Installing SSD into 27" with Bootcamp on HDD

[Hirakata]

I'm planning on installing a SSD into my 2011 27" iMac. I have Mtn. Lion and Win 7 (Bootcamp) installed on the HDD. If I clone the Mac partition from the HDD to the SSD, and delete OS X from the HDD to use that partition as general MacOS storage, will everything still work as seamlessly it has been? Will there be any issues booting back and forth between the HDD Win7 partition and OS X on the SSD? Only asking because I know Bootcamp has to be installed on the same partition as OS X.

Thanks.

 

[martinm0]

I'm planning on installing a SSD into my 2011 27" iMac. I have Mtn. Lion and Win 7 (Bootcamp) installed on the HDD. If I clone the Mac partition from the HDD to the SSD, and delete OS X from the HDD to use that partition as general MacOS storage, will everything still work as seamlessly it has been? Will there be any issues booting back and forth between the HDD Win7 partition and OS X on the SSD? Only asking because I know Bootcamp has to be installed on the same partition as OS X.

Thanks.

I run OSX off a Thunderbolt connected SSD and have Bootcamp on the internal HDD. The internal HDD also has the original install of OSX, so I can't speak to what will happen if you flat out erase OSX and leave the extra space as storage, but I think it would be ok.

I don't think OSX has to be installed on the same HDD as Bootcamp. I believe the only restriction is that Bootcamp can only be installed on an internal drive (I've been hoping to run Bootcamp from an external SSD, but that just isn't allowed).

 

[Nihilius]

I'm running Bootcamp from external SSD drive.

You can't actually install Windows on external drive straight away but after you have installed it on your internal drive you can then clone your Bootcamp partition to external drive. You target partition must be formatted to MS-DOS.

I used Winclone software.

I have had this thing running for few weeks and haven't had any problems.

 

[hfg]

You can install Windows directly to an external Thunderbolt SSD drive easily.

To see how, read this thread posted here on MacRumors:

Installing Windows 8 on an External SSD Guide



I'll even give you the link:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1508618/

 

[Hirakata]

Thanks for trying to help everyone, but I don't know how the thread moved to installing Windows to and external drive. That wasn't my initial question.

If I clone my iMac's internal HDD to an newly installed internal SSD, then reformat the HDD partition for general use, will the Windows 7 Bootcamp partition I have on the internal HDD still work as well has it has been?

 

[hfg]

Thanks for trying to help everyone, but I don't know how the thread moved to installing Windows to and external drive. That wasn't my initial question.

If I clone my iMac's internal HDD to an newly installed internal SSD, then reformat the HDD partition for general use, will the Windows 7 Bootcamp partition I have on the internal HDD still work as well has it has been?

My experience with doing this has been that, yes, your Windows partition will continue to function. This has worked for me several times.

However, my most recent experience with doing so has a small problem with switching between the operating systems. I can perform the "option key boot" fine, and selecting the Windows boot icon works perfectly. But if it try to set the "SystemPreferences / StartupDisk" from OS X, I receive a message that "the selected startup disk can't be blessed", and it does not then reboot. I can however, tell OS X to reboot, and use the "option" key to select my Windows boot.

I have Google'd this "blessed disk" issue and found many others with the same message, and almost as many "solutions" to fixing it. I have not yet tried any of them, as it is pretty easy to just use the "option key" and be done with it.

-howard

EDIT: The "blessed disk" issue was created by doing the following:

I had installed a 512GB SSD in my late 2011 MBPro and moved the 750GB hard disk to an optibay. I had been running a DIY Fusion drive without any problems and had the SSD partitioned for Windows and Fusion joined with the hard disk. I decided I wanted to separate the Fusion drives back into separate disks so that I could swap the hard drive and optical drive easily if desired. So I delete the Fusion drive keeping the Windows partition on the SSD intact, and then reinstalled OS X and the recovery partitions on the SSD, and put my media libraries on the hard disk. It is all running fine again other than the "convenience startup disk" selection issue.

 

[Hirakata]

My experience with doing this has been that, yes, your Windows partition will continue to function. This has worked for me several times.

However, my most recent experience with doing so has a small problem with switching between the operating systems. I can perform the "option key boot" fine, and selecting the Windows boot icon works perfectly. But if it try to set the "SystemPreferences / StartupDisk" from OS X, I receive a message that "the selected startup disk can't be blessed", and it does not then reboot. I can however, tell OS X to reboot, and use the "option" key to select my Windows boot.

I have Google'd this "blessed disk" issue and found many others with the same message, and almost as many "solutions" to fixing it. I have not yet tried any of them, as it is pretty easy to just use the "option key" and be done with it.

-howard

EDIT: The "blessed disk" issue was created by doing the following:

I had installed a 512GB SSD in my late 2011 MBPro and moved the 750GB hard disk to an optibay. I had been running a DIY Fusion drive without any problems and had the SSD partitioned for Windows and Fusion joined with the hard disk. I decided I wanted to separate the Fusion drives back into separate disks so that I could swap the hard drive and optical drive easily if desired. So I delete the Fusion drive keeping the Windows partition on the SSD intact, and then reinstalled OS X and the recovery partitions on the SSD, and put my media libraries on the hard disk. It is all running fine again other than the "convenience startup disk" selection issue.

Perfect, thanks Howard.

It's easy enough to do the option key startup, but the blessed disk issue is interesting. I wonder why it would do that. I use an AppleScript when in OS X to startup from my Windows partition. I'll have to see if that still works. Thanks again.