Bootcamping Windows 7 off of USB Flashdrive

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gam40000


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Is it possible to bootcamp windows 7 on to a MBP off of a USB Flashdrive with a ligitament copy of windows on it, or would you have to have a hard disk copy?

does windows 7 still work with lion?
 
cwa107

cwa107


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Boot Camp has some pretty specific requirements for installation media, most namely, it needs to be on a DVD. While it should be technically possible to install Windows 7 on a Mac using a USB Flash drive, the Boot Camp Assistant isn't geared toward that type of install. So, you'd need to circumvent its normal workflow - a cursory Google search shows a number of different techniques for doing this.

And yes, Windows 7 is supported by the Lion version of the Boot Camp Software.
 
Tarek

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All Boot Camp does is create a NTFS partition for you and provide you with the necessary drivers (Boot Camp 4.x doesn't support XP and Vista anymore). In order to install Windows 7 using a USB Flash Drive to the Boot Camp partition, for instance, you'd need to play in the BIOS settings like you would on a normal PC (boot from USB HDD first, etc.) but that is, of course, not possible on a Mac, simply because Macs don't have a BIOS.

There is, however, something similar to BIOS in Macs, which is supposedly even better, called OpenFirmware, but unfortunately that is only in old Macs that did not have Intel processors. So in short, I do not think it is possible.

Visit this article for very helpful information regarding the matter: Where’s my Mac BIOS? (How to get into OpenFirmware Easily) | blandname
 
cwa107

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Tarek said:
All Boot Camp does is create a NTFS partition for you and provide you with the necessary drivers (Boot Camp 4.x doesn't support XP and Vista anymore). In order to install Windows 7 using a USB Flash Drive to the Boot Camp partition, for instance, you'd need to play in the BIOS settings like you would on a normal PC (boot from USB HDD first, etc.) but that is, of course, not possible on a Mac, simply because Macs don't have a BIOS.

There is, however, something similar to BIOS in Macs, which is supposedly even better, called OpenFirmware, but unfortunately that is only in old Macs that did not have Intel processors. So in short, I do not think it is possible.

Visit this article for very helpful information regarding the matter: Where’s my Mac BIOS? (How to get into OpenFirmware Easily) | blandname
Click to expand...

That's not entirely correct. Intel Macs use Unified Extensible Firmware Interface, better known as UEFI. UEFI is just starting to trickle out onto higher-end PCs and motherboards, but is by no means limited to Macs.

Utilities like rEFIt can help to facilitate a non-standard installation of Windows on a Mac.
 

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