Same Win 8.1 external on TWO comps (iMac & rMBP)

[llirik]

Hi there,

After completely messing up and needing to restore from time machine, i decided to forget about installing windows on my 2013 iMac with 3tb fusion drive for quite a while. back then, seemed to be a mess.

now, it STILL seems to be a mess, but i have come across in various locations that it can be installed on an external drive.

Now, what I'm wondering is... if i successfully install it onto a lacie thunderbolt drive.... would it be possible in some way to use the SAME drive with my iMac and my rMBP?

since the only way to get it working on the iMac requires fancy partition ninja-fu, and i already have a bootcamp install on the rMBP.... would I be able to consolidate them and just have the one drive for whenever i need windows games (i.e., that copy of BF4 that's collecting dust).

if its not possible... the only guide I've found for installing onto iMac 3tb is to end up having 2 mac partitions, spaced out so windows is in the 4th slot.... I'm wondering if its possible to have it such that the OSX drive is 2TB and then bootcamp is 1TB, without having to split it.

thanks.

 

[Bear]

I'm not sure what guide you're talking about for installing Bootcamp on a 3TB drive. Was it from before Bootcamp officially worked ob a 3TB drive?

And as for moving an external drive with Windows on it between 2 systems - that won't work as it will want to be reauthorized every time it sees different hardware.

 

[saturnotaku]

If you want to run Windows on two separate computers, you need two licenses.

 

[blueroom]

And unlike OSX, Windows is near impossible to put on an external drive.

 

[llirik]

hmm, so basically i wouldn't be able to have a single windows 8.1 install on a thunderbolt and use on the 2 comps? Or would it just be annoying to reauth each time? it would be very rare that i actually switch, most of the time it would just be on the iMac.

the guide i found is the one from winclone on how to install onto a larger than 2.2TB drive.

i received my iMac in october and wasn't able to install windows 8.1 then and ended up screwing up the partition table completely (thus needing to restore from time machine).

so although i have the space (i'd even give windows a TB on the 3TB FD), I'm afraid of ruining things again.

I've searched these forums but can't find a proper guide, just people mentioning that they have it running, and others that it failed.

 

[llirik]

hey guys,

I'm still unable to find a clear answer on how to install windows 8.1 on my 3TB fusion drive, without going the win clone guide route where i have to have the fancy partition.

bootcamp 5 lists windows 8.1 as not listed on apple's site

so pretty lost on this. help?