Mac OS on external drive with a partition for Windows

[Roxy.music]

VM Fusion or Parallels Desktop doing it on either of those to get it on an external drive for Windows.
But can I put it on a 1TB 2 M SSD drive with Mac OS on one PARTITION and Windows on the other partition? I was hoping I could use it the way you can do it with the internal drive.
I can,t do it on the internal drive as it is only 250gb.
I will try Parallels Desktop

Previously I did it with VM Fusion which I did two years ago.on my Mac Mini but I understand it want work on my new 2017 5k iMac.
Another idea is if I put it on the internal drive and cloned it to put it on the external drive, would that work the same way? I would only allocate a small portion of the internal drive for Windows.

 

[Boyd01]

If you use Parallels, you won't need a partition at all. Parallels stores the entire virtual machine in a file, which can be located on any disk.

Run Windows on Mac with a virtual machine | Parallels Desktop

Download Parallels Desktop virtual machine to run Windows on Mac without rebooting or slowing down your Mac, plus get over 200,000 Windows apps.

www.parallels.com

There are a few limitations however

KB Parallels: How to run a virtual machine from network or external mass storage

Having a virtual machine stored on external mass storage or NAS places limitations to some of the operations you may perform with the VM:

kb.parallels.com

 

[Roxy.music]

If you use Parallels, you won't need a partition at all. Parallels stores the entire virtual machine in a file, which can be located on any disk.

Run Windows on Mac with a virtual machine | Parallels Desktop

Download Parallels Desktop virtual machine to run Windows on Mac without rebooting or slowing down your Mac, plus get over 200,000 Windows apps.

www.parallels.com

There are a few limitations however

KB Parallels: How to run a virtual machine from network or external mass storage

Having a virtual machine stored on external mass storage or NAS places limitations to some of the operations you may perform with the VM:

kb.parallels.com

Once it has been done it no longer uses the VM whatever one you are using. This is how I did my first the first Windows external with Bootcamp with VM fusion once it is done you don,t have anything to do with a VM

I want fully functional Windows with Bootcamp as I said earlier I understand I would have problems using my old Windows external drive with my new 2017 5k. I want to get Windows on my external sad that has MAC OS on it and put Windows on the other partition on the drive.
Unfortunately, it want allow me to do this on an external drive which I am using as my main drive

So another way I was thinking of doing it on the internal using a very small partition for Windows and cloning that so that I could put it on the other partition of my external drive with Mac OS. I am just wondering if that would work? I suppose I will have to get Winclone if I take that route.

 

[DeltaMac]

I hope you understand that:
Windows in a VM does not require a reboot to use Windows. Your macOS system is the boot system, and the VM runs as an app (and you can use most Windows software), while your macOS is still booted. (You can run any other Mac software at the same time. The whole setup probably will work best with lots of RAM available... )
A boot camp install of Windows simply means that you must reboot to Windows to use your Windows software. You cannot use your macOS apps at that time, because you are completely rebooted to Windows. The Mac system is not usable until you reboot back to your Mac system.

Putting Windows on an external drive, not too hard. I think Winclone will still do that - moving a boot camp install from the internal boot drive to an external drive. I suppose that external drive could be partitioned, with macOS installed on one partition, then move the Windows to another partition using Winclone.
If you can't install Windows to your internal SSD (too small?), then this might be a good reason to add another internal drive - there's still an SATA connection that would be open on your SSD-only iMac 5k - and a 1TB SSD (in addition to your original 250 GB) would ALSO leave you with new solutions for your storage, particularly if you will be using a Windows system often
Things might get messy with newer Mac systems, particularly when you upgrade to Big Sur (messes with the Mac partitions, might leave a Windows boot partition unaffected (might)...

 

[Roxy.music]

I hope you understand that:
Windows in a VM does not require a reboot to use Windows. Your macOS system is the boot system, and the VM runs as an app (and you can use most Windows software), while your macOS is still booted. (You can run any other Mac software at the same time. The whole setup probably will work best with lots of RAM available... )
A boot camp install of Windows simply means that you must reboot to Windows to use your Windows software. You cannot use your macOS apps at that time, because you are completely rebooted to Windows. The Mac system is not usable until you reboot back to your Mac system.

Putting Windows on an external drive, not too hard. I think Winclone will still do that - moving a boot camp install from the internal boot drive to an external drive. I suppose that external drive could be partitioned, with macOS installed on one partition, then move the Windows to another partition using Winclone.
If you can't install Windows to your internal SSD (too small?), then this might be a good reason to add another internal drive - there's still an SATA connection that would be open on your SSD-only iMac 5k - and a 1TB SSD (in addition to your original 250 GB) would ALSO leave you with new solutions for your storage, particularly if you will be using a Windows system often
Things might get messy with newer Mac systems, particularly when you upgrade to Big Sur (messes with the Mac partitions, might leave a Windows boot partition unaffected (might)...

I don,t know why he says that you can only use Windows Enterprise for Bootcamp
This is what a person on Apple Support said to my question and MS-DOS???
Yes, that would be how you'd get it there. I have WinClone, and use it to backup and restore my Windows partition.
Per earlier, only the Enterprise Edition of Windows? allows installation to an external drive. Since Boot Camp won't set up a Windows partition on an external drive, you'd have to go through these steps.
1. Create a Boot Camp partition on your main drive.
2. Install Windows Enterprise.??
3. Purchase WinClone.
4. Create an* MS-DOS ?? partition on your external drive the same size as you created in Boot Camp.
5. Use WinClone to duplicate the Boot Camp install of Windows to the external drive. It will automatically change the 6 formats of the drive/partition on the external to NTFS.

1. Use Boot Camp to remove the Windows install on the main drive
2. There is one option for running other versions of Windows (Home or Professional) from an external drive. But you must use a Thunderbolt external drive housing. Since Thunderbolt is a direct extension of the computer's bus, Windows sees the external as if it were an internal drive and will boot. Though you still have to go through the above steps to get the Windows to install onto the external drive.
3. Apart from mentioning Windows enterprise and MS-DOS??? all sounds feasible
6. I don,t what planet the guy who gave me this answer saying I should use Windows Enterprise and the very old
7. MS-DOS??

 

[Roxy.music]

Run Windows To Go From an External Drive Using WinToUSB. Windows To Go is a feature that lets you install a Windows system on an external hard drive, which you can then boot into from any Mac

I know how to It that way I have done it that way before. I want to get it on an external drive with Mac os on half of the drive and a partition on the drive for Windows.

 

[dimme]

I am running windows on a external drive (natively with out fusion or parallels). What worked for me was to first install windows via bootcamp on my internal drive then move it to a external thunderbolt drive via winclone. I have done this on both a 2015 5K iMac and a 2019 5K iMac.

 

[Roxy.music]

I am running windows on a external drive (natively with out fusion or parallels). What worked for me was to first install windows via bootcamp on my internal drive then move it to a external thunderbolt drive via winclone. I have done this on both a 2015 5K iMac and a 2019 5K iMac.

That is what I will do, so I will have to get Winclone but I want to have it on a second partition on an external drive with Mac os.