How can I install Window 7 on a Mac that has no optical drive?
August 8, 2013 6:16 AM Subscribe
My goal is to install Windows 7 on a Retina MacBook Pro via Boot Camp. I have an official Microsoft Windows 7 installer DVD (OEM version) that I bought from Amazon. However, the laptop doesn't have an optical drive! How can I get Windows 7 onto there?
I've discovered YouTube videos such as this one which show you how to do it using an external optical drive. I could go that route, but I'd rather not buy an external drive I'll probably only use once.
I have another Mac that does have an optical drive and I have a 1 TB external USB hard drive. Could I use that to get the contents of the installer DVD onto the external HD and somehow install from there? If so, how would I go about it?
Any any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.
I've discovered YouTube videos such as this one which show you how to do it using an external optical drive. I could go that route, but I'd rather not buy an external drive I'll probably only use once.
I have another Mac that does have an optical drive and I have a 1 TB external USB hard drive. Could I use that to get the contents of the installer DVD onto the external HD and somehow install from there? If so, how would I go about it?
Any any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.
You can apparently mount disk images using the OS X Disk Utility too (saves a step)
posted by pipeski at 6:21 AM on August 8, 2013
posted by pipeski at 6:21 AM on August 8, 2013
You should be able to use a USB stick, I just did so using Windows 8. You will have to copy the contents of the DVD to it. I'm not sure if a file copy will work or if you'll need to rip an ISO and burn it to the USB disk.
This discussion may help, and the Bootcamp docs are good.
posted by beowulf573 at 6:26 AM on August 8, 2013 [1 favorite]
This discussion may help, and the Bootcamp docs are good.
posted by beowulf573 at 6:26 AM on August 8, 2013 [1 favorite]
Best answer: OSX allows drive sharing from another computer on the same network. Go to system preferences, sharing, and enable dvd/cd sharing. You should then be able to access that drive from the finder window. Will that work?
posted by HuronBob at 6:42 AM on August 8, 2013
posted by HuronBob at 6:42 AM on August 8, 2013
Best answer: Yes, HuronBob is correct.
Connect both laptops to the same network, turn on DVD/CD sharing on the laptop with the optical drive, then install on the Mac Book Pro.
One thing to be aware of is that Boot Camp is...tempermental. You may have better luck running Windows 7 in a virtual machine via Parallels. I do that on a Mac Book Pro Retina and it works flawlessly.
posted by dfriedman at 6:55 AM on August 8, 2013
Connect both laptops to the same network, turn on DVD/CD sharing on the laptop with the optical drive, then install on the Mac Book Pro.
One thing to be aware of is that Boot Camp is...tempermental. You may have better luck running Windows 7 in a virtual machine via Parallels. I do that on a Mac Book Pro Retina and it works flawlessly.
posted by dfriedman at 6:55 AM on August 8, 2013
Best answer: I think you're making this a lot harder than it needs to be. It seems like this should work:
(1) Download the iso of the appropriate version of Windows7 from digitalriver; if you hit the nets you should be able to find direct download links. This is real and not warez.
(2) Run boot camp assistant. Use the product key from your Win7 disk when prompted.
(3) There is no (3).
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 6:56 AM on August 8, 2013 [2 favorites]
(1) Download the iso of the appropriate version of Windows7 from digitalriver; if you hit the nets you should be able to find direct download links. This is real and not warez.
(2) Run boot camp assistant. Use the product key from your Win7 disk when prompted.
(3) There is no (3).
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 6:56 AM on August 8, 2013 [2 favorites]
Best answer: Yeah, I did this by following ROU_Xenophobe's method. I used a USB drive.
The only complication I experienced was that one point, the Windows installer did not recognize the USB drive (I think this is because of something about USB 2.0 vs. USB 3.0, but don't quote me on that). The way to solve this, as weird as it sounds, was to physically remove the USB drive from the computer and plug it into a different USB port. (If you google around, you will see that other people had this problem and used the same solution.)
Other than that, everything went smoothly, and Boot Camp now runs really well on my computer.
posted by Carmelita Spats at 7:53 AM on August 8, 2013
The only complication I experienced was that one point, the Windows installer did not recognize the USB drive (I think this is because of something about USB 2.0 vs. USB 3.0, but don't quote me on that). The way to solve this, as weird as it sounds, was to physically remove the USB drive from the computer and plug it into a different USB port. (If you google around, you will see that other people had this problem and used the same solution.)
Other than that, everything went smoothly, and Boot Camp now runs really well on my computer.
posted by Carmelita Spats at 7:53 AM on August 8, 2013
I happened to have an external DVD drive lying about when I had to install a program on my wife's Macbook Air. See if any friends have an old one.
posted by kuanes at 9:34 AM on August 8, 2013
posted by kuanes at 9:34 AM on August 8, 2013
Best answer: Seconding ROU_Xenophobe's method.
The digitalriver downloads are legit as long as you have an OEM license and then it's just a matter of either mounting the image in Disk Utility or just pointing Boot Camp to the .iso and installing.
I went with Parallels instead of Boot Camp so I'm not sure if Boot Camp can deal with an .iso directly or if you need to mount it.
posted by Gev at 9:36 AM on August 8, 2013
The digitalriver downloads are legit as long as you have an OEM license and then it's just a matter of either mounting the image in Disk Utility or just pointing Boot Camp to the .iso and installing.
I went with Parallels instead of Boot Camp so I'm not sure if Boot Camp can deal with an .iso directly or if you need to mount it.
posted by Gev at 9:36 AM on August 8, 2013
I'm going to pile on to this question, since people here sound like they know what they're talking about: Will OSX Disk Utility cope with a raw ISO sitting on a USB drive, or will trevor_case have to expand the ISO contents onto the drive?
I discovered the hard way the unpleasant fact that ISO is an image format only for optical media, and most drives can't be coerced into imitating optical drives in order to satisfy any software that processes ISOs, either reading or writing, and most software that reads/writes/makes ISOs will not deal with flash media.
posted by Sunburnt at 10:00 AM on August 8, 2013
I discovered the hard way the unpleasant fact that ISO is an image format only for optical media, and most drives can't be coerced into imitating optical drives in order to satisfy any software that processes ISOs, either reading or writing, and most software that reads/writes/makes ISOs will not deal with flash media.
posted by Sunburnt at 10:00 AM on August 8, 2013
Best answer: I have a retina Macbook Pro and run both Parallels and Boot Camp. What Windows programs do you need to run? My experience has been that Parallels is much, much more convenient than Boot Camp -- I really only use Boot Camp for gaming.
I installed Windows using a USB thumbdrive and .iso (although I used a copy from my university, not the digitalriver ones suggested above). I seem to remember having to use disk utility to burn the image to the flash drive so the drive would be bootable, but am not 100% sure on that point.
One caveat: once you set up the Boot Camp partition, resizing it is a pain (you either have to wipe and reinstall fresh or use 3rd party software) so err on the large side to begin with.
posted by angst at 12:25 PM on August 8, 2013
I installed Windows using a USB thumbdrive and .iso (although I used a copy from my university, not the digitalriver ones suggested above). I seem to remember having to use disk utility to burn the image to the flash drive so the drive would be bootable, but am not 100% sure on that point.
One caveat: once you set up the Boot Camp partition, resizing it is a pain (you either have to wipe and reinstall fresh or use 3rd party software) so err on the large side to begin with.
posted by angst at 12:25 PM on August 8, 2013
Response by poster: angst wrote:
posted by trevor_case at 1:07 PM on August 8, 2013
I have a retina Macbook Pro and run both Parallels and Boot Camp. What Windows programs do you need to run? My experience has been that Parallels is much, much more convenient than Boot Camp -- I really only use Boot Camp for gaming.Thanks for the advice. As it turns out, I'm also only going to use it for gaming :)
posted by trevor_case at 1:07 PM on August 8, 2013
Response by poster:
However, just out of curiosity, what's up with those Digital River files?
I'm not denying what everyone's saying, but it just seems odd to me.
How did it turn out that the legit way to download Windows 7 is through some obscure (to me anyway) company?
Wouldn't you expect the typical source for things like that to be somewhere on Microsoft's website?
Is Digital River affiliated with Microsoft, or are they a subsidiary or something?
How did they wind up being the ones to distribute MS's flagship product?
This going to come across sounding like I'm arguing :( I'm really not. I'm just wondering what the story is behind those downloads.
posted by trevor_case at 1:20 PM on August 8, 2013
The digitalriver downloads are legit as long as you have an OEM license...Ok, several people are saying they're legit and I did purchase a license, so maybe I'll give that a try.
However, just out of curiosity, what's up with those Digital River files?
I'm not denying what everyone's saying, but it just seems odd to me.
How did it turn out that the legit way to download Windows 7 is through some obscure (to me anyway) company?
Wouldn't you expect the typical source for things like that to be somewhere on Microsoft's website?
Is Digital River affiliated with Microsoft, or are they a subsidiary or something?
How did they wind up being the ones to distribute MS's flagship product?
This going to come across sounding like I'm arguing :( I'm really not. I'm just wondering what the story is behind those downloads.
posted by trevor_case at 1:20 PM on August 8, 2013
I've screwed around with this a lot. The best method which hasn't even been mentioned yet is to go find someone with a PC, have an at least 4gb flash drive, and use this tool microsoft provides.
I've had repeated headaches with just trying to use a disk image directly on the mac. Using a flash drive has worked 100% of the time, every time.
posted by emptythought at 1:29 PM on August 8, 2013
I've had repeated headaches with just trying to use a disk image directly on the mac. Using a flash drive has worked 100% of the time, every time.
posted by emptythought at 1:29 PM on August 8, 2013
Best answer: Digital River is what you might call a "Order Fulfillment" company, providing the file-host back-end to their clients' online stores. They are basically hired by Microsoft in this instance. They are not, not my knowledge, a subsidiary of MS.
Putting the ISOs online like MS did for Win7 was really a change for them. They had dropped a bundle on a lot of packaging for Vista-- awkward custom plastic cases and all that, and since Vista was an OS loser, they probably did a lot of backbearing to see what could be improved in the whole process, stem to stern.
Evidently they just decided to outsource the job of image distribution. Previous versions of Windows, as I understood things, had many times as many images-- one for volume licensing, one for OEM licensing, one for individual sale, repeat ad nauseum. This version let the license key and activation process do all the work, while keeping the image count to a minimum.
posted by Sunburnt at 3:21 PM on August 8, 2013
Putting the ISOs online like MS did for Win7 was really a change for them. They had dropped a bundle on a lot of packaging for Vista-- awkward custom plastic cases and all that, and since Vista was an OS loser, they probably did a lot of backbearing to see what could be improved in the whole process, stem to stern.
Evidently they just decided to outsource the job of image distribution. Previous versions of Windows, as I understood things, had many times as many images-- one for volume licensing, one for OEM licensing, one for individual sale, repeat ad nauseum. This version let the license key and activation process do all the work, while keeping the image count to a minimum.
posted by Sunburnt at 3:21 PM on August 8, 2013
Response by poster: Ah, ok. Thanks, Sunburnt. That makes things a little clearer.
posted by trevor_case at 6:16 PM on August 8, 2013
posted by trevor_case at 6:16 PM on August 8, 2013
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posted by pipeski at 6:20 AM on August 8, 2013