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Thanks a lot for taking the time and sharing this. I have followed this step by step and was able to move windows 7 64-bit partition onto external buffalo ministation thunderbolt ssd. So far I have only tested it with my macbook pro 13'' retina, but i have all reasons to believe it will work with any other thunderbolt mac. Just waiting for my new imac to arrive and will comment if it works with it.

Experience of running windows from external thunderbolt ssd is great so far. I only use windows for some games though, so not sure if it's good for everyone.

The only downside of this method (which isn't really a concern for me now that it all works) is that I had to buy Winclose from the official website for 20 bucks. I only used the latest version from developer's website and have no clue if other (older or cr----d) versions work for this solution.

Well the alternative was to hunt down version 3.5 of WinClone, which was free. Ironically after you load version 3.5, it will check for updates and download 3.7, which is the latest version. And it's still free. :)
 
I would like to know if it is possible to boot windows from promise Pegasus j4 with above methods? Is it true that seagate can't provide stable power to any drive above 256gb of storage? I am sorry if I hijack this thread, OP.
 
I would like to know if it is possible to boot windows from promise Pegasus j4 with above methods? Is it true that seagate can't provide stable power to any drive above 256gb of storage? I am sorry if I hijack this thread, OP.

I can't speak for above 256GB, but my Seagate Backup Plus has been flawless with my 256GB Samsung 830 as a boot drive.
 
I would like to know if it is possible to boot windows from promise Pegasus j4 with above methods? Is it true that seagate can't provide stable power to any drive above 256gb of storage? I am sorry if I hijack this thread, OP.

Although I haven't actually tried this, I would predict that you will be unable to boot a Winclone Windows installation on the Pegasus J4 at this time. I am really enjoying my Pegasus J4, but I do not need to boot from it. The J4 requires a "chipset driver" which must be loaded in order read from the device, and that obviously prevents booting (and loading that required driver). They supply the OS X driver, but do not have a Windows driver at this time making the J4 unusable when running native Windows. Hopefully Promise Technology will release the Windows driver soon, and figure out how to inject the driver into the EFI boot files.

I have had mixed experience with the Seagate Thunderbolt Adapter and large 512GB SSDs which I am thinking are power related. I experienced no problems when connected to my 2012 iMac and using a Crucial M4 512GB SSD. However, the same configuration connected to my late 2011 Macbook Pro (connected to AC at the time) had a permanent drive failure ... twice! It may be that the Thunderbolt power output of the Macbook Pro isn't as "robust" as the iMac rather than a power problem within the TB Adapter itself? The adapter seems to work fine with a Crucial M4 256GB SSD on any host. I am surprised that it supports large 1TB hard disks and not SSDs, but perhaps the hard disks are more tolerant to power fluctuations than SSDs.

-howard
 
I have had mixed experience with the Seagate Thunderbolt Adapter and large 512GB SSDs which I am thinking are power related. I experienced no problems when connected to my 2012 iMac and using a Crucial M4 512GB SSD. However, the same configuration connected to my late 2011 Macbook Pro (connected to AC at the time) had a permanent drive failure ... twice! It may be that the Thunderbolt power output of the Macbook Pro isn't as "robust" as the iMac rather than a power problem within the TB Adapter itself? The adapter seems to work fine with a Crucial M4 256GB SSD on any host. I am surprised that it supports large 1TB hard disks and not SSDs, but perhaps the hard disks are more tolerant to power fluctuations than SSDs.
-howard

Same here... originally had the 256gb m4 in my 2011 MBP 17" and bought a 512 m4 + Seagate TB adapter for external use. I ended up swapping them and now I use the 256GB externally. The idle and read power usage are ok. The 512GB will go over 5watts when writing data, which is the problem.

We've made it work as a high speed DIY SSD solution but the adapter itself really is a joke considering Segate made it specifically for the SLOW 2.5" Goflex drives. I use FW800 for my 1TB and new computers have USB 3.0. The adapter would be a 5 star product if it had TB pass-through and optional external power for daisy chaining.
 
Thanks a lot for taking the time and sharing this. I have followed this step by step and was able to move windows 7 64-bit partition onto external buffalo ministation thunderbolt ssd. So far I have only tested it with my macbook pro 13'' retina, but i have all reasons to believe it will work with any other thunderbolt mac. Just waiting for my new imac to arrive and will comment if it works with it.

Experience of running windows from external thunderbolt ssd is great so far. I only use windows for some games though, so not sure if it's good for everyone.

The only downside of this method (which isn't really a concern for me now that it all works) is that I had to buy Winclose from the official website for 20 bucks. I only used the latest version from developer's website and have no clue if other (older or cr----d) versions work for this solution.

Glad to know this is working. I tried to get this all up and running off my 2012 27" iMac, but never could get it to work. And I also paid the full $20 for the software too (and not sure it does anything different than CCC or Disk Utility's Restore function).

I'll have to have another go at this at some point.
 
Thank you for sharing your experiences, guys. What would be my best options if I don't want to go seagate route? J4 is really tempting for me but lack of windows support is a bummer.
 
Glad to know this is working. I tried to get this all up and running off my 2012 27" iMac, but never could get it to work. And I also paid the full $20 for the software too (and not sure it does anything different than CCC or Disk Utility's Restore function).

I'll have to have another go at this at some point.

CCC and disk utility can only be used to backup and restore Mac OS partitions. Winclone is for NTFS Windows partitions.

----------

Thank you for sharing your experiences, guys. What would be my best options if I don't want to go seagate route? J4 is really tempting for me but lack of windows support is a bummer.

LaCie has the Thunderbolt to eSATA adapter. I would imagine it works the same but I can't say for sure. It's a good product for those who've been using eSATA all along. I'm not a big fan of having so many cables.
 
CCC and disk utility can only be used to backup and restore Mac OS partitions. Winclone is for NTFS Windows partitions.

----------



LaCie has the Thunderbolt to eSATA adapter. I would imagine it works the same but I can't say for sure. It's a good product for those who've been using eSATA all along. I'm not a big fan of having so many cables.

I think this LaCie "Thunderbolt to eSATA Adapter" has a lot in common with the LaCie "Little Big Disk" which it resembles. I have not tried the eSATA adapter, but I do have some experience with the dual drive "Little Big Disk" Thunderbolt enclosure.

I bought a couple of "refurbished" dual-disk units and swapped the hard disks for SSDs. They work well, but are not quite as fast as hoped, possibly due to "hard disk" firmware, or due to "splitting" the SATAIII interface across 2 drives. They are faster than a single SSD in a GoFLex when running a pair of SSDs in RAID-0 using Apple Software RAID. They will boot OS X without any driver issues, but I have been unable to use the enclosure (non-RAID) for external Thunderbolt Windows (they are not rated for Windows use).

Unless the eSATA Adapter states Windows compatibility, I would not assume that it will work at this time. Hopefully, as more Windows PC motherboards incorporate Thunderbolt interfaces, these Thunderbolt vendors will be encouraged to provide Windows compatibility for their products.


-howard
 
Thank you for sharing your experiences, guys. What would be my best options if I don't want to go seagate route? J4 is really tempting for me but lack of windows support is a bummer.

I use buffalo ministation ssd. Has both usb and thunderbolt and both cables come with it in the box. My guess it's not as fast as J4, but it's not nearly as expansive and still an SSD working via thunderbolt which is fast enough for me. I like the design and portability/ flexibility too. http://www.buffalo-technology.com/en/hd-patu3s-ministation-thunderbolt-portable-ssd.html
 
Imac with TB SSD

I'm running my mid-2011 Imac 2.7 i5 from an external SSD. I run Win 7 using Fusion. Everything works flawlessly and using the VM is much more convenient than having to boot into one or the other OS. By the way, I'm getting write speeds upwards of 200 and read upwards of 500. Cold boot in 10 sec flat.
 
I bought the lacie rugged 256gb and installed windows 8 on it using a Mac mini. Would it work if i plug it into imac before bootup and boot windows from it? Or do I need to follow other procedures? Thank you in advance.
 
Winclone has a tutorial for using Microsoft's sysprep. This should allow you to take the Windows image from your mini and make it usable with your imac.

http://twocanoes.com/support/winclone/using-sysprep-when-migrating-boot-camp

I didn't install windows on my mini, but on my external drive. And I couldn't do the sysprep because windows isnt clean install but upgraded one. My question exactly should be "Will I be able to use my windows 8 boot installed external ssd with another Mac?". If I can, do I need to do the bootcamp setups again or is it just plug and play? Thank you for your answer though, Khris. I really appreciate it.
 
I just tried this and it works.

1. Use Boot Camp Assistant to install Windows 7 on your internal hard drive
2. Boot into Windows and install the Apple support drives for Windows 7
3. Power off Windows and connect your external ThunderBolt hard drive
4. Boot into Windows and allow Windows to install the ThunderBolt drivers (Note: The reason we reboot here is because Windows cannot recognize a ThunderBolt device unless it's connected at power on)
5. Reboot into Mac OS X
6. Create a Winclone image of the Boot Camp partition
7. Open Disk Utility and create a new FAT partition on your external ThunderBolt hard drive
8. While in Disk Utility, remove the Boot Camp partition from your internal hard drive and expand the Mac OS X partition back to full size
8. Open Winclone and restore the Boot Camp image to the new partition on your external ThunderBolt Drive
9. Restart the computer and boot into Windows by holding down alt/option
10. Let Windows check the disk for consistancy (Note: When the disk check finishes it will reboot automatically so be ready to press alt/option so you can select Windows. If you miss it and it boots back into Mac OS X no biggie, just restart and hold alt/option again)
11. You're done... Now just don't try to move the ThunderBolt drive around while using Windows. If it disconnects it'll lock up and you'll have to forcefully reboot by holding down the power button.


I have a new 2013 Imac max specs (except memory) and I have the Seagate Goflex (STAE128) connected with a Samsung 840 Pro SSD. I have loaded Windows 8 using Boot Camp and it worked fine on original internal HD.

I then used Winclone to copy it to the SSD. It copied fine but when I load the SSD it freezes on Preparing to Repair screen everytime in Win8. I have found step by step instructions on this forum and followed them but I cant seem to make the drive load. Can someone please help me? I know there are several who have done this on this forum.

Thanks!
 
I have a new 2013 Imac max specs (except memory) and I have the Seagate Goflex (STAE128) connected with a Samsung 840 Pro SSD. I have loaded Windows 8 using Boot Camp and it worked fine on original internal HD.

I then used Winclone to copy it to the SSD. It copied fine but when I load the SSD it freezes on Preparing to Repair screen everytime in Win8. I have found step by step instructions on this forum and followed them but I cant seem to make the drive load. Can someone please help me? I know there are several who have done this on this forum.

Thanks!

Wish I could help but I haven't tried boot camp with windows 8. Since you're able to run win 8 boot camp on the internal hdd maybe it's an issue with the thunderbolt windows driver?
 
Wish I could help but I haven't tried boot camp with windows 8. Since you're able to run win 8 boot camp on the internal hdd maybe it's an issue with the thunderbolt windows driver?

Perhaps. I have a copy of WIndows 7 to try with tonight. First I am going to erase the SSD, erase the clone. Go into windows 8 on my internal and do the sysprep someone else suggested, reclone and copy to ssd and see if that works.

If not I guess I will go Win 7
 
Wish I could help but I haven't tried boot camp with windows 8. Since you're able to run win 8 boot camp on the internal hdd maybe it's an issue with the thunderbolt windows driver?

Hey KhrisGarcia. I've been trying to move my Windows7 boot camp to an external and continue to have it crash when booting up from the external. What exact steps are you using to prepare Win7, create the image and then restore? I'm not doing any Sysprep in Windows as Winclone recommends (but since I'm not moving to new hardware, I don't think this should matter).

What about replacing the BCD? I've tried this both ways and still nothing. Likewise, I tried restoring my boot camp image to my boot camp internal partition and still get failures (seems like my image might not be good?).

Any specific guidance you can provide would be kickass right about now.

(I'm using a Lacie LBD with a crucial M4 128GB SSD with a 2012 iMac 3.4 i7 and 680MX over Thunderbolt.)
 
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Hey KhrisGarcia. I've been trying to move my Windows7 boot camp to an external and continue to have it crash when booting up from the external. What exact steps are you using to prepare Win7, create the image and then restore? I'm not doing any Sysprep in Windows as Winclone recommends (but since I'm not moving to new hardware, I don't think this should matter).

What about replacing the BCD? I've tried this both ways and still nothing. Likewise, I tried restoring my boot camp image to my boot camp internal partition and still get failures (seems like my image might not be good?).

Any specific guidance you can provide would be kickass right about now.

(I'm using a Lacie LBD with a crucial M4 128GB SSD with a 2012 iMac 3.4 i7 and 680MW over Thunderbolt.)

I have tried and failed in the past to install Windows to a LaCie LBD Thunderbolt due to a lack of Windows support for that product. However, LaCie recently posted a Windows driver for the LBD on their web site, but I have not had an opportunity to try it. My concern is that it still won't boot Windows unless somehow they are able to inject the boot loader into the EFI. Some Thunderbolt enclosures show a boot loader on the screen (Seagate GoFlex) and are, of course, sold as "Windows compatible".

The new LaCie driver is available here:
http://www.lacie.com/us/support/support_manifest.htm?id=10549


Good luck and report back on your progress...



-howard
 
I have tried and failed in the past to install Windows to a LaCie LBD Thunderbolt due to a lack of Windows support for that product. However, LaCie recently posted a Windows driver for the LBD on their web site, but I have not had an opportunity to try it. My concern is that it still won't boot Windows unless somehow they are able to inject the boot loader into the EFI. Some Thunderbolt enclosures show a boot loader on the screen (Seagate GoFlex) and are, of course, sold as "Windows compatible".

The new LaCie driver is available here:
http://www.lacie.com/us/support/support_manifest.htm?id=10549


Good luck and report back on your progress...



-howard

Thanks for the info Howard. The drive looks to be mounting in Windows without issue (its just the one drive so no RAID). Pretty sure this mounted before I created the image, so wondering if I'm doing something else wrong? I wasn't even able to successfully restore the winclone image back to the internal HDD where it was installed originally.

What steps do you take before taking the image and restoring it? Are you running sysprep and doing a chkdsk? What about BCD files and other caches?

And if I can get all this to finally work, can I keep the original Bootcamp install on the internal, or as in Highlander the movie, must there be only one? :p
 
Thanks for the info Howard. The drive looks to be mounting in Windows without issue (its just the one drive so no RAID). Pretty sure this mounted before I created the image, so wondering if I'm doing something else wrong? I wasn't even able to successfully restore the winclone image back to the internal HDD where it was installed originally.

What steps do you take before taking the image and restoring it? Are you running sysprep and doing a chkdsk? What about BCD files and other caches?

And if I can get all this to finally work, can I keep the original Bootcamp install on the internal, or as in Highlander the movie, must there be only one? :p

I did not use the above method for installing Windows externally. I tried several methods to direct install Windows on Thunderbolt drives and was unable to do so to a SSD in a LBD enclosure. I was able to install to a SSD in the Seagate GoFlex Thunderbolt adapter. I think others have also had success with the LaCie Rugged SSD and Disk enclosures.

When I did create an external Windows system, it would not co-exist with an internal BootCamp install. It seemed to always default to the internal installation if available, only booting to the external drive after removing the internal image. I was hoping to have a triple-boot for Windows 7 and 8, but couldn't make it work. It may be possible with a 3rd party boot manager, but I haven't had time to try that.


-howard
 
OS X 10.8.3 was just released with Windows 8 support and boot camp updates including support for 3TB hard drives. Not sure if the update will change anything. Listen to what Howard has to say... he's tested more then I have. Sounds like the Lacie BD is a no go as far as external Windows booting. I've used the SeaGate TB adapter for my testing.
 
Running os x ml, bootcamp on 2 thunderbolt drives

I'm running osx ml and bootcamp win 7 from 2 thunderbolt ssd. Boot times on both os less than 15 secs. I just installed each seperately, osx on one...win 7 on the other with just the apple drivers i needed to run windows (installed one by one). I tried the bootcamp method, then windows didn't want to run from the external drive which is typical of windows. I use boot champ to boot into windows from os x and everything works and boots faster than ever. I spent many hours of trial and error until i figured how to get it to work on thunderbolt. My os x ml is on a lacie striped raid 256 ssd, and windows on 128 gb lacie rugged ssd. This has me spoiled, but the end result was worth it.
 
Just to see that I have been updated on these issues;

Bootcamping with external SSD hard drive works and is the really only option if you want to replace your hard drive on your iMac.

Was there any problems with LaCie little big disc SSD for bootcamp?
(http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2412374,00.asp)

And if there was, is there any working external hard drives with 500 gig SSD+ you can recommand?
 
Just a quick question...
I have a kingston 256gb usb 3 stick... Would it be possible to Run windows 7 via bootcamp from there?
I like the idea of having just that stick in the back of my imac...
And if so, could i have all windows relevant stuff ( Games ect) on that Stick too?
 
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