Can't install Windows 10 on external hard drive

[jordanbaron12]

I am trying to install Windows 10 on my external hard drive with my MacBook Pro. I went into Boot Camp and it recognized my hard drive. It installed everything and rebooted into the Windows 10 setup.

When I got to the menu where I select the disk, I selected my external hard drive, but I couldn't use it because Windows can't install to a device connected by USB (That's what the error message said.) So I just went on and installed it on the partition that Boot Camp made.

Now I am typing this on Windows 10 wondering, how can I install it on my external hard drive? Maybe I can copy the Windows partition on my Mac's hard drive onto the external drive. Is there any way to do this?

I know there is an option on MacOS to restore from another drive/partition, and I have tried this. But I can't boot from the drive!

 

[Slydude]

I think this question was asked recently but I can't seem to find the thread at the moment. If I'm not mistaken Microsoft makes it difficult at best to run Windows (especially recent versions) from an external drive. Although there are probably methods there that will work I'm pretty sure they violate the Windows license agreement.

 

[jordanbaron12]

I'm not worried about the license agreement

 

[chscag]

I'm not worried about the license agreement

Just for your info... we do not condone that type of attitude in our forums.

As far as I know, only the Windows 10 Enterprise Edition can be installed on removable media. One way that is legal (other than the Enterprise Edition) is to install Windows 10 in a virtual machine (Parallels, Fusion, VirtualBox) and run the virtual machine from an external hard drive.

 

[Rod]

If it's a space issue, which it often is when running two OS on one hard drive you could consider moving media files from the macOS partition to an external HD.


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