I want to copy my W7 Bootcamp partition to an external HDD, and be bootable of course. It is currently functioning fine alongside Yosemite on a different HDD.
DiskUtility Restore works…
I marked the partition as active…
But the new Bootcamp partition is still not recognized on start-up.
Please help!
Details:
- Currently using (and working from) Yosemite OSX10.10.2 on an
internal SSD. - Source: HDD1 (external-USB) works fine and can boot as W7 or Yosemite. This is the original Bootcamp partition I want to clone or copy.
- Destination: HDD2 (external-USB) is blank and much larger than the HDD1 Bootcamp partition. This is the drive I'd like to copy my Bootcamp partition to and have it bootable.
- The HDD1 Bootcamp partition was origninally made with OSX10.6.8.
I have tried:
- Formatting HDD2 as GUID-FAT32; using DiskUtility to 'restore' the HDD1
bootcamp partition to; using sudo fdisk to mark as active;
everything seemed to go great but it doesnt get recognized upon
boot-up. - Same as above but formatting HDD2 as MBR-FAT32.
- Running disk repair after step 1, looks good.
My fdisk commands:
sudo fdisk -e /dev/disk1; p; setpid 1; 07; flag 1; p; write; y
…seems to work. See attached image.
What am I missing???
Thanks in advance.
Best Answer
Windows 7 will not run from an external USB hard drive. This is a limitation of Windows, not your Mac. Windows can ONLY run from an internal, non-removable hard drive. That limitation applies even on a real PC.