Help with Bootcamp / Win 7 install... No superdrive available!

[theaero]

I have an iMac with no superdrive, which is making life very difficult for me! I am trying to find a way to install Windows.

I have a genuine Win 7 Ultimate disc, 2 internal drives (in the iMac), two external drives, two thumb drives, and a MBP w/ working Superdrive at my disposal. I also have a MBA USB Superdrive.

Can someone please help me get Windows installed on the iMac using some combination of what I have available? I feel like I've tried everything...

Thanks!

 

[skoldpadda]

If your iMac is able to boot from USB, have you tried doing a USB install?

 

[theaero]

Yes I have. It cannot boot from USB. I get a "No bootable device found" error. Its very annoying.

 

[skoldpadda]

Yes I have. It cannot boot from USB. I get a "No bootable device found" error. Its very annoying.

Could you give me the model identifier, to get this go to the apple menu, about this mac, system report, you'll find it in there

 

[theaero]

Hardware Overview:

Model Name: iMac
Model Identifier: iMac12,2
Processor Name: Intel Core i7
Processor Speed: 3.4 GHz
Number of Processors: 1
Total Number of Cores: 4
L2 Cache (per Core): 256 KB
L3 Cache: 8 MB
Memory: 12 GB
Boot ROM Version: IM121.0047.B1F




I've tried USB Harddrive booting, Using a USB external DVD drive, using a thumb drive, hacking plist files, using Target Disc mode with another computer, winclone, gdisk, fdisk.... I'm starting to feel very helpless.

 

[skoldpadda]

Hardware Overview:

Model Name: iMac
Model Identifier: iMac12,2
Processor Name: Intel Core i7
Processor Speed: 3.4 GHz
Number of Processors: 1
Total Number of Cores: 4
L2 Cache (per Core): 256 KB
L3 Cache: 8 MB
Memory: 12 GB
Boot ROM Version: IM121.0047.B1F




I've tried USB Harddrive booting, Using a USB external DVD drive, using a thumb drive, hacking plist files, using Target Disc mode with another computer, winclone, gdisk, fdisk.... I'm starting to feel very helpless.

By any chance have you upgraded the RAM in this machine?

Firstly redownload the windows 7 iso, move over to a machine running windows 7, run ei.cfg remover on the ISO, download the Windows official DVD/USB tool, create your USB installer.

Then I recommend putting back the original value of ram back in the machine, reset the PRAM, boot into Mac OS X, create your partition FORMAT FAT, reboot, hold down ALT key boot to USB.

Holmes093

 

[theaero]

I was able to successfully do it by installing windows on my MBP, and then Wincloning it to iMac

 

[skoldpadda]

Did you sysprep the image before you cloned it?

 

[theaero]

Nope. No need. I installed windows, but never finished the installation. I got to the point where it needed to reboot, then shutoff computer, booted into OSX, made the image. Cloned it on iMac, then finished installation on iMac

 

[skoldpadda]

Job Done! Congrats, did you make sure to shrink the partition before capturing so you can restore to different HDD sizes?