How do I boot into my external Windows 7 hard drive on my iMac?

[eyeangle]

Hi,

I new here and simply want to boot up into Windows 7 using boot camp on my iMac running Mountain Lion.

I was told this software can do that but I'm stumped how to.

My win7 hard drive is currently connected to my iMac via usb adapter. How do I boot up into it?

Thanks.

[WoodyZ]

I new here and simply want to boot up into Windows 7 using boot camp on my iMac running Mountain Lion.

Boot Windows via Boot Camp has nothing to do with VMware Fusion as Boot Camp is Apples method of dual-booting OS X and Windows

I was told this software can do that but I'm stumped how to.

VMware Fusion can take a properly installed Boot Camp partition install of Windows and run it as a Virtual Machine however Windows installed on a external disk while similar in concept is not the same in that VMware Fusion while at one time (wrongly) automatically recognized any Windows install on a external disk as a Boot Camp install of Windows nonetheless I do not believe the latest release does that any more.  That said, that doesn't mean that one can use a combination of methods to achieve the goal.

My win7 hard drive is currently connected to my iMac via usb adapter. How do I boot up into it?

This can be done by creating a normal file based Virtual Machine and then instead of installing Windows 7 onto the virtual hard disk the existing empty virtual hard disk is deleted and then one uses "/Applications/VMware Fusion.app/Contents/Library/vmware-rawdiskCreator" to create a meta-data .vmdk virtual hard disk that enables the use of the raw or physical disk.  This meta-data .vmdk virtual hard disk is then added to the normal file based Virtual Machine the the original virtual disk was deleted from.

There are additional manual edits that need to be made to the .vmx configuration file so as to not allow the Virtual Machine to be Suspend and also not have Snapshots taken so as to have it conform to the same conditions imposed on a Boot Camp partition install of Windows when run as a Virtual Machine.

All of this has been covered many times in this forum by myself and other so you should be able to search and find the finer details of what I've synopsized here.

Also Windows will need to be reactivated, so keep that in mind.

[eyeangle]

Thanks, this has been a huge help!

There are additional manual edits that need to be made to the .vmx configuration file so as to not allow the Virtual Machine to be Suspend and also not have Snapshots taken so as to have it conform to the same conditions imposed on a Boot Camp partition install of Windows when run as a Virtual Machine.

All of this has been covered many times in this forum by myself and other so you should be able to search and find the finer details of what I've synopsized here.

I've had a look but would you be kind enough to post a link to this part.

Also Windows will need to be reactivated, so keep that in mind.

Does that mean I will need to buy a new copy?

[WoodyZ · Accepted solution]

There are additional manual edits that need to be made to the .vmx configuration file so as to not allow the Virtual Machine to be Suspend and also not have Snapshots taken so as to have it conform to the same conditions imposed on a Boot Camp partition install of Windows when run as a Virtual Machine.

All of this has been covered many times in this forum by myself and other so you should be able to search and find the finer details of what I've synopsized here.

I've had a look but would you be kind enough to post a link to this part.

Have a look at: Editing the .vmx file for your VMware Fusion virtual machine (1014782)

To keep the Virtual Machine from being suspended, which you do not want to do when using a physical disk, add the following option to the .vmx configuration file.

suspend.disabled = "TRUE"

To keep from having Snapshots taken use the following option syntax:

ide0:0.deviceType = "rawDisk"

Note that if the physical disks .vmdk was created as a SCSI (lsilogic) vs. IDE then ide0:0 would be scsi0:0.  Note that this option may be added automatically when adding a .vmdk pointing to a Raw Disk, don't remember for sure and not were I can test at then moment, so the option may already be present however if not then add it.

[WoodyZ]

Sorry forgot...

Also Windows will need to be reactivated, so keep that in mind.

Does that mean I will need to buy a new copy?

No, it just means it will need to be reactivated as it will have new virtualized hardware of the Virtual Machine running the OS of the physical disk.