Installing Windows 7/8 on a Mac without using an optical drive

Many Macs lack an optical drive today: it simply does not come bundled with macbook air and mac mini, with some MacBook / iMacs replaced with an additional 2.5-inch drive, and with some computers the drive may simply not work.

New Macs can boot from flash drives, but I’m not the new owner (2010), and this guide will be useful for those who want to quickly install Windows from an image on any Mac.

I tried many ways - I tried to install from a USB flash drive / disk, everything was in vain (not every mac is loaded from a USB flash drive or external drive). Refit also did not give anything - there was a dark screen. This method was just salvation.

So what is needed:
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1. Virtual box
2. WinClone (latest free version)
3. Windows 7/8 ISO image you like

Stage 1: Creating the Boot Camp partition

Create a Bootcamp partition using the Boot Camp Assistant. The operation is quite simple. In 10.6 the assistant creates a section without comments, in 10.7 - he warns you that you do not have a drive.

Step 2: Create a generalized installation image of Windows 7/8

The word “generic” here means that the image is not tied to any particular Mac hardware. After it is uploaded to the Boot Camp partition (using WinClone), when booting from it, Windows 7/8 will automatically configure all hardware, reboot and you can work. However, you may need additional drivers that you can install from the Boot Camp kit. You can use this image in the future on any Mac for a very fast installation of Windows. However, the first time you need to create it, this procedure is not the easiest:

Stage 2.1: Install Windows 7/8 in VirtualBox

Create a new virtual machine in VirtualBox, name it win7 . It is important to use a dynamic disk image for a VDI virtual machine (dynamically allocated). A size of 10 GB should be sufficient. Install Windows using the installation ISO image. No other software, including auxiliary software from VirtualBox, because it must be a clean system.

Step 2.2: Deleting the System Reserved Key (Reserved by the System) in Windows 7/8

The problem is that Windows has created another additional partition in which the boot loader itself is located. It is necessary to transfer the bootloader to the primary partition and remove this auxiliary one.

Update : You can make it easier: after starting the installation of Windows 7/8, when you select a disk partition, create a new one and System Reserved and : \ drive appear. Next drive C: \ delete, and System Reserved stretch to the desired size and format. After that, you can install Windows in it and there will be no System Reserved partition. Thanks IGHOR Either use this method (for already installed Windows):

1. Download Windows
2. Go to Disk Management (right click on Computer in Explorer -> Management)
3. Assign any letter to our hidden partition (right-click on a partition and select the item Change drive letter or drive path ). For example, assigned the letter E:
4. Run the command prompt under the administrator . Alternately, carefully , enter the following commands:
   

   • reg unload HKLM\BCD00000000 

     unload this registry branch

   •  robocopy e:\ c:\ bootmgr 

     copy the bootmgr file

   •  robocopy e:\Boot C:\Boot /s 

     Copy the Boot folder

   •  bcdedit /store c:\boot\bcd /set {bootmgr} device partition=C: 

     we register the loader in section C:
   By the conclusion of the teams we are convinced that everything went well. Now you can close the command line.
   
5. In Disk Management, we make the partition C active and delete the already unnecessary System Reserved partition. There will be unallocated space (I have 100 MB), but this is not important.
6. Rebooting, the system should now boot normally from section C:

Step 2.3: Making Windows generic using the sysprep utility

1. Run the command prompt under the administrator . Enter:
   

    net stop WMPNetworkSvc 

   There is no exact answer to the “why” question. But you need to stop this service.
2. In the folder C: \ Windows \ System32 \ sysprep create the unattend.xml file with the following contents:
   

    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <unattend xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:unattend"> <settings pass="generalize"> <component name="Microsoft-Windows-Security-Licensing-SLC" processorArchitecture="x86" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" language="neutral" versionScope="nonSxS" xmlns:wcm="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WMIConfig/2002/State" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"> <SkipRearm>1</SkipRearm> </component> </settings> </unattend> 

   Carefully ensure that the file extension is “XML”, since by default Windows can add “TXT”: unattend.xml.txt. For this, I set the option to always show the extensions of all files in the folders folder.
   
3. Run C: \ Windows \ System32 \ sysprep \ sysprep.exe . Put the following options:
   
   
   
   Click "OK", the machine should turn off itself.
   
   

Step 2.4: Converting a VDI Image to a WinClone Image

1. In VirtualBox go to File-> Media Manager . We press Copy of our section of Windows, surely using the option Fixed size . Launching a copy will be called win7_copy . We are waiting for this operation
2. Go to the Terminal, move to the folder where you saved a copy and enter:

    sudo VBoxManage internalcommands converttoraw win7_copy.vdi win7.raw 

   Again, waiting for completion
3. Enter another command in the terminal:
   

    sudo hdiutil attach -imagekey diskimage-class=CRawDiskImage win7.raw 

   After that, you should have mounted the image of Untitled
4. Go to WinClone, make a copy of this primed disk Untitled in the first tab Image
5. The image is ready!

Stage 3: Fill the WinClone image into the Boot Camp section

We use the second Restore tab in the WinClone program and fill in the image created in the previous stage onto the physical section of the Boot Camp.

For future installations, now you only need steps 1 and 3, the second need only be done once.

I am not the author of this know-how, it is a free translation into Russian (with minor additions and improvements). The original of this article is available here . The method was tested by me personally on 2 mac - iMAC MC508 2010 and Mac Mini 2011 younger model, it works wonderfully, thanks to the author, who also said that hundreds of people tried the method, and it just works.

Ps. Please do not kick strictly, this is my first post here. Thank.