Hey guys, a friend and I installed a second hard drive into his 2011 Macbook Pro and now we're trying to install Windows 8.1 onto it with a bootable USB. We've tried using bootcamp, but for some reason the "Create Windows 7 or later install disk" option is not showing up. We took out the optical drive as well, so we can't use a CD. I've also tried making a boot usb on my PC, but the mac will not recognize it as a bootable device when starting up. Is there any other way we can accomplish this?
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Installing Windows 8.1 on a second hard drive
- Thread starter Bogfrog
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UPDATE: We've gotten an external usb optical drive, but now the problem we're having is that when we try to boot from the Windows 8.1 install disk it just boots to a blank screen with a flashing cursor. Does anyone know how to get around this?
UPDATE 2: Sorry, should have edited instead of posting a whole new reply. We tried booting it again, this time holding C to boot from the dvd and it seemed to work, however it wouldn't let us install onto the BOOTCAMP partition of the new drive, even after formatting, so we just deleted all the partitions on the drive and we're installing Windows now. I'll drop another update if it works or not in case anyone else stumbles across this.
UPDATE 3: Now it's saying "Windows could not update the computer's boot configuration. Installation cannot proceed", which makes sense because we deleted the BOOTCAMP partition. Guess we'll try that again
UPDATE 2: Sorry, should have edited instead of posting a whole new reply. We tried booting it again, this time holding C to boot from the dvd and it seemed to work, however it wouldn't let us install onto the BOOTCAMP partition of the new drive, even after formatting, so we just deleted all the partitions on the drive and we're installing Windows now. I'll drop another update if it works or not in case anyone else stumbles across this.
UPDATE 3: Now it's saying "Windows could not update the computer's boot configuration. Installation cannot proceed", which makes sense because we deleted the BOOTCAMP partition. Guess we'll try that again
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Here's the instructions:
Mount the second hard drive to a Windows VM. You must have a Windows VM in VMware/Parallels.
What you need:
install.wim file (obtain this from your Windows ISO)
Open elevated cmd.exe
Note: All commands aren't case sensitive, including pathway to files.
Type diskpart
Type list disk
Take note of the disk you want to select
Type select disk 1 (if your disk is Disk 1)
Type clean
Type convert gpt
Type create partition EFI size=100
Type format quick fs=fat32 label=EFI
Type assign letter=S
Type create partition primary
Type format fs=ntfs quick label=W2G (or any other name you wish for label)
Type assign letter=E
Type exit
Open up File Explorer. In your C drive, create a new folder named WIN2GO.
Put the install.wim file in this folder
Back in cmd.exe:
Type dism /apply-image /imagefile:C:\WIN2GO\install.wim /index:1 /applydir:E:\ (this process will take quite a while)
Type E:\Windows\System32\bcdboot E:\Windows /s S: /f UEFI
Restart your entire Mac. After the chime, hold down Option and when prompted to select your boot drive, select EFI Boot.
Proceed installation normally.
After installation, install Boot Camp drivers.
This method worked for me when I installed Windows 8.1 UEFI into a drive in a USB 3.0 enclosure (UASP-supported). It should work on your friend's MBP too.
It only took me 8 minutes to do everything.
And besides, VMware doesn't use full resources. With a separate non-VM installation, at least you're using full system resources.
That beats me. It took me at least a half an hour to copy my VM via usb 3 over to my external drive. However, no clue if it really took that long, as I was playing with my kids and totally lost track of time and had no need to do any sort of touching of the keyboard.
The reason why it only took 8 minutes was because the steps that I posted actually installs Windows into the desired drive already (that's what dism.exe does), so when you start up from the drive, all you need to do is setup an account straight away and start using.
Add another 3 more minutes for the installation of Boot Camp drivers.
And this was done to a USB 3.0 external enclosure with a 7200rpm drive in it. It took even shorter time to do the same thing to an external SSD.