1

I'm interested in buying the new 2011 Mac Mini. I want it because of the hardware. I can't seems to find a comparable PC that is as fast, small and quiet. I don't care for Mac OS X at all.

Is it possible to install Windows 7 Ultimate on the mac on a fresh empty hdd from a usb drive?

Can the mac boot from an external USB HDD that has Windows already installed on it?

nhinkle
  • 37,198
  • 36
  • 140
  • 177
tjipz8
  • 11
  • 1
  • 2
  • I've been googling and so far I can't find instruction to install windows without boot camp. As far as I know mac doesn't have BIOS like the one on pc. – tjipz8 Aug 05 '11 at 03:34
  • Doh! Macs use EFI, but don't implement the right bits that Windows 7 requires for booting. – afrazier Aug 05 '11 at 03:59
  • possible duplicate of [Installing Windows 7 (64 bit) on a Mac Pro without Boot Camp?](http://superuser.com/questions/64842/installing-windows-7-64-bit-on-a-mac-pro-without-boot-camp) – afrazier Aug 05 '11 at 03:59
  • yeah but it doesn't really answer my question. The vista instruction require cd/dvd to install windows, how about usb drives? since the mini doesn't have cd/dvd drives and I don't want to buy external drives just to install windows. – tjipz8 Aug 05 '11 at 04:16
  • Why? I seriously can't think of any reason why you'd rather use windows! – Rich Bradshaw Aug 05 '11 at 07:34
  • What makes the USB drive significantly different than an optical? You're talking about the same boot code in either case. [This answer](http://superuser.com/questions/64842/installing-windows-7-64-bit-on-a-mac-pro-without-boot-camp/218177#218177) indicates that Windows 7 may "just boot" on a new Mac. – afrazier Aug 05 '11 at 14:57

1 Answers1

1

You'll need a new boot loader in that case. And it looks like you'll need to convert the drive to GPT unless you install a custom bootloader like GRUB.

slhck
  • 223,558
  • 70
  • 607
  • 592
surfasb
  • 22,452
  • 5
  • 52
  • 77
  • the instruction require disc – tjipz8 Aug 05 '11 at 04:45
  • can anybody confirm this will work on mac, since as far as i know mac efi implementation is a bit different – tjipz8 Aug 05 '11 at 06:14
  • You only have to boot it past the boot manager. In a sense, your current bootloader won't boot up in EFI. But the Windows 7 efi bootloader won't boot Mac OSX. So you'll need to either A) get a custom bootloader or B) replace the Windows 7 bootloader with the EFI version and then add an entry to the Mac OS X bootloader to point to that bootloader. – surfasb Aug 05 '11 at 06:29
  • I think there is misunderstanding here, the hdd will be fresh empty. Is the mac bios/efi able to boot my windows 7 installation usb flash drives ? – tjipz8 Aug 05 '11 at 13:23
  • You posted that the External already has Win 7 installed. Yes, the OSX is capable of booting the Win7 boot loader. – surfasb Aug 05 '11 at 15:43