Installing Boot Camp/Windows onto a new secondary SSD for MBP optibay

[dmhawk]

I have an early-2011 15" MBP 2.2ghz i7 with a 256GB SSD from Apple.

I want to install a 2nd SSD (120GB OWC Mercury Electra 3G w/ Data Doubler) in my optibay and use that drive as a dedicated Boot Camp/Windows partition so that I can run some Windows-only video programs (3DS MAX, Touch Designer, etc.) on my MBP. I've done some homework on this, but after reading the Bootcamp installation guide and several forum posts, I'm confused over how to begin the process.

First off, I'm thinking it would be best to make the optibay SSD a dedicated Bootcamp/Windows drive, so that, in the future, I can temporarily replace the optical drive if I need to. If I were to set up my primary and secondary SSD's as a continuous volume and put the Boot Camp/Windows partition on the primary drive, I'm afraid removing the optibay SSD would create big problems. Right?

If I go this route (primary SSD - OSX / secondary SSD Boot Camp-Windows), I will have to install Windows on the secondary SSD in the following sequence (because Windows can only be installed from an internal optical drive to an internal hd):

(according to https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1153513/)
1. remove the primary SSD from the main hd bay, replace it with the secondary SSD
2. install (Bootcamp?)/Windows on the secondary SSD from the internal optical drive
3. remove the secondary SSD from the main hd bay, replace the primary SSD
4. remove the internal optical drive, replace it with the secondary SSD

So this is where I'm missing a bit of key info that isn't addressed in the forum posts I've read: if the secondary drive is a brand new, unformatted SSD, can I just stick it in the main hd bay and start installing things on it? What do I install first? OSX, Boot Camp, Windows? Alternatively, do I need to format it and/or install OSX on it via an external enclosure before putting it in the main hd bay? I just don't have enough basic knowledge about how hd's and OS's work to understand how this should go.

 

[Sincci]

In my experience, the Windows SSD should be in the main hd bay and the osx hd/ssd in the optibay. Also, if possible, you should get an enclosure for your superdrive so that you can use that one for the Windows installation.

Here's how I would proceed with this one: Remove the main ssd AND the dvd-drive from your mbp, then install the main ssd in the optibay adapter and the ssd for Windows in the main bay. Then install the dvd-drive into an usb-enclosure and boot to osx to start the bootcamp assistant. After that you can install Windows normally. At least this is the way I got it working, I had really bad performance issues for some reason when the Windows SSD was in the optibay, but no issues whatsoever when using it in the main bay. OSX installation on the other hand works perfectly on both bays, so you can leave it in optibay.

 

[dmhawk]

Thanks. Were you able to install Windows from an external optical drive enclosure? I have one, but I read in several places that Windows can only be installed from an internal optical drive - at least on a Macbook Pro. The Macbook Air is an exception to this.

 

[Sincci]

It works if the drive inside it is the original superdrive from your mbp. I really don't have any idea why it doesn't work with any other external drives..

 

[jmazzamj]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3)

What OS X are you going to launch Boot Camp assistant from?
If it's Lion you have the option to install from an .iso image and that would make your life a way easier.

I hope this helps

 

[Sincci]

Actually, that feature is for MBA only. With MBP your only option is to install it by using the dvd-drive.