Set the default startup disk You can change the startup disk your Mac automatically uses from System Preferences. From the Apple menu choose System Preferences. Click the Startup Disk icon in System Preferences, or choose View Startup Disk. Select your startup disk from the list of available volumes. The next time you start up or restart your computer, your Mac starts up using the operating system on the selected volume.
Temporarily change your startup disk with Startup Manager Startup Manager allows you to pick a volume to start from while the computer is starting up. Use these steps to choose a startup disk with Startup Manager:. Turn on or restart your Mac. Immediately press and hold the Option key. After a few seconds, the Startup Manager appears. If you don’t see the volume you want to use, wait a few moments for Startup Manager to finish scanning connected drives. Use your mouse or trackpad, or left and right arrow keys to select the volume you want to use.
Dual Booting Mac OS X Yosemite on Windows 10. And a 4 GB USB Flash Drive if needed. If it matters, my PC has an Intel Dual Core processor, 8GB of RAM, and 210GB available on a 1TB hard drive.
Double-click or press the Return key to start up your Mac from the volume you selected. If you have an optical drive connected to your computer, you can insert an installation disc to see it in Startup Manager. You can also attach FireWire or USB external hard drives that contain an operating system to add to the list of startup volumes. Startup Manager automatically adds bootable volumes as you connect them. Restart in OS X from Boot Camp If you have started up your Mac in Windows using Boot Camp, you can use the Boot Camp system tray to switch your startup disk default back to OS X. In Windows, click the Boot Camp icon in the system tray.
From the menu that appears, choose Restart in OS X. Start from OS X Recovery You can also start your Mac from OS X Recovery or Internet Recovery if your Mac was manufactured after 2011. To start your Mac from the Recovery System, use these steps:. Start up or restart your computer. Hold down the Command and R keys on your keyboard until you see the Apple logo appear onscreen. If you don’t see a volume listed If you don’t see the volume you want to start your computer from, check the following:. If you’re using an external drive, make sure it’s connected and turned on.
Make sure you’ve installed an operating system, like OS X or Windows on the drive you’re trying to start from. Volumes that don’t contain a valid operating system aren’t listed in Startup Disk or Startup Manager. If you’ve installed an operating system on a drive but it isn’t listed, the volume you’re trying to start from might need repair. If the volume contains OS X, start your computer from OS X Recovery and use Disk Utility to repair the volume, or reinstall OS X on the volume using the Recovery System. Depending on the Mac you are using and the version of OS X that is installed, the Recovery System volume (Recovery HD) might not show up in Startup Manager.
Press Command-R during startup to start your Mac from the Recovery System. A fully encrypted computer with anonymous browsing, ready to use. Get your privacy back. Post navigation.
Tuesday, May 9th, 2017 Author: Boot Camp and Boot Camp Assistant allow you to. It’s a nice capability that lets you select – at boot time – which operating system you wish to use: macOS or Windows. One of the downsides to Boot Camp and the Windows installer is that it restricts you to installing Windows on your Mac’s internal drive. While Boot Camp Assistant can partition your startup drive for you to make room for Windows, there are bound to be many of you who just don’t have room to spare on your startup drive to install Windows. Installing Windows on an would be a great solution to the problem of available space, but as we said, Boot Camp and Windows impose a restriction on installing to an external drive – or do they? There are actually a few ways you can successfully install Windows on an external drive. They range from creating clones of an existing PC installation or using Microsoft IT tools for installing Windows.
But the method we’re going to outline here is a bit different. It allows you to install Windows on an external drive without first having Windows installed on a PC or in a virtual environment. This is an advanced process with quite a few pitfalls that can trip you up. Be sure to read through the process before undertaking it. Also, make sure you have a before beginning. What You Need.
4 GB or larger. We’re using a USB 3.0 drive, but a Thunderbolt drive should work as well. Boot Camp Windows Support Software.
VirtualBox virtualization app (available for free). A licensed copy of Windows 10 ISO or an install DVD. During the Windows installation, the drivers for Apple wireless keyboards and mice aren’t installed until the very end of the process. If you’re not using a portable Mac with a built-in keyboard and trackpad, you’ll need a wired keyboard and mouse to complete the installation. Prepare the External Drive for Installing Windows The external drive that you’ll install Windows on needs to be prepared by erasing and formatting the drive for use with Windows. Warning: The erase, format, and partitioning process will currently contained on the external drive. 1) Ensure the external drive is connected to your Mac.
2) Launch Disk Utility, located at /Applications/Utilities. 3) In the Disk Utility sidebar, select the external drive that will be used for Windows. The device will likely have the name of the external enclosure’s manufacturer listed. Do not select the volume located just underneath the device name.
4) Click the Erase button in the Disk Utility toolbar. 5) Use the dropdown menu to set the Scheme to “Master Boot Record.” 6) Use the dropdown menu to set the Format to “MS-DOS (FAT).” 7) You can use any name you wish (up to 8 characters), but we suggest naming the external WIN10. 8) Click the Erase button.
The external drive will be formatted and a single MS-DOS (FAT) volume will be created. Prepare the USB Flash Drive for the Windows Support Software The USB flash drive needs to be formatted to accept the Windows software that Boot Camp Assistant will download and install. (The flash drive needs to be formatted for use on Windows.) Warning: The process of preparing the USB flash drive will delete any data contained on the flash drive. 1) Make sure the USB flash drive is connected to your Mac. 2) Launch Disk Utility, located at /Applications/Utilities.
3) In the Disk Utility sidebar, select the USB flash drive device. The device will likely have the name of the USB flash drive manufacturer listed. Do not select the volume located just underneath the device name. 4) Click the Erase button in the Disk Utility toolbar. 5) Use the dropdown menu to set the Scheme to “Master Boot Record.” 6) Use the dropdown menu to set the Format to “MS-DOS (FAT).” 7) You can leave the Name field as is. 8) Click the Erase button.
The USB flash drive will be formatted and a single MS-DOS (FAT) volume will be created. Download Boot Camp Windows Drivers We only need Boot Camp Assistant for its ability to download all of the Windows drivers we’ll need to ensure the install of Windows will run correctly on Mac hardware. We won’t be using Boot Camp Assistant to partition a drive or step us through the install process. (The latest version of the Apple drivers that Boot Camp needs can be downloaded using Boot Camp Assistant.) 1) Launch Boot Camp Assistant, located at /Applications/Utilities. 2) In the Boot Camp Assistant window that opens, click the Continue button. 3) In the Select Tasks window, remove checkmarks from “Create a Windows 7 or later version install disk” and “Install Windows 7 or later version.” Make sure the checkbox labeled “Download the latest Windows support software from Apple” is checked, and then click Continue. 4) Select the device you wish to have the Windows support files installed on; this should be the USB flash drive you prepared earlier.
After making your selection, click Continue. 5) Boot Camp Assistant will download and install the needed Windows support software on the selected device. 6) Once the install is nearly complete, you’ll be asked to provide your administrator password so the Boot Camp Assistant can change the file permissions on the USB flash drive. Provide your administrator password, and click Continue.
The Windows support software has been installed on the USB flash drive. Use VirtualBox to Install Windows on the External Drive This is the tricky part of the process, at least in the sense that we’re going to trick Boot Camp and the Windows installer into thinking your external drive is actually your main internal drive, or in the parlance of Windows, your C: drive. You could perform this tricky bit of virtualization using Parallels or VMware Fusion, but we’re going to use VirtualBox because it’s free. You can download the app from the. Once you download and install VirtualBox, we’re ready to begin the installation process., so go ahead and launch Terminal, located at /Applications/Utilities.
(You can find the external drive by looking for the name, type, or if this is your only external, by the location external, physical). 1) With the external drive that you formatted for installing Windows on connected to your Mac, enter the following Terminal command without the quotation marks: “diskutil list” and then press enter or return. 2) A list of all attached disks will be displayed in Terminal. Scroll through the list and locate the external drive you plan on using to install Windows. If you followed our suggestion earlier, it will be named WIN10, and will be of the type DOSFAT32. 3) Once you locate the external drive, make a note of its Identifier. The Identifier appears in the last column and will have the format of the word “disk” followed by a number.
In our case, the identifier is disk4. 4) Now that we know the disk identifier, we need to eject the disk so it’s no longer connected logically to the Mac (it will still be connected physically). 5) Locate the WIN10 disk on your Desktop or in the Finder window sidebar. 6) Right-click on the WIN10 disk and select Eject from the popup menu. Use VirtualBox to Map the External Drive to a VirtualBox Disk The next step in the process is to map the external drive to a VirtualBox disk. 1) In Terminal, enter the following without the quotation marks: “sudo VBoxManage internalcommands createrawvmdk -filename “bootcamp.vmdk” -rawdisk /dev/disk4″ Note: Be sure to replace /dev/disk4 with the actual disk number you found from the disk identifier, and then press enter or return. 2) At the Terminal prompt, enter your administrator password, and then press enter or return.
The bootcamp.vmdk virtual disk will be created in your home folder. Create a VirtualBox Virtual Machine for Windows We will use VirtualBox to install Windows 10 to our external drive. We can do this because in the previous step, we mapped the external drive to a VirtualBox virtualized disk. (The Windows VM you create uses a virtualized connection to your external drive.) In order for VirtualBox to be able to access the external drive, we need to launch VirtualBox with elevated permissions.
Once again, we turn to Terminal. 1) Enter the following at the Terminal prompt without the quotation marks: “sudo /Applications/VirtualBox.app/Contents/MacOS/VirtualBox” Press enter or return. 2) If asked, supply your administrator password, and then press enter or return. 3) VirtualBox will open.
4) In the VirtualBox window, click on the New button in the toolbar. 5) In the sheet that drops down, enter a Name for the installation; we suggest WIN10. 6) Set the Type to Microsoft Windows.
7) Set the Version to Windows 10 (64-bit). 8) Click the Continue button. 9) Accept the default memory size, and click Continue. 10) In the Hard Disk sheet, select Use an existing virtual hard disk file. 11) Just below the option to use an existing virtual hard disk file is a dropdown menu for selecting a file to use. You may notice the menu is empty or does not contain the virtual disk file we created earlier.
Click the folder icon just to the right of the dropdown menu. This will allow you to browse to the bootcamp.vmdk file, which is located in your home folder. Select the bootcamp.vmdk file, click the Open button and then click the Create button. 12) VirtualBox has created a virtual environment for us to install Windows 10 in that will actually perform the install on the external drive.
The next step is to mount the Windows 10 ISO you downloaded earlier from Microsoft. 13) In VirtualBox, select the Windows 10 virtual machine, and then locate the Optical Drive.
This is usually located in the Storage section of the virtual machine. Click the Optical Drive item and select Choose Disk Image. 14) Browse to where you downloaded the Windows 10 ISO. 15) Select the Windows 10 ISO, then click open. Install Windows on Your External Drive Via VirtualBox 1) Start the installation process by clicking the Start button in the VirtualBox toolbox. 2) The Windows 10 installation will start. Follow the onscreen instructions until you come to the Windows Setup screen with the heading “Which type of installation do you want?” 3) Select the “Custom: Install Windows only (advanced)” option.
4) The Windows setup will display the currently available drives and partitions that Windows can be installed on. Because the external hard drive has been assigned to the VirtualBox machine, it is the only drive that will be listed. 5) When we used Disk Utility to format the drive, we chose MS-DOS (FAT), which is incompatible with Windows 10. We did this because Disk Utility can’t format with NTSF, but the Windows installer would recognize MS-DOS. All we need to do now is change the drive’s format to NTSF. 6) Select the drive, and then click the Format button.
7) Wait until the format is complete (the Next button will become available), and then click Next. 8) The Windows installation will start, with files being copied to the external drive. Warning: Extremely important step follows. 9) When you see the message “Windows needs to restart” immediately shut down the virtual machine by clicking on the red close button on the window. Select “Power off the machine” from the list of options, and then click OK to power off the virtual machine. (Windows Setup will install the needed files to your external drive.
Be sure to prevent Windows Setup from automatically restarting.) At this point, the Windows installer has copied all the files to the external drive, and has set up a boot environment that you can start your Mac from. Next time you boot from the external drive, Windows will complete the installation process. Restart Your Mac With the External Windows Drive 1) Close any apps you may have open, then restart your Mac. 2) Hold down the Option key during the restart.
This will cause the Mac’s Startup Manager to display a list of drives you can start from. Use the arrow keys on your keyboard to select the Windows drive. 3) Your Mac will boot from the external Windows drive.
The bootup process can take a while, so be patient. 4) Windows will finish the install process. At some point during the installation, Windows will restart your Mac. When it does, your Mac will restart with the normal Mac OS. You need to be present to hold down the Option key and select Windows to start from. 5) Windows will finish the installation and present you with the Windows desktop.
Getting Apple Hardware Working Under Windows The USB flash drive you used earlier to make the Windows Support software contains all the drivers you need to install in Windows for the Apple hardware to work. (To complete the Windows installation, run the Boot Camp Setup app to install the needed Apple drivers.) 1) Make sure the USB flash drive is connected to your Mac. 2) Click on the Windows Start button and select File Explorer.
3) In the File Explorer sidebar, select the USB flash drive, it will probably have a D or E drive letter assigned to it. 4) Open the Boot Camp folder 5) Run the Setup app inside the Boot Camp folder. 6) Follow the onscreen instructions to install the Boot Camp drivers. Once the installation completes, all your Apple hardware, including wireless keyboards and mice, should be working. I am able to install the windows files onto the external HDD, however, when I try to boot from the drive (after shutting VirtualBox down before Windows is able to restart), I get a blue screen of death every time Windows tries to load, which then makes my computer restart. I’ve tried loading in safe mode, but same problems happens after loading “core files.” I wiped the external HDD and started over with the same outcome.
Not sure what is wrong?? Any ideas or help? I’m using a seagate 1TB external HDD. Thanks for the great step-by-step. I got this done and it totally works on my WD My Passport Ultra external drive!!
I’ve gotta say that I got a bit bogged down in the Create a VirtualBox Virtual Machine for Windows section. I had to eject the external drive (remain plugged in) and eject and actually unplug the external drive a bunch of times until I was able create the virtual environment using the bootcamp.vmdk file. In other words, it took several of tries to make the bootcamp.vmdk file populate in the Storage panel in the Virtual Box Manager.
I honestly can’t remember if it the external drive was ejected+plugged in or ejected+unplugged when I was successful. I don’t know if this was operator error or just something quirky.
From then on it was clear sailing. Be sure to heed Tom’s advice on the “Windows needs to restart” bit. This is so cool—a way more functional Windows10 on my Macbook Pro than Parallels was.
Thanks to Tom and Good Luck! Thank you for this awesome tutorial. Also thanks to the comments for the additions. I tried it, but unfortunately, whenever I try to start the virtual machine, I get the following error: 0x80004005 VD: error VERRRESOURCEBUSY opening image file ‘/Users/daniel/bootcamp.vmdk’ (VERRRESOURCEBUSY). Failed to open image ‘/Users/daniel/bootcamp.vmdk’ in read-write mode (VERRRESOURCEBUSY). AHCI: Failed to attach drive to Port0 (VERRRESOURCEBUSY).
I tried Vince S’ tip and ran “sudo chown MYUSERNAME:staff /dev/disk#”, of course with my username and the right disk identifier. Still, I get the same message every time. I also went to my home folder and in the info panel of my vdmk-file set “everyone” to read and write. What am I doing wrong? I would really appreciate help.
Have a good day @ all! I have an issue here. I accidentally downloaded the WINDOWS SUPPORT to my desktop and NOT my USB. So, the authentication and verr access wasn’t properly done on the USB. This is my fault. But, how do I fix it?
I went through all the steps, regardless (now I realize, I had done something possibly wrong.) This is the error I get when I add the Windows ISO to the virtual disk and I click Start: VD: error VERRNOTSUPPORTED opening image file ‘/Users/milespauling/bootcamp.vmdk’ (VERRNOTSUPPORTED). VD: error VERRACCESSDENIED opening image file ‘/Users/milespauling/bootcamp.vmdk’ (VERRACCESSDENIED). Failed to open image ‘/Users/milespauling/bootcamp.vmdk’ in read-write mode (VERRACCESSDENIED). AHCI: Failed to attach drive to Port0 (VERRACCESSDENIED).
Is there any terminal commands I can apply quickly to be on my way? I’ve followed every step and it works for me. But with the following additional steps: 1. Before going to Terminal and map the external drive to the VirtualBox drive, EJECT the external drive first.
Or you might have problems creating the bootcamp.vmdk file. Sudo VBoxManage internalcommands createrawvmdk -filename “bootcamp.vmdk” -rawdisk /dev/disk4 I typed the above command with quotation marks around bootcamp.vmdk. EJECT the external drive again prior to entering the subsequent terminal command to launch VirtualBox. Else you might get an access denied error. After creating a new VirtualBox drive pointing to the ISO, ensure you enable EFI (for special OSes) for this virtual drive. After starting the virtual drive, and in the Windows installation screen where you select the drive to install – DELETE the external hard disk (as it was previously set to MBR if you followed the instructions).
After that, format the drive and Windows will create a GUID partition automatically for EFI. Then proceed with the installation. It should work now if you continue following the steps in the article. Here’s what worked and didn’t work for me. I followed the steps up to restarting my mac except: 1. I removed the quotation mark from this line of code: sudo VBoxManage internalcommands createrawvmdk -filename “bootcamp.vmdk” -rawdisk /dev/disk4 (thanks to the comments for this tip). I checked the box “Use Host I/O Cache” in VirtualBox.
(Thanks to the comments for this tip also). When I formatted my external drive to NTFS before doing all of the steps, when I got to installing Windows, the installer couldn’t find my drive. When I formatted my external drive to MS-DOS (FAT) the Windows installer didn’t give me an option to format the drive but it still installed. When I restarted my mac with option pressed down my external drive showed up but when I entered I just got a black screen with a blinking underscore. Someone also commented that “Enable EFI (special OSes only) should be checked. I tried this but made no difference. Thanks everyone for the tips, but unfortunately I couldn’t get it to work.
Is there something I’ve missed? Tom, Why don’t you just correct the few mistakes in this guide? Like “bootcamp.vmdk”.
And I would add, that you have to eject the WIN10 drive all the time. Next time, I’d also use chronological numbering in the steps, so it would be easier to point to them. (Now you have 9 different “step 3” ‘s in the mix Nevertheless, this is the best guide in the web, rufus or wintousb guides didn’t work for me. And I don’t like to install trialware (9to5’s article used vmware/parallels, maybe because they have bought it?).
Hi, I’m amazed that the comments on this are still so recent – would be amazing if someone can give me a helping hand with this. I’m trying to get Win7 working from an external FireWire drive (Macbook pro mid 2009, OSX El Capitan). I’ve tried the tutorials here as well as the two below; the installation seems smooth either way and mac recognizes the external hard drive as windows drive after restart (holding option key).
But after selecting the windows option, I end up with a “No bootable device – insert boot disk” error 1. (I’ve adapted the Disk and partition IDs to match my system) Would be fantastic if someone has experience with this and could give me a hint! I tried doing this but it isn’t working, then I had to fix my partition schemes. Now I get this error VBoxManage: error: VMDK: could not create new file ‘“bootcamp.vmdk”’ VBoxManage: error: Error code VERRALREADYEXISTS at /Users/vbox/tinderbox/5.2-mac-rel/src/VBox/Storage/VMDK.cpp(3392) in function int vmdkCreateRawImage(PVMDKIMAGE, const PVDISKRAW, uint64t) VBoxManage: error: Cannot create the raw disk VMDK: VERRALREADYEXISTS VBoxManage: error: The raw disk vmdk file was not created How do I delete this and start over? Hello Joseph, I just fixed this issue after a bit of tinkering. You need to assign your user ownership of the external disk. This can be done using this command: sudo chown MYUSERNAME:staff /dev/disk# (Fill in your username and disk number) Once you have done this run this command (do not run as sudo): VBoxManage internalcommands createrawvmdk -filename bootcamp.vmdk -rawdisk /dev/disk# (replace the # with your disk number) After this make sure the external drive is unmounted from MacOS and you will be able to add it to the Virtual Machine.
Hope this helps! This is the error message I got: Last login: Sat Jul 21 10:05:56 on ttys000 Johns-MacBook-Pro: johnscardina49$ sudo VBoxManage internalcommands createrawvmdk -filename bootcamp.vmdk -rawdisk /dev/disk4 Password: RAW host disk access VMDK file bootcamp.vmdk created successfully. Johns-MacBook-Pro: johnscardina49$ sudo /Applications/VirtualBox.app/Contents/MacOS/VirtualBox objc2318: Class FIFinderSyncExtensionHost is implemented in both /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/FinderKit.framework/Versions/A/FinderKit (0x7fff96ea28b8) and /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/FileProvider.framework/OverrideBundles/FinderSyncCollaborationFileProviderOverride.bundle/Contents/MacOS/FinderSyncCollaborationFileProviderOverride (0x1138e9dc0).
One of the two will be used. Which one is undefined. Objc2318: weak variable at 0x7fe82ac4a4a0 holds 0x000000 instead of 0x7fe82ad656e0. This is probably incorrect use of objcstoreWeak and objcloadWeak.
Break on objcweakerror to debug. Objc2318: weak variable at 0x7fe82ac2de70 holds 0x5e9 instead of 0x7fe82ad656e0. This is probably incorrect use of objcstoreWeak and objcloadWeak. Break on objcweakerror to debug. The comments & follow-ups on this article have been extremely useful for me to chip away at a few issues I was having in trying to install Win 8.1 onto a USB 3 external drive I’ve now got to the stage where I can dual-boot (N.B. At startup only ie still get bless tool error when chosing the folder in Start Up manager within System Preferences!) to a Samsung T5 from my MacBook Pro (15-inch, 2017) to finalise the install however I immediately get a BSOD stating:- Your PC needs to be repaired The Boot Configuration Data file is missing some required information File: BCD Error code: Oxc0000034 Any ideas or pointers, anyone? Have finally been able to install win 10 pro.
This is difficult for novices. Above mentioned steps will work well with moderate users. A video tutorial or snaps alongwith steps will be very much helpful. I found trouble in following areas: Couldn’t locate the ‘home folder, initially. On mac, go to users and the folder (probably computer name in windows) is your home folder. Will be displayed as home icon.
There is an error in the code where you have to create bootcamp.vmdk through terminal. Please ensure that you don’t use quotation marks in the code.
If you have anyway, then go to home folder and remove the quotation marks by (rename the file). Couldn’t get the installation started in vm right away, it gave some error ‘FATAL: No bootable medium found! System halted’.
Go to storage, remove any ’empty disks attached to any sata port and ensure that there are only two, one is bootcamp.vmdk and other is your iso file. First one is at SATA 0 and other is at SATA 1 (if you don’t have any more drives). Then go to system and change the boot order by prioritising optical disk over floppy or hard disk. Trackpad and bluetooth are still not working. Track pad doesn’t click or right click and unable to pair Logitech mouse through blue tooth.
Will update as soon as I find solution to this. This helped me. Regarding trackpad not working(soft click), its some sort of problem with windows 10 user accounts. Go to user accounts, create another account (administrator), log off from your default administrator account, log in to your newly created administrator account, go to user accounts and change the default account from administrator to standard. Now log in to your default (now standard account) and bootcamp control panel in the task bar should work fine. After the trackpad, you can again change account to administrator, if needed. Recent Posts.
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