Booting Windows from an external harddrive?

Hello out there....

I was wondering if it is possible to boot up windows on a mac from an external harddrive.

Instead of partitioning the harddrive, I want to install windows on my external and then just use bootcamp to run windows. Is that possible?

Thanks.

Possible yes, advisable no. If you want to try it see the link below, it will work for usb keys and usb hdds.

http://articles.techrepublic.com.com/5100-6346-5928902.html

Do not believe it is possible at this time.
Windows needs a motherboard with an appropriate BIOS in order to boot. Macs have a systemboard with EFI.
Bootcamp at this time is the only software available that will translate the EFI into information that can be understood by windows. And Bootcamp requires the installation of windows be placed on your primary drive.
Did not go and check, but I don't believe even BartPE is capable of this translation.

What if we left the Windows OS on the primary HDD, and installed all the programs on an external? How much would be worth formatting the primary for Windows?

There's a guide floating around the net somewhere that tells you how to boot XP from a thumbdrive - can't remember where, but Google will dig it up.

It sounds fiddly, and if I recall, it's a somewhat cut down version of XP. that might just be space limitation though.

I'd imagine of it can be done from a thumbdrive, it can't be impossible to do it from an external HD.

Such things are always 'experimental' though. I'd never do it if I had to have a reliable way to boot.

jonnyd said:

There's a guide floating around the net somewhere that tells you how to boot XP from a thumbdrive - can't remember where, but Google will dig it up.

It sounds fiddly, and if I recall, it's a somewhat cut down version of XP. that might just be space limitation though.

I'd imagine of it can be done from a thumbdrive, it can't be impossible to do it from an external HD.

Such things are always 'experimental' though. I'd never do it if I had to have a reliable way to boot.

Click to expand...

One of those links is provided above by babarnette. It is still going to require a motherboard's BIOS which you do not have on a Mac.

mknabster said:

What if we left the Windows OS on the primary HDD, and installed all the programs on an external? How much would be worth formatting the primary for Windows?

Click to expand...

While I have not tried it, I see no reason why installing your programs to an external once booted into windows via Bootcamp would not work.

??? - Don't understand what you are asking in the 2nd question.

The link I provided will work on a mac. Vista or XP will work fine with the EFI on a Mac. In fact you could pull the hard drive out of your Mac and just have a usb drive plugged in with the windows install cd in the computer and install windows. Windows runs quite well on a mac either via boot camp, or as the only OS installed. It does not run well off usb drives on any computer, Mac or PC, though. I've done it and it is buggy with slow access times. You would be better off buying a bigger HDD from newegg and running bootcamp.


EDIT: For those of you who say that windows has to have a mother board with a BIOS this is not correct. There are EFI motherboards available for the PC also. This is getting more and more common now and in the next 2 years most new computers sold should have a EFI motherboard.