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OmniX · Apr 6, 2006, 12:43 AM

anyone know if bootcamp can be used to boot Windows off of an external FireWire or USB drive?

or does the Windows startup volume have to be on an internal disk? What if you have say a G5 with >1 internal drives?

icruise · Apr 6, 2006, 01:48 AM

From what I read in the Boot Camp documentation, Windows has to be on an internal disk. I'm not sure how it works if you have more than one internal disk.

Liquidity X · Apr 6, 2006, 10:02 AM

i bet we see external support by final release.

harrisjamieh · Apr 6, 2006, 10:16 AM

Originally Posted by OmniX

What if you have say a G5 with >1 internal drives?

Boot Camp will ONLY install on an Intel Mac...

OmniX · Apr 6, 2006, 01:09 PM

Originally Posted by harrisjamieh

Boot Camp will ONLY install on an Intel Mac...

thanks -- very good point, no currently shipping intel macs can have >1 internal hard drive.

a more proper and precise formulation of the question would be can the inevitable intel-mac towers (due sometime over the summer?) boot windows from any internal drive if it has more than one?

another way of putting the question: can modern PC's (e.g. a random Dell or Lenovo box) boot Windows XP off of an external USB or FireWire drive like Macs have always been able to do? Or is there some constraint with respect to their BIOS that precludes this possibility?

If a regular PC box _can_ boot XP off an external drive, it's possible an intel Mac using Boot Camp can do the same. If not, it's still possible that an intel-Mac could boot of external drives (perhaps using some EFI magic), but less likely -- and I barely know anything about how EFI works so can't do anything more than offer uninformed speculation.

latrapeze · Jun 26, 2006, 08:57 AM

Please let us know if it does become possible to boot Windows from an external drive. That development would clear up a lot of problems for my personal configuration.
Thanks.

ghporter · Jun 26, 2006, 09:16 AM

Windows takes over all USB devices as it boots-that means that special precautions have to be taken to make sure that any USB bootable drive gets properly transfered to being under Windows' control. That isn't easy, and it's not supported by Boot Camp. That means "no," by the way.

latrapeze · Jun 26, 2006, 10:20 AM

Firewire?

ghporter · Jun 26, 2006, 07:42 PM

Firewire? Not likely either. And I don't think MS supports booting from firewire at all.

kaido · Jun 28, 2006, 08:36 AM

Sure, but you have to keep a 5 gig NTFS partition on the internal drive:

http://forum.onmac.net/showthread.php?t=1015

ghporter · Jun 28, 2006, 09:36 AM

That 5GB partition holds the boot code, so you're not really "booting" from the external drive, you're just putting some of Windows on it. It's not at all a subtle difference; booting from an external drive would be much easier and use zero native hard drive space.

kaido · Jun 30, 2006, 08:21 PM

Originally Posted by ghporter

That 5GB partition holds the boot code, so you're not really "booting" from the external drive, you're just putting some of Windows on it. It's not at all a subtle difference; booting from an external drive would be much easier and use zero native hard drive space.

Windows is installed onto the USB drive, so the "boot code" for Windows is on the USB drive, not the 5gb partition. 5 gigs is simply the minimum partition you can create in Boot Camp. If you're referring for the "dual-boot" code, I'm not sure where that is. I remember seeing 3 or 4 partitions when I installed Boot Camp on my OS X-only hard drive.

At any rate, another person has found out how to kill the 5 gig partition; the downside is that you don't get any virtual memory in XP, so you'll need at least a gig of ram for this method to be effective:

http://forum.onmac.net/showthread.php?t=1381

ghporter · Jun 30, 2006, 08:52 PM

As the link in the article you linked to says, Microsoft doesn't think XP can boot from a USB device. Part of the reason for this is that Windows takes over USB management from the computer's BIOS (or whatever it's running, like EFI on an Intel Mac) during the boot process, so the connection to the boot drive is interrupted. This can cause disk damage and data loss-not a minor glitch with file dates, but LOSS of critical information which can leave you sitting looking at a blue screen with white text that basically says "Windows is hosed-reinstall."

I'm not saying that the people whose procedures you're citing are wrong. But I certainly wouldn't trust a computer I needed to depend on to their work arounds unless and untill Microsoft supports such a process. Note that there is no reason for MS not to support installing XP on your Mac; you should be able to get plenty of support from them on anything that they feel works.

leoSK · Jul 5, 2006, 01:29 AM

I am trying bto install bootcamp (on a intel imac 20) but am experiencing a problem.
Bootcamp assitent gives a message that the firmware needs to be updated. Both software and firmware updaters however indicate that the system is up to date. anybody a suggestion how to solve this?

leoSK · Jul 5, 2006, 12:39 PM

I am trying bto install bootcamp (on a intel imac 20) but am experiencing a problem.
Bootcamp assitent gives a message that the firmware needs to be updated. Both software and firmware updaters however indicate that the system is up to date. anybody a suggestion how to solve this?