Running Windows 10 on a USB stick?

Hi.

I downloaded the Windows media tool and created an .ISO. I transfered this .ISO to the USB stick itself, plugged it in to the Mac and transfered the .ISO to the desktop from the USB. Then, I used Bootcamp and installed Windows on the USB stick with the .ISO from the desktop. After the installation, nothing about partitioning came up, the program merely told me to install some extra Windows stuff after the installation of Windows itself.

So I restarted the Mac and held down ALT during the startup, selected my WINDOWS boot device (must have been the USB stick, right?) and the installation of Windows started. But when I was about to select where to actually install Windows (a window called "Where do you want to install windows?"), I couldn't even see the USB stick! This is what I saw:

http://imgur.com/yJXdiVT

My 60 gig USB stick wasn't listed! What should I do!?

Someone who has more experience installing Windows under BootCamp will have to confirm this but I don't think you can do that. You can have the Windows .iso on a USB stick and use that to install Windows but I don't think you can install Windows directly onto a USB stick. It sounds like that's what you are trying to do.

Which Mac are you using for this project? If the Mac you are using originally shipped with an optical drive that can also complicate things a bit.

Slydude said:

Someone who has more experience installing Windows under BootCamp will have to confirm this but I don't think you can do that. You can have the Windows .iso on a USB stick and use that to install Windows but I don't think you can install Windows directly onto a USB stick. It sounds like that's what you are trying to do.

Which Mac are you using for this project? If the Mac you are using originally shipped with an optical drive that can also complicate things a bit.

Click to expand...

Hmm, okay.

The mac has no optical drive, it's an iMac 21.5". If I were to partition it manually, how would I go about not deleting any existing data?

In the disk utility tool, I see two HDs listed:

Macintosh HD (250,14 GB Capacity, 0 byte free, 250,14 GB used)
Macintosh HD (249,82 GB Capacity, 193,79 GB free, 56,03 GB used)

Only the top one has the Partition tab, but that one has no bytes free?!

You may have a "Fusion" drive in that iMac which means it consists of a small SSD and a regular spinning HHD "fused" together. Provide a screen shot of Disk Utility so we can make sure. Your iMac has no optical drive which means you can install Windows 10 directly from an iso. Are you following the Boot Camp instructions? Boot Camp should walk you through the installation even downloading the drivers for you. Your first post above is confusing and not the way you're supposed to install Windows 10 to your iMac. You need to start over and follow the Boot Camp instructions. Also, it would help us if you identify what version of OS X it's running.

chscag said:

You may have a "Fusion" drive in that iMac which means it consists of a small SSD and a regular spinning HHD "fused" together. Provide a screen shot of Disk Utility so we can make sure. Your iMac has no optical drive which means you can install Windows 10 directly from an iso. Are you following the Boot Camp instructions? Boot Camp should walk you through the installation even downloading the drivers for you. Your first post above is confusing and not the way you're supposed to install Windows 10 to your iMac. You need to start over and follow the Boot Camp instructions. Also, it would help us if you identify what version of OS X it's running.

Click to expand...

Hi.. I did follow the Boot camp instructions. Here are some pictures (couldn't take prints).

Yosemite 10.10.5
http://imgur.com/a/oh0LO


When you say that I can install it directly from an .ISO, do you mean I just have to install it, and then I can switch back and forth? How would I partition it considering the fused drives?

If you use the BootCamp Assistant (in Applications/Utilities) and follow the directions it will handle the partitioning for you. It will even handle partitioning of a fusion drive. I'm pretty sure it places the Windows partition on the spinning platter hard drive portion.

When you say switch back and forth that depends upon what you want to do. Once Windows is installed you can switch between Mac and Windows but you must reboot the machine and select which part you want each time you make the switch. If you want to run Mac and Windows simultaneously without rebooting you'll have to resort to virtualization software such as Fusion or Virtual Box.

Slydude said:

If you use the BootCamp Assistant (in Applications/Utilities) and follow the directions it will handle the partitioning for you. It will even handle partitioning of a fusion drive. I'm pretty sure it places the Windows partition on the spinning platter hard drive portion.

When you say switch back and forth that depends upon what you want to do. Once Windows is installed you can switch between Mac and Windows but you must reboot the machine and select which part you want each time you make the switch. If you want to run Mac and Windows simultaneously without rebooting you'll have to resort to virtualization software such as Fusion or Virtual Box.

Click to expand...

So the USB is completely unnecessary?

If I am understanding what you are trying to do you still need the USB. In essence the USB with the Windows .iso on it is taking the place of the Windows install DVD. In other words the Windows installer runs from the USB.

He really does not need the USB flash drive with the iso on it if he loads the iso to his desktop or anywhere he can point the installer to. He can do it either way as Boot Camp will do the install direct from the iso. Macs with an optical drive can not load Windows that way and must use the executable file on the DVD.

Thanks for the reminder Charlie. I forgot about doing that.