I recently got a macbook pro with the intention of dual booting Windows 7 so that I can play some old games I still have that don't run on anything more recent, and generally access my Steam library. I was frustrated to find that Bootcamp would not allow me to use Windows 7, despite the fact that my laptop is compatible, and therefore set out to create a bootable USB on my own.
It's been really, really frustrating. I've searched for a couple hours online, but I must be doing something wrong, because all of the tutorials I can find either do not work, or tell me to use bootcamp – Which won't let me doing what I'm trying to do.
I have a Windows 7 Iso that I legally downloaded, I have a USB stick with 8 gigs of storage. I cannot for the life of me figure out how to make that USB stick function as a bootable drive, so that my Macbook will let me install Windows.
Any advice, or links to a tutorial that actually works?
Best Answer
Microsoft has a tool for creating a bootable USB stick installer that works with Windows 7, 8 and 10. You can find it here. http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/html/pbPage.Help_Win7_usbdvd_dwnTool#installation
The caveat is that you will need a windows PC to use the utility.
Now Bootcamp will do the same thing plus it will put all the right drivers in the installer to be installed with Windows and help you resize the Mac partition and create a Windows partition. You don't technically have to do it that way though. If you open the Boot Camp package there will be a Windows driver installer package you can copy onto your Windows 7 install USB media and then run once you have windows installed.
Note that you will likely have to re-partition the drive yourself. the Windows 7 installer will not likely resize your Mac partition, you'll probably need one of those Linux bootable "rescue" utilities that will let you resize your Mac's partition so you can install Windows in the partition you could create with it.
It is not terribly difficult but does require enough computer experience to not mess things up and do everything in the right order.
One bit of advice though make a backup image of your Mac's HD before you do anything else. As things going wrong are not unlikely at all.