Run Windows 7 from a flash drive

[afawcett]

I want to run Windows 7 from a flash drive on my Mac Book. I have a 16 gB flash drive and speed is not a critical factor. More importantly I would rather save the room on my hard drive, and I don't like having multiple partitions.

I've done many Google searches and all I find are articles about installing Windows 7 from a flash drive. The closest thing I could find was:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/856812/ but that only mentions want I want to do.

The information I have gathered is conflicting, and most of it revolves around XP (I think W7 gets buried by the 'installing from a flash drive' articles because of the increase of netbooks without optical drives). People also say it's not possible to install XP on a flash drive, but people have made live distributions of XP for flash drives so it defiantly is.

This is the most tech savy Mac community I have found, and looks to be my best bet.

 

[balamw]

Repeat with me. Windows is designed not to be able to run from USB. It is part of the licensing model that it wants to be installed on a fixed, not removable, disk. (EDIT: for those who say it works on their PC, some BIOS can fool Windows into thinking that the USB drive is actually internal/fixed.)

So you have to consider other options.

Use Windows PE which is designed to be portable http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Preinstallation_Environment

Modify Windows following the ngine.de guide for XP. Or the method listed here for Vista http://channel9.msdn.com/forums/Coffeehouse/170347-Vista-external-USB-boot/

Use VMWare Fusion/Parallels/VirtualBox and keep your VM on the flash drive.


B

 

[afawcett]

Thank you, but when I install it to an external drive will I see it when I hold the 'alt' key when I boot my MacBook?

 

[balamw]

Thank you, but when I install it to an external drive will I see it when I hold the 'alt' key when I boot my MacBook?

Certainly not if you go the VM route.

I've run Bart's PE from a CD in the past and it shows up in the Alt/Option menu. Have not tried it from a flash drive.

You might need rEFIt if you even manage to get it to work.

B