Jun 22, 2013 This option on boot trick works for quite literally any boot volume, whether it’s an external USB drive of any sort, a Thunderbolt hard drive, boot DVD, CD, the Recovery partition, even in dual-boot environments with other versions of OS X, or a Linux or a Windows partition with Boot Camp, if it’s bootable and connected to the Mac.
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- Bootcamp Mac External Drive
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Mar 20, 2019 One such situation is when wanting to run Windows 10 natively on your Mac (in my case my Mac mini). The 'normal' method would be to use Boot Camp to repartition your internal hard drive. Dec 29, 2018 Choose “GUID Partition Map” from the Scheme drop-down. GUID Partition Map is used by Intel-based Mac computers and will make sure the drive is recognized and able to boot up. When setting rawdisk flag for VBoxManage internalcommands createrawvmdk command: make sure to use the main identifier of the disk.
By default, your Mac starts up from its built-in hard disk, but a startup disk can be any storage device that contains an operating system compatible with your Mac. For example, if you install macOS on an internal or external drive, your Mac can recognise that drive as a startup disk. You can then follow the steps in this article to start up from it.
Use Startup Disk preferences
When you use Startup Disk preferences to select a startup disk, your Mac starts up from that disk until you choose a different one.
- Choose Apple menu > System Preferences, and then click Startup Disk.
- Click the lock and enter your administrator password.
- Select your startup disk, and then restart your Mac.
If you see a message that your security settings do not allow this Mac to use an external startup disk, check the External Boot setting in Startup Security Utility.
Use Startup Manager
When you use Startup Manager to select a startup disk, your Mac starts up from that disk once, then returns to using the disk selected in Startup Disk preferences.
- Press and hold the Option (Alt) key immediately after turning on or restarting your Mac.
- Release the Option key when you see the Startup Manager window.
If your Mac is protected by a firmware password, you can release the key when you're asked to enter the password. - Select your startup disk, then click the arrow under its icon, or press Return.
If you press and hold the Control key during this step, your selection will be saved in Startup Disk preferences, so it will persist until you change it.
If your Mac is using OS X Lion 10.7.3 or later, you can also use this method to start up from your Time Machine backup disk. Startup Manager identifies your Time Machine backup as ”EFI Boot”.
If you can't select your startup disk or start up from it
Check for these possibilities if you can't see your disk in Startup Disk preferences or Startup Manager, or your Mac won't start up from it.
Check for a compatible operating system on the startup disk
Make sure your startup disk is using a version of macOS that is compatible with your Mac.
To start up from an external disk with macOS Catalina 10.15 or later, the disk must be connected via USB-A, USB-C or Thunderbolt, not FireWire.
Check startup security settings
If you're using a Mac that has the Apple T2 Security Chip, check the settings in Startup Security Utility. These settings determine whether your Mac can start up from another disk.
Check for Option ROM firmware
If you're in Startup Manager and can't see a third-party startup disk, the startup disk could be using Option ROM firmware. To enhance system security, Mac computers with up-to-date software don’t display devices that use Option ROM firmware until you load their firmware. To do that, press Option-Shift-Command-Period while in Startup Manager. If your startup disk appears, do that each time you want to start up from it or from another disk connected to it.
If you're using a firmware password, the ability to load Option ROM firmware is disabled as an additional security protection.
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Boot Camp Assistant User Guide
You need an external USB drive to install Windows on older Mac computers. To find out whether you have a Mac that requires an external USB drive, see the “Learn more” section in the Apple Support article Install Windows 10 on your Mac with Boot Camp Assistant. If your Mac is a newer model that doesn’t require a USB drive, follow the instructions in Install Windows on your newer Mac using Boot Camp instead.
What you need
- The keyboard and mouse or trackpad that came with your Mac. (If they aren’t available, use a USB keyboard and mouse.)
- A blank 16 GB or larger external USB 2 flash drive, formatted as MS-DOS (FAT).To format an external USB drive as MS-DOS (FAT), use Disk Utility, located in /Applications/Utilities. In Disk Utility, choose View > All Devices, select the USB drive in the sidebar, then click Erase in the toolbar. In the dialog, enter a name for the drive, choose MS-DOS (FAT) from the Format pop-up menu, choose Master Boot Record from the Scheme pop-up menu, then click Erase.
- A full-installation, 64-bit version of Windows 10 on a disk image (ISO file) or other installation media.You can download a Windows 10 Disc Image (ISO File) from Microsoft.
- Sufficient free storage space on your startup drive. For information about the amount of free space needed, see the Apple Support Article Install Windows 10 on your Mac with Boot Camp Assistant.
Before you begin
Before you install Windows, make sure you back up important files.
Mac Bootcamp From External Hard Drive
You can use Time Machine or any other method to back up your files. For information about backing up files, see Back up your files with Time Machine and Ways to back up or protect your files.
Perform the installation
Do the following steps in order.
Step 1: Check for software updates
Before you install Windows, install all macOS updates.
- On your Mac, log in as an administrator, quit all open apps, then log out any other users.
- Choose Apple menu > System Preferences, click Software Update, then install all available updates.If your Mac restarts after installing an update, open Software Update again to install any additional updates.
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Step 2: Prepare your Mac for Windows
Bootcamp Mac External Drive
Boot Camp Assistant prepares your Mac by creating a new partition for Windows named BOOTCAMP and downloading the Boot Camp support software.
Important: If you’re using a portable Mac, connect it to a power source before continuing.
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- Connect an external USB drive or insert a flash drive into the USB port on your Mac; keep it connected or inserted while you install Windows and the Windows support software.
- On your Mac, open Boot Camp Assistant , located in /Applications/Utilities.
- At the introduction screen, click Continue.The system is checked for total available disk space. Older Time Machine snapshots and cached iCloud files are removed to make space for Boot Camp. This process may take a long time to complete (you can click the Stop button to skip this process).
- At the Select Tasks step, select all the tasks, then click Continue.
- At the Create Bootable USB Drive for Windows Installation step, choose the Windows ISO image and the USB drive, then click Continue.The Windows files are copied to the USB drive. This process may take a long time to complete (you can click the Stop button to interrupt this process).
- At the Create a Partition for Windows step, specify a partition size by dragging the divider between the macOS and Windows partitions. If you have multiple internal hard drives, you can select a different hard drive from the one running macOS and create a single partition on that drive to use solely for Windows.
- Click Install.
When this step is complete, the Windows installer starts.
Step 3: Install Windows
- In the Windows installer, follow the onscreen instructions.
- When you’re asked where to install Windows, select the BOOTCAMP partition (you may need to scroll through the list of partitions to see it), then click Next.WARNING: Do not create or delete a partition, or select any other partition. Doing so may delete the entire contents of your macOS partition.
- Continue following the onscreen instructions to finish installing Windows.After you install the Windows software, your Mac automatically restarts using Windows.
- Follow the onscreen instructions to set up Windows.
Step 4: Install Boot Camp on Windows
After installing Windows, Boot Camp drivers that support your Mac hardware start installing.
Note: If the support software doesn’t install automatically, you need to install it manually. For instructions, see the Apple Support article If the Boot Camp installer doesn't open after using Boot Camp Assistant.
- In the Boot Camp installer in Windows, follow the onscreen instructions.Important: Do not click the Cancel button in any of the installer dialogs.If a message appears that says the software you’re installing has not passed Windows Logo testing, click Continue Anyway.You don’t need to respond to installer dialogs that appear only briefly during installation, but if a dialog asks you to install device software, click Install.If nothing appears to be happening, there may be a hidden window that you must respond to. Look behind open windows.
- When the installation is complete, click Finish, then click Yes to restart your Mac.
- After your Mac restarts, follow the instructions for any other installers that appear.
See alsoGet started with Boot Camp on MacTroubleshoot Boot Camp Assistant problems on MacApple Support website: Boot Camp Support