Boot Window 7 on external hard drive from Mac (host)

Smiley_lauf

Smiley_lauf

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Mac Users--tell me something.
I want to know if it is possible to
(1) Install Windows 7, not as bootcamp paritition on a Mac HDD, but install it on an external USB hard drive
(2) then instruct machine with Mac to boot off this external drive with Windows on it

Is it doable? if so it will solve my problem. I want to get a MacBook Air with the small SSD, but i have an absolute need for Windows because (only 1 program) I use for data analysis (stats) is in windows only. So when I want to use windows I would just boot into this external drive and use the stats app.
Crazy, huh?
 
*Not a frequent mac user*

Why not just use Virtualbox with a Win7 VM you can start up and run the app from inside Mac OS. Same cost as your idea ( cheaper even,no external needed,Virtualbox is freeware )
 
Gambit said:
I would rather use a virtual machine. Dual booting becomes a pain in the ass very quickly. I use vmware fusion and can highly recommend it.
Click to expand...
I agree; previously used vmware, now onto parallels (re it was cheaper to buy parallels then to upgrade to the latest fusion i.e. they like to rip off their existing customers)
The only exception is for gamers.
 
Aaargh! I started replying then closed the wrong window

Linky

I will try this approach over the weekend and let you know if it works
 
Virtual machine/Parallels is an option--but it will use up my valuable OEM Mac HDD space. I want to keep it on another drive so I can just use Mac OS X and its documents on the Air (note limited space on SSD).

I am happy to use XP on the external drive--[)roi(] can u show me how to?
 
I've booted VMs from external USB drives,it's not a problem if you absolutely must use external
 
Tried and failed. It is possible, of course, for the VM disk image to be anywhere, including an external. But I could not get the Ext to be the VM disk.

My advice would be (depending on the size of your stats software) to secure flash or sd 16GB and use that as the ext storage for your VM, using either VirtualBox or the commercial alternatives. You will maintain the portability and not sacrifice too much by virtue of HD space. VMWare and VirtualBox are around 200MB installed (iirc on VM).
 
GreGorGy said:
Tried and failed. It is possible, of course, for the VM disk image to be anywhere, including an external. But I could not get the Ext to be the VM disk.
Click to expand...

This is a painful thing to do,but doable,requires bridging the USB devices and removing other Virtual drives. Far easier to store a VHD on the external and running it from there ( not much of a difference IMO,just can't access the VM's "drive" files from outside the VM without using file sharing )
 
Gambit said:
I would rather use a virtual machine. Dual booting becomes a pain in the ass very quickly.
Click to expand...
I'm pretty happy with the BootCamp arrangement.

For me the most constrained resource on my Air is RAM, and I'd rather give each OS (Lion/Win7 64) full access to the the available 4GB. Anyway OS switching is pretty swift on the Air's SSD.
 
Why exactly do you feel you need Windows? No, I am not trolling. Time was when Macs did not have a lot of software available. But those days are far behind us. Tell us what Windows software you need to run and we'll see if we can suggest Mac equivalents.

If you are a gamer, then just buy a second computer, serious gaming on an Air is not recommended. But productivity software is pretty much covered these days. Unless you are running some weird in-house application never seen outside your company, we should be able to point you in the right direction.
 
@clasqm:
Tell us what Windows software you need to run and we'll see if we can suggest Mac equivalents.
Click to expand...

Well, I am aware that Mac can do almost all that Windows can do or even better (I am talking office productivity mainly and I am not talking about gaming); The stats app I am talking about is SAS (www.sas.com).
Mac OS had a Mac version of SAS sometime in early 2000??, but discontinued it. I am aware of alternatives, but as with many apps, we all have our preferences (because it improves productivity). I have worked with other apps that have Mac versions, but they do not come close to SAS wrt data handling and manipulation.
 
clasqm said:
Why exactly do you feel you need Windows?
Click to expand...
For me its a bit more subtle than you make out. Its not that the apps aren't available, its that they often don't match up to their Windows counterparts (which I'm used to).

Top of my list is Microsoft Office (specifically Outlook). Office for Mac 2011 is not bad, but many little features are missing in the core apps, the most serious one for me is the inability to completely customize the ribbons. The whole Office interface paradigm is built on the ability to have all your commonly used functions one icon click away on the ribbon, but without full customization this is not possible. Add to this the unavailability of the extended Office apps such as MS Project and Visio (which I use a lot).

These quirks also extend to other apps. I use Evernote lot and in Windows I just double click the elephant icon in the task bar to bring it up. Double clicking it in the menu bar on Lion does zip, you have to access the drop down menu and select Find in Evernote. This may seem trivial, but these little irritating differences (there are many others) are what keeps me in Windows.

BTW Win7 64 runs like a dream on my new 2nd gen 13" Air, I must commend Apple for the driver pack they've provided with BootCamp.
 
Roman4604 said:
Top of my list is Microsoft Office (specifically Outlook). Office for Mac 2011 is not bad, but many little features are missing in the core apps, the most serious one for me is the inability to completely customize the ribbons. The whole Office interface paradigm is built on the ability to have all your commonly used functions one icon click away on the ribbon, but without full customization this is not possible. Add to this the unavailability of the extended Office apps such as MS Project and Visio (which I use a lot).
Click to expand...

Each to his own. I prefer the Mac version of Office for one simple reason: It hasn't lost the menu, so I can ignore the ribbon most of the time. When I have to work on the windows box at work I spend hours looking for the simplest functions in that damn ribbon. Mind you, I prefer iWorks to Office ...

Roman4604 said:
These quirks also extend to other apps. I use Evernote lot and in Windows I just double click the elephant icon in the task bar to bring it up. Double clicking it in the menu bar on Lion does zip, you have to access the drop down menu and select Find in Evernote. This may seem trivial, but these little irritating differences (there are many others) are what keeps me in Windows.
Click to expand...
Anything I use a lot I set up to autoload in hidden mode on bootup. Then it is just a Command-Tab or a click on the dock icon away. But I understand. Changing one's personal workflow is irritating.
 
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