11-07-2010, 10:44 PM

Do I have to use the Apple superdrive with my Macbook Air or can I use a third party one? I'm about to use bootcamp but realized I can't without an optical drive. Can't use the remote drive on my wife's macbook pro.

11-07-2010, 11:14 PM

Unfortunately Gary, it has to be the Apple superdrive.

11-07-2010, 11:45 PM

well d@mn...oh well. Kinda weird online it's 79 Bucks and in the store it was 99...what gives?

11-09-2010, 12:38 AM

Not necessarily on both counts. I was in a similar situation a couple weeks ago, and found multiple reports of people (including in at least one MBA review) who used a non-SuperDrive optical drive to load BootCamp. I can't confirm this personally as I didn't pick up any drive with my MBA.

I went a different route, though. I found two separate methods for loading BootCamp without an optical drive. This one requires having another Mac available and some convoluted work with partitions and such.

This is the method I used to load Win7 from a pre-loaded USB thumb (I'd created the key previously for installing my desktop PC.) It does require having access to a PC running Vista or Win7 to create the bootable USB thumb drive. It was actually a really simple process once I figured out to run re-FIT after running the BootCamp wizard. And once it was all done, I booted back into OS X and re-selected one of my OS partitions as the startup disc to get rid of the re-FIT menu every time the laptop booted

11-09-2010, 12:45 AM

Actually, the rEFIt boot menu is a convenience. I use it to select which OS I want to boot (Snow Leopard or Win 7) rather than have to use other methods. You should have kept it.

11-09-2010, 01:35 PM

Originally Posted by Gary86

well d@mn...oh well. Kinda weird online it's 79 Bucks and in the store it was 99...what gives?

I thought that the $79 one only worked on the MBA, where the $99 one worked on any Mac? Maybe I'm wrong tho.