Trouble installing Windows 7 from USB using bootcamp. (No optical drive)

[Nevalite]

Hello Everyone,

From what I can tell this seems to be a common issue but I can't seem to find a concrete solution. Here is my situation:

Hardware:
Early 2011 Macbook Pro
Curical M5 SSD
500GB HDD in Optibay

I have removed my optical drive in order to install a new SSD in my MBP and I have place the old HDD in the place of the optical drive.

I have installed OS X Mavericks on my SSD. I also have my old OS X Lion installed on the 500gb hard drive as a backup until I get this all sorted out.

I tried to use bootcamp assistant to install windows 7 on my SSD but the option to make the bootable USB was no there. I used a guide to modify the info.plist file in order to get the USB option back. I used the bootcamp assistant to create a bootable windows 7 USB.

After the system restarts and it tries to boot from the USB I get the message "no bootable media found".

If I hold down the option/alt key to force it to boot from the USB, the USB device is not listed.

I tried installing rEFIT in order to force it to boot from the USB but I get the same message of "no bootable media".

Does anyone have a solution to this problem?

How do I install windows 7 off a USB?

Thank you!

 

[saturnotaku]

How do I install windows 7 off a USB?

You can't.

 

[Nevalite]

You can't.

Why do you say that? I know it can be done I just can't seem to figure out a good technique.

It must be done for the MacBook Air since there is no optical drive to begin with.

I am thinking that I might just remove the optibay, put the old optical drive back in, install windows on my new sad and then re-install the optibay...

Round about way of doing it but from what I can tell it is the only simple way of doing it.

Anyone else have any ideas?

 

[Quackers]

Basically if your Mac came with a dvd drive then you have to use that to install Windows. Some people have had limited success getting such Macs to boot from a USB device using hacks.

 

[saturnotaku]

Trouble installing Windows 7 from USB using bootcamp. (No optical drive)

Why do you say that? I know it can be done I just can't seem to figure out a good technique.



It must be done for the MacBook Air since there is no optical drive to begin with.

It's a firmware limitation. The only method I have seen that works with even a slight degree of success involves using VMWare Fusion and some hacks. I have tried every method I know of to make this work and in the end, it took me less time to swap the optical drive in and out of the system. I ultimately purchased a high capacity SSD so I never need to do that.

 

[Nevalite]

I went ahead and uninstalled the optibay, re-installed the optical drive, installed windows off the DVD to my new SSD, re-installed the optibay HDD.

Slightly tedious but it worked.

Thanks for the information.