp drivers from OS X DVD while booted into Windows. Of course, again, as stated earlier, OS X no longer ships on optical media, so the Bootcamp drivers have to be installed a different way. That different way is to put them on a thumb drive and then install them from the thumb drive while you are booted into Windows. Either the Apple CS agent got confused because he knew something about this but he internalized that knowledge as "Windows itself has to be installed from a thumb drive", or OP misheard/misunderstood CS agent who was actually trying to explain this concept. (Since OP was complaining about a malfunctioning SuperDrive, though, I suspect the former. Maybe CS agent did not understand why OP was calling, though, only hearing "I'm trying to install Windows under Bootcamp" and missed the part about "my SuperDrive isn't reading the Windows install disc".)
Anyway, IF your SuperDrive is in fact defective, it should be easy to prove, and to get Apple to service it (assuming it is still under warranty), as long as you eliminate the Bootcamp part of it from the equation and just concentrate on the functionality of the drive itself. If you put the Windows disc into the drive while it is plugged into the computer and booted into OS X, can you see the contents of the disc? How about another DVD if not the Windows disc? Have you tried putting in a CD instead of a DVD to see if the problem is that it is having trouble reading one type of disc vs. the other? Have you tried hooking the SuperDrive up to a different Mac? (Which, come to think of it, would also be a great way to prove whether or not the problem is the drive or rMBP EFI's support for booting off of external optical media: plug your very drive into a different, older Mac, and see if you have the same problem booting off of the Windows install disc.) Can you borrow a SuperDrive from someone else and try it with your Mac?
Process of elimination, people.
-- Nathan
There was a time, not so long ago, when people started using opti-bays a whole lot in non-retina MBP's.
Back then, many decided to buy a USB enclosure for their superdrive, and many tried to install bootcamp from it. Many found out it did not work, as Windows refused to boot from an external anything. Back then, only the MBA could do it through some EFI trickery.
You can search for this on this very forum, you'll find many threads related to this.
I have read no indication that the situation has changed. My info might be outdated, if so, I apologize, but this is what I have gathered from year of reading topics on here.
Alright, to put this to bed, I dug out an external USB DVD drive (not an Apple external SuperDrive, mind you, just ye olde generic drive), plugged it into my mid-2012 15" rMBP, threw a 64-bit Windows 7 install disc in it, brought up Startup Manager (hold Option during boot), selected the CD icon called Windows *that showed up on my Startup Manager screen as a valid boot volume*, and off it went. It booted off of the Windows 7 install disc and brought me all the way to the Install Windows GUI. I didn't go through with the actual installation, mind you, but it *booted* off of the disc just fine.
I also tried booting off of a Linux live CD and a Memtest86 CD that I had sitting around, and both of those worked perfectly fine, too.
For kicks, I also tried this on a late-2010 MBA with the same drive, and that also worked perfectly fine, no "trickery" required. It literally "just works."
I have no idea why you or others had problems booting off of an external USB CD with your cMBP. Maybe because the cMBP actually comes with an internal optical drive, Apple elected to omit external USB optical boot support from the EFI for that model? That would still seem weird to me, though.
-- Nathan
My call to Apple Tech Support was for help in installing Windows 7 through Bootcamp and not being successfull in how I was doing it. I was basically just doing what I had done previously with my previous MBA that had OSX Lion. All I would do is plug the Apple USB Superdrive into it and then would go to Bootcamp and follow the prompts which you come to the point when it tells you to insert Disc, and then when you do it goes through with the installation process and you continue the follow the prompts. Then once when Windows is successfully installed it automatically downloads the needed drives, etc.
However this was not the case with the RMBP. When I would get to Bootcamp and do as I would do with my previous MBA as mentioned above it you give me messages that there is no USB drive plugged in. This gave me the impression that my USB Superdrive maybe faulty in a way and which is why I had also brought this up with the Apple Tech Support Rep. I had no idea that you need a thumb drive which also brings me to my previous question I had asked, can this be done with a regular external harddrive plugged into USB port? or must it be a USB thumb drive?
However this was not the case with the RMBP. When I would get to Bootcamp and do as I would do with my previous MBA as mentioned above it you give me messages that there is no USB drive plugged in. This gave me the impression that my USB Superdrive maybe faulty in a way and which is why I had also brought this up with the Apple Tech Support Rep. I had no idea that you need a thumb drive which also brings me to my previous question I had asked, can this be done with a regular external harddrive plugged into USB port? or must it be a USB thumb drive?
Ah. Thanks for the clarification. You assumed "USB drive" meant "USB SuperDrive" because of your previous experience having installed Windows on Macs before. So your SuperDrive is likely okay.
Yes, an external USB hard drive would work just as well. The Mac doesn't care about the technology being used to store the data "under the hood" in the drive. All that it cares about is that it is connected via USB, and that it is writable. To the OS, a USB solid-state thumb drive and a USB hard drive look basically indistinguishable (they are both USB Mass Storage Devices, speaking the same protocol and using the same drivers).
I would just make sure that you don't care about whatever is stored on whatever you plug in to use for this purpose. If it is populated with files, make a backup copy of them to another drive first.
-- Nathan
Yes, an external USB hard drive would work just as well. The Mac doesn't care about the technology being used to store the data "under the hood" in the drive. All that it cares about is that it is connected via USB, and that it is writable. To the OS, a USB solid-state thumb drive and a USB hard drive look basically indistinguishable (they are both USB Mass Storage Devices, speaking the same protocol and using the same drivers).
I would just make sure that you don't care about whatever is stored on whatever you plug in to use for this purpose. If it is populated with files, make a backup copy of them to another drive first.
-- Nathan
I had a similar problem too, but realized you dont actually need a USB flash drive to install the drivers.
Check this link: https://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=14879238#post14879238
Check this link: https://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=14879238#post14879238
You don't have to use the bootcamp utility in OSX if you don't want to. You can just partition half the drive to "MS-DOS format" (fat32) in disk utility and then boot off the windows install dvd. All the OSX bootcamp utility does is download the drivers for you onto a USB drive and format your SDD with a bootcamp partition.
To answer your question, it can be an external hard drive instead of a USB thumbdrive. It doesn't really matter. It just needs ~1 gb of space to put all the bootcamp driver files in place for when you install windows. Keep in mind that it needs to be formatted in "MS-DOS format" (fat32) either way. Windows can't read HFS+ (default OSX file system) without the bootcamp drivers already installed. OSX can't write to NTFS, so it can't be that either.