Archive for February 2009
Install Windows on Boot Camp Using External USB Optical Drive
Well over a year ago the SuperDrive in my MacBook Pro failed. No biggie, I rarely use an optical drive. But when I installed a new 300GB drive in my MacBook Pro and needed to install Windows on Boot Camp I ran into a problem. My Mac OS 10.5 Leopard wouldn’t recognize the external optical drive I’d bought (an LG slim drive). It worked fine with the Mac OS 10.5 install discs, but would not allow a boot to the Windows Vista DVD from the Boot Menu (what you get when you hold down the ALT key during power up).
The solution, I discovered after months of posting across various Mac forums, is to use rEFIt (http://refit.sourceforge.net/). Install rEFIt, then be sure to restart your MacBook Pro TWICE (via the Mac OS X restart function). On the second restart the eEFIt menu will appear and, provided your external USB optical drive is connected with the Windows bootable install disc, you can now choose to boot from the Windows install disc and install to the Boot Camp partition you should have already created.
I’m running Windows 7 on my MacBook Pro now and the install, using the above procedure, worked perfectly.
