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backinblack875

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Aug 23, 2010
614
46
USA
Is it possible to run widows xp on a usb3 external HD with boot camp? Fast enough to play games? Just curious
 
Macs don't like to boot off of usb drives. Your usb (I'm assuming) 2.0 ports would be a sever bottleneck anyway. You would have to use boot camp to install from a dvd and install windows to a partition. If your worried about space go and buy a bigger HDD which are really easy to fit. Hope this helps :)
 
Usb3 ports on new retina mbp. So no upgrading either. But I decided to do parallels but now how do I install windows without an optical drive?
 
If you had listed that you had the new rmbp it would of made things easier anyway I can see your problem I think you would have to get an external disc drive but then you will have to watch the space on your HD (I'm assuming you have 256gb). I know you want to do some gaming on it but a vm won't be as fast as bootcamp. I take it you want to play games that aren't out for mac??
 
If you had listed that you had the new rmbp it would of made things easier anyway I can see your problem I think you would have to get an external disc drive but then you will have to watch the space on your HD (I'm assuming you have 256gb). I know you want to do some gaming on it but a vm won't be as fast as bootcamp. I take it you want to play games that aren't out for mac??

Correct. Some games on windows. And my signature say retina mbp doesn't it? And I should be good on space with parallels. Only 1 or 2 games. Take 20-30gb max. Don't need too much because I have my movies and tv on external hd
 
It doesn't say rmbp in your signture so I guess your have to have a look at that. Well on the basis that you mentioned then you should be fine :) you should also google n-lite windows xp so you can strip away sorme of the junk windows xp comes with this will make windows run faster and take up less space, and seeing as you only want to use windows for gaming there are probally quite a few features of xp you won't be using.
 
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