Installing Windows 7 x64 on my MacBook Pro

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I have an early 2008 MacBook Pro with a 128GB Crucial SSD installed in it. I want to install Windows 7 64-Bit on half of the disk, and the other half Mac OS X Lion.

However, here's the issue:
My superdrive does not work. There is no way for me to boot from a DVD in the internal superdrive. For whatever reason, the drive can only write, it can't read.

I also heard that my model of MacBook Pro does not support booting from a USB stick, even with rEFIt. I also tried an external DVD drive with no luck.

I am willing to open the computer up and hook my SATA connection to a 3rd-party DVD drive, but only as a last resort.

I do, however, have Windows 7 Ultimate 32-Bit on the machine.

So what I want to do is install Windows 7 64-Bit without using this superdrive.

Before, I was able to get Windows 7 32-bit installed by installing XP then installing 7, but that was before the superdrive stopped working.
 

chscag

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Your model MBP does support booting from a USB flash drive. You can either replace the defective optical drive or install Windows 7 x 64 from a USB flash drive. You can not install Windows from an external optical drive. Your choices are limited.
 
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I understand that you think that my computer will support booting from USB, however this is not possible.

When I try to boot from a USB flash disk, it does not show up in my boot device selector for Mac OS X.

Since that didn't work, i installed rEFIt, and tried it that way. rEFIt was able to see the USB drive, however it was to boot from it. (I got stuck on a black screen with a flashing cursor)

But read this carefully: My last resort is to open the case up and temporarily use a non-apple DVD drive.

I would like to get it to boot from USB, however I get stuck on a black screen with a flashing _ cursor whenever I try. (using a 4GB SanDisk Cruzer). I also made this USB device from one of my Windows computers.

From there you could use VirtualBox for the time being to play around with Windows 7 x64.
I understand I can use VirtualBox, however the performance I get in a virtual machine is not ideal for running games. I am mainly trying to install Windows to put Windows-Only games on it.
 
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If you got a black screen, then your USB flash drive may have just the image file copy on it without the boot sector. You should just download a trial version of Windows and install it on your VirtualBox. Then, get a copy of WinToFlash to make your Windows bootable on your USB flash drive. Once that is done, try booting from the USB flash drive again using the method you just did. Maybe it will boot this time instead of hang.

EDIT: Never mind I know what you're saying now.

To make the USB drive, I used the Boot Camp utility.

By the way I already have Windows 7 Ultimate 32-Bit installed in my boot camp partition. Can I just use my 32-Bit install to write the 64-Bit image, or does WinToFlash have to run 64-Bit to make a 64-Bit flash disk?
 
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Will SlySoft Virtual CloneDrive work for that?
 
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Alright, I'll give that a try. I'm going to have to try it with my Android phone for now (left my flash drive at home), but if it doesn't work with the phone I'll just try again later with the flash drive.

The android phone can function as just a plain SD card reader.

Thanks for the help.
 
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Well, it can function as a USB card reader (i've installed windows with it on a PC before, and even booted it from there)
 
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Yeah, it wasn't too much of an issue. The android gives you the option to mount the SD card on the computer, just like an SD Card reader. It works great for emergency backups and such.
 
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Well that's just it, I am wanting x64 for a performance boost over the 32-bit
 
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Exactly. I just rooted my phone last night and I was scared to do it. Now I have tons of fun like a VNC connection to it and overclocking, you know...all those goodies.
 
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No!

Alright, so here's the results of using my USB drive:

I used the Win To Flash wizard to create a bootable Windows 7 USB, and when I restart my Mac, the USB drive does not show as a bootable device. So I start up rEFIt, and it shows up there.

After I try starting from the USB, the light on the drive flashes for a few seconds and then it boots up my existing Boot Camp partition, NOT the USB drive.
 
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Well, I found a way to get it to work.

I took my MacBook Pro apart and took the hard drive out of it. I put it in a non-apple computer and started the windows install on that computer. Once it finished expanding windows files (when it says it needs to restart) I put it back in the MacBook and completed the install.

Lucky for me I knew exactly what I was doing from start to finish. If you have the skills to save money, go ahead and use them!

Posted this from Windows 7 Professional x64 on my MacBook Pro.
 
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Good luck. I know I always like to tinker even though my friends always caution me. I guess it is always like that.

Having recently upgraded my work system from x86 to x64 Windows 7, I can definitely say do it if you are a multitasker or use your computer for anything more than web browsing. I'm a web developer, and multitask heavily. There is a very noticeable improvement in the 64-bit OS.
 

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