What is the best way to get bootcamp onto an external ssd?

[roadkill401]

I have gotten my new 2014 mac mini installed with mojave onto an external SSD via a Thunderbolt 4 mini drive enclosure. The mac part works great and all is well.

However, my daughter wants to play origin games or more to point Simms. I have had zero luck getting this to work inside of the mac os, though supposedly it can be done. I decided that it was far cheaper and easier to just get a Windows 10 license off ebay and install bootcamp.

There is where the issues start. as the 2014 has a VERY AWFULLY SLOW hard drive inside, it would be just easier to put another SSD inside the thunderbay and run bootcamp from that. The problem is how. the bootcamp installer is very brutal in it won't allow you to install windows onto anything other than the internal hard drive. I have done that and gotten bootcamp working but just too slow to be worthwhile.

How can you either install windows 10 onto an external drive, or migrate the bootcamp installed from the internal hard drive to an external ssd? I don't have money to throw around and just want a working solution that doesn't require using shady software downloaded off the internet preferably.

 

[VideoFreek]

It appears this may be possible--there are a number of guides online for how to do this--but it looks like a PITA and I can't personally vouch for any of them since I haven't used Bootcamp in years. I virtualize everything these days.

Have you considered just upgrading the HDD in your Mac to an SSD? There are plenty of online tutorials for how to do this with the 2014 MM, and this would certainly breathe new life into your machine.

 

[roadkill401]

I eventually found a YouTube video that worked. The secret was finding an old install of Win2USB that would do the pre-install of the software to the SSD drive. once that was gotten, it now boots fine from the SSD drive external.

 

[Dru Nemeton]

I eventually found a YouTube video that worked. The secret was finding an old install of Win2USB that would do the pre-install of the software to the SSD drive. once that was gotten, it now boots fine from the SSD drive external.

Any chance you can share that video? I’m looking to do the same for my iMac during this work from home period….