Booting from External Drive

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dcaubree


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I don't want to partition the hard drive on my 13'' MacBook Pro, so I've been thinking about running Windows 7 from an external hard drive.

My thought has been that I could boot from a Windows 7 live disc, then install the OS to my external drive, then I have the option to use the mac hotkeys at startup to boot from my USB drive.

Would this work?

I would just try it and find out, but while I'm waiting for my Windows disc to arrive I figured I'd ask anyway. What are your thoughts?
 
chscag

chscag

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Microsoft restricts booting Windows from internal drives only. This has been a restriction they imposed years ago, I believe starting with Win 95.

So the answer to your question is: While you can install Windows on an external drive, it won't be able to boot.
 

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