Optibay and Bootcamp/VMware Questions

[yusukeaoki]

Hi guys.

So I recently switched to Optibay with Samsung 1TB drive.
However, I use Windows 7 a lot and I hear people saying bootcamp can't be installed in the optibay drive.

My main bay has an SSD 128GB so it can't fit all my files.

Is there a way to install Win7 over to Optibay?
Im traveling right now and I don't have my Win7 disc but I want to work on it soon as I go home.

I also have VMWare fusion so I was wondering if that works as well?

Thanks in advance.

 

[yusukeaoki]

Any body?

 

[PhixionFilms]

Here you go...
http://att.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1153513

 

[yusukeaoki]

Here you go...
http://att.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1153513

Is there a way to work it through VMware Fusion?
To be honest, that is a lot of hassle to go through...

 

[garstudios]

i have never had an issue installing and using bootcamp/windows7 on my optibay drive (ive done it a few times, with different drives.) I have a 500gb main drive, and 500gb optibay drive right now....no issues with it at all. (ssd may be different, or a combination of ssd and hdd might have issues too, i dont know about that)

you should probably just try it, then if theres an issue, try to figure it out.

its just that stuff like this is always different apparently for some people. for instance, (but totally unrelated) i have installed and used microsoft's 'remote desktop for mac' on several different lion machines without any problems what so ever despite them stating it isnt compatible with lion. however, online, you can see that many people have issues with it not working on lion.....in my opinion probably user error for the most part, but its just one example showing you that you should just try it, because its always different for everybody.


unless your talking about moving a current installation of windows 7 over to the optibay, then i have no idea about that, sorry.

 

[PhixionFilms]

i have never had an issue installing and using bootcamp/windows7 on my optibay drive (ive done it a few times, with different drives.) I have a 500gb main drive, and 500gb optibay drive right now....no issues with it at all. (ssd may be different, or a combination of ssd and hdd might have issues too, i dont know about that)

you should probably just try it, then if theres an issue, try to figure it out.

its just that stuff like this is always different apparently for some people. for instance, (but totally unrelated) i have installed and used microsoft's 'remote desktop for mac' on several different lion machines without any problems what so ever despite them stating it isnt compatible with lion. however, online, you can see that many people have issues with it not working on lion.....in my opinion probably user error for the most part, but its just one example showing you that you should just try it, because its always different for everybody.


unless your talking about moving a current installation of windows 7 over to the optibay, then i have no idea about that, sorry.

Do you have a step by step process in doing this?
How would you make the optibay drive the startup drive when booting windows on it?

 

[garstudios]

Do you have a step by step process in doing this?
How would you make the optibay drive the startup drive when booting windows on it?

- you just instal windows 7 via bootcamp to the optibay drive. installation is normal, the only difference is, instead of installing windows 7 on a partition of the main drive, you choose to have it installed on the optibay drive. (it comes up as an option in bootcamp)

after installation:

-when you boot the mac up, just hold the option key while its booting, a list of available boot drives pops up, choose the one you want, it boots to that drive.

simple.

i have actually never done it on a partition of the main drive, i have only ever had it (windows 7) installed on an optibay drive. as a matter of fact, i have never partitioned a drive in my life, never liked the idea.

as of now i just removed my current optibay windows 7 installation because i am preparing to move to my new macbook pro, but, i believe when you shut down/restart from windows, it will boot/restart into windows automatically, and the same goes for osx. however, i think sometimes it surprised to me which one it booted to. so to be sure which one its going to boot to, just hold the option key so you can choose, rather than letting the computer choose.


i guess thats it, unless im misunderstanding the question.

----------

also.

on another macbook pro i have, i have an optibay in it too.

my main drive has osx lion, and the optibay was just being used as a scratch drive for photoshop, but recently i had installed lion on to the optibay too, because i didnt need the scratch disk anymore, and my main installation of lion was all acting crappy, so i installed a fresh version onto the optibay drive. i use the option key sometimes to choose which version to start up in, but for the most part it keeps booting to the last used disk.

this is just me being lazy haha. i have so much crap going on in my life right now, but when my new macbook pro arrives, i will definetly have to take time to straighten everything out, because i will have to sell the old ones.

----------

sorry if im being vague, my mind has been scattered lately.

but it does work, simply.

if im understanding what the concern is correctly, that is.

 

[Andrmgic]

The issue is that the mac won't let you install windows using an external optical drive.

I had a similar issue when i replaced my optical drive in my 2011 macbook pro with a hard drive.

It's nothing short of a pain in the ass..

I had to use disk utility to create a partition and use vmware fusion to install windows on it using raw disk creator to have it write to the actual hard drive partition..

It is a mess..

 

[garstudios]

The issue is that the mac won't let you install windows using an external optical drive.

I had a similar issue when i replaced my optical drive in my 2011 macbook pro with a hard drive.

It's nothing short of a pain in the ass..

I had to use disk utility to create a partition and use vmware fusion to install windows on it using raw disk creator to have it write to the actual hard drive partition..

It is a mess..

are you talking about using the internal superdrive externally and having problems with it working correctly?

the only issue i came across (which had nothing to do with the optibay and windows 7) is that when i installed my internal superdrive into the external drive caddy thing that came with the optibay i did have to find and install some sort of driver for it to work externally. but that problem was hit or miss. because i didnt have that issue on other macbook pros. im sure you could avoid that problem all together if you had apples actual external superdrive, or a thirdparty external optical drive.

the bad thing is, i forgot where i got that driver from....

 

[Andrmgic]

I could never get the mac to boot from it.

Yes, it was the internal drive being in an external caddy.. worked fine for the OS X disc.. but it would not boot from the windows dvd.

 

[garstudios]

I could never get the mac to boot from it.

Yes, it was the internal drive being in an external caddy.. worked fine for the OS X disc.. but it would not boot from the windows dvd.

weird, i haven't come across that before.

however, like i said, i have had to install some kind of driver for it to work correctly externally. like to get it to work with the eject button, or to even acknowledge a disk. i have installed a few optibays, and have done fresh installs several times on the machines i had the optibays in, and i have only had this issue a couple times. other times it just worked.

 

[yusukeaoki]

I have a ISO file for Windows 7 so Im not going to use the ODD.

What is your Optibay 500GB setup as?
I just have files on there and no OS.

Do you have SL or Lion installed on your optibay drive?

 

[garstudios]

I have a ISO file for Windows 7 so Im not going to use the ODD.

What is your Optibay 500GB setup as?
I just have files on there and no OS.

Do you have SL or Lion installed on your optibay drive?

i have an 2009 macbook pro with a 500gb momentus hybrid drive in the main drive bay, at first i had snow leopard installed on it, and a 500gb regular moments drive in the optibay. the optibay was originally set up to be just a scratch disk for photoshop. i eventually dumped files on it. then i eventually partitioned it to be half files and half windows 7. i even upgraded to lion, and everything still worked.

a few weeks ago i got tired of my main osx lion install (on the main drive) because i got it bogged down and freezing from some other crap problem and I'm to lazy to fix it right now, especially since I'm getting a new 2012 macbook pro to replace it. so i just wiped the optibay drive and installed lion on it too.

so as of right now, i have lion installed on both. i can choose to boot to either.

sorry if i have confused you.

 

[yusukeaoki]

i have an 2009 macbook pro with a 500gb momentus hybrid drive in the main drive bay, at first i had snow leopard installed on it, and a 500gb regular moments drive in the optibay. the optibay was originally set up to be just a scratch disk for photoshop. i eventually dumped files on it. then i eventually partitioned it to be half files and half windows 7. i even upgraded to lion, and everything still worked.

a few weeks ago i got tired of my main osx lion install (on the main drive) because i got it bogged down and freezing from some other crap problem and I'm to lazy to fix it right now, especially since I'm getting a new 2012 macbook pro to replace it. so i just wiped the optibay drive and installed lion on it too.

so as of right now, i have lion installed on both. i can choose to boot to either.

sorry if i have confused you.

So you did have a OS installed on your Optibay?

 

[garstudios]

So you did have a OS installed on your Optibay?

yes, my optibay has had windows xp which was replaced by windows 7 which was replaced by another fresh install of lion. while at the same time, having osx snow leopard which was then replaced by lion on my main disk bay.

so yes i have had an os installed in both bays at the same time.

i have never had an issue.

 

[yusukeaoki]

yes, my optibay has had windows xp which was replaced by windows 7 which was replaced by another fresh install of lion. while at the same time, having osx snow leopard which was then replaced by lion on my main disk bay.

so yes i have had an os installed in both bays at the same time.

i have never had an issue.

So what your saying is, is that you put XP over SL and 7 over Lion?
I think thats the point here.
It seems like you need to have a OSX on the optibay in order to put a bootcamp partition on.

 

[PhixionFilms]

[/COLOR]

yes, my optibay has had windows xp which was replaced by windows 7 which was replaced by another fresh install of lion. while at the same time, having osx snow leopard which was then replaced by lion on my main disk bay.

so yes i have had an os installed in both bays at the same time.

i have never had an issue.

I can see it working but my problem is I can't boot the windows disk from my external superdrive via usb. I have the actual windows Image on my computer do I have any options to install windows without booting from a CD?

 

[garstudios]

[/COLOR]

I can see it working but my problem is I can't boot the windows disk from my external superdrive via usb. I have the actual windows Image on my computer do I have any options to install windows without booting from a CD?

it will probably work. i would mount the iso (so it becomes basically like the disc is there) then go through the bootcamp process, it will probably show up as an option to choose from.

 

[garstudios]

So what your saying is, is that you put XP over SL and 7 over Lion?
I think thats the point here.
It seems like you need to have a OSX on the optibay in order to put a bootcamp partition on.

haha, no. i never had osx on the optibay until a couple weeks ago after i wiped the windows 7 off.

let me break it down.



-i got my 09 macbook pro with snow leopard installed. (it was a refurb)

-i removed the drive it came with, and installed a new 500gb drive in both the main bay and one in the optibay.

-i installed snow leopard back onto the main bay.
-i then set up optibay as a photoshop scratch disk with no os.
-i eventually dumped files on the scratch disk for storage.
-then i decided i didn't need a scratch disk, or extra storage.
-so i wiped the optibay (which was the scratch disk/extra storage.)
-i then installed windows xp onto the optibay.
-i then, eventually, upgraded the windows xp to windows 7.
-i eventually upgraded my main drive from snow leopard to lion.
-then a couple/few weeks ago, i decided since i wasn't using windows 7 that much anymore, i would just wipe it off (the optibay), and install a fresh osx lion installation (onto the optibay), because mine became sluggish.

also, just to let you know, i have had another macbook pro running both snow leopard and lion on separate partitions on the main drive, and windows xp and windows 7 on separate partitions on the optibay, with the ability to boot into either one of the four operating systems by holding down the option key upon start up. and i had absolutely no issue doing it, or using it. it was easier then wiping and reinstalling windows on a dell (or any pc, and thats basically what i do all day at work). this was more of an experiment in my free time to see if it would work. and it did.

 

[yusukeaoki]

[/COLOR]

I can see it working but my problem is I can't boot the windows disk from my external superdrive via usb. I have the actual windows Image on my computer do I have any options to install windows without booting from a CD?

You can use applications like Parallel or VMware Fusion to boot from ISO file.
But boot camp requires you to have a ODD plugged in through SATA cable.
It will not work through USB.

 

[garstudios]

You can use applications like Parallel or VMware Fusion to boot from ISO file.
But boot camp requires you to have a ODD plugged in through SATA cable.
It will not work through USB.

this is completely wrong. i have done it through usb with an ODD, and how do you explain the installation of windows on a macbook air through bootcamp?

ding ding, the use of apples external USB superdrive......thats how you explain it.

where did you get the idea that it had to be via SATA only?

also, an iso mounts like a drive or disc, therefore it basically becomes a disc, and that makes me 99% positive it will work (i can't be 100%, because i haven't done it)

but the whole idea that you can only use a ODD via SATA, is completely wrong.

----------

are you talking about an image of a windows install disk? or an image of a previous windows installation?

 

[yusukeaoki]

this is completely wrong. i have done it through usb with an ODD, and how do you explain the installation of windows on a macbook air through bootcamp?

ding ding, the use of apples external USB superdrive......thats how you explain it.

where did you get the idea that it had to be via SATA only?

also, an iso mounts like a drive or disc, therefore it basically becomes a disc, and that makes me 99% positive it will work (i can't be 100%, because i haven't done it)

but the whole idea that you can only use a ODD via SATA, is completely wrong.

----------

are you talking about an image of a windows install disk? or an image of a previous windows installation?

I just tried it and told me I needed a internal ODD so Im getting confused here.
And I did have my USB ODD plugged in...

VMWare fusion lets you install 7 through ISO file as well.
I have 7 Ultimate ISO file, so you can make Fusion create OS through the file. No need of physical disk.

But you are right, I don't know why my Mac is telling me it can't do it through USB...

 

[garstudios]

I just tried it and told me I needed a internal ODD so Im getting confused here.
And I did have my USB ODD plugged in...

VMWare fusion lets you install 7 through ISO file as well.
I have 7 Ultimate ISO file, so you can make Fusion create OS through the file. No need of physical disk.

But you are right, I don't know why my Mac is telling me it can't do it through USB...

the computer gives you a message that actually says that to you? weird.

i can't say anything about vmwar fusion or using an iso, because i have never dealt with it that way.