Booting Windows From Lacie Little Big Disk

[JohnDalberg]

Hi everyone,

I know the topic of booting OS or even windows from an external thunderbolt hard drive has been discussed before, but after countless attempts, I still come in short...

Here is what I want to do (using iMac 2013):

1: Manage to boot Windows (bootcamp or whatnot) from Lacie Little Big Disk (external thunderbolt hard drive).

I see people have been succeeding installing windows on other models, and I really want to know if anyone managed it with lacie LBD. I have tried carefully following the guides listed here, and elsewhere, but no luck!

The usual error messages comes after rebooting in the installation process:

Windows failed to start.
A recent hardware or software change might be the cause.
File: \Windows\System32\winload.exe

Booting windows install from usb-stick and trying for automatic repairs or even trying to change Bootrec /RebuildBCD or Bootrec /FixBoot etc. has been unsuccessfully.

I´ve read somewhere this is due to the external drive is set for Read only and has to be set for read/write?

I´m stuck here, so if anyone has any tips or guides for booting windows from an external drive (if it´s even possible with Lacie LBD) I´d be extremely grateful.

 

[hfg]

It won't work with this unit...

1) The LBD is actually a 2 disk RAID-0 using Apple software RAID drivers, although you can separate the disks to use them individually which would work in Windows with the driver on their web site.

2) The LBD doesn't have native Windows support necessary for booting. You have to load a driver, which, of course, isn't in place for cold booting.

There are other Thunderbolt drives which do have this support and can boot Windows externally. There are threads on these forums describing them, and how to configure and install Windows on them.

 

[JohnDalberg]

It won't work with this unit...

1) The LBD is actually a 2 disk RAID-0 using Apple software RAID drivers, although you can separate the disks to use them individually which would work in Windows with the driver on their web site.

2) The LBD doesn't have native Windows support necessary for booting. You have to load a driver, which, of course, isn't in place for cold booting.

There are other Thunderbolt drives which do have this support and can boot Windows externally. There are threads on these forums describing them, and how to configure and install Windows on them.

Thanks for your immediate help. I guess it would be the same problem if you clone OS to the Lacie and try to make a bootcamp partition out of that? Although OS should run fine on Lacie right.

I guess I´m stuck using an emulator on Mac to run windows. But I kinda doubt it`s stability...

 

[LaCieTech]

HFG is correct. A single mechanism drive will be less problematic for this process. However, LaCie can't help with configuring a bootable OS on our external disks. You may need to contact Microsoft for more help there. ~TE

Thanks for your immediate help. I guess it would be the same problem if you clone OS to the Lacie and try to make a bootcamp partition out of that? Although OS should run fine on Lacie right.

I guess I´m stuck using an emulator on Mac to run windows. But I kinda doubt it`s stability...