best external hard drive for a bootcamp mac

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The next step is to mount the Windows 10 ISO you downloaded earlier from Microsoft. 13) In VirtualBox, select the Windows 10 virtual machine, and then locate the Optical Drive.

Its a nice capability that lets you select at boot time which operating system you wish to use: macOS or Windows.

While Boot Camp Assistant can partition your startup drive for you to make room for Windows, there are bound to be many of you who just dont have room to spare on your startup drive to install Windows.

They range from creating clones of an existing PC installation or using Microsoft IT tools for installing Windows.

But the method were going to outline here is a bit different.

It allows you to install Windows on an external drive without first having Windows installed on a PC or in a virtual environment.

Were using a USB 3.0 drive, but a Thunderbolt drive should work as well.

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During the Windows installation, the drivers for Apple wireless keyboards and mice arent installed until the very end of the process.

If youre not using a portable Mac with a built-in keyboard and trackpad, youll need a wired keyboard and mouse to complete the installation.

The device will likely have the name of the external enclosures manufacturer listed.

Click the Erase button in the Disk Utility toolbar.

Use the dropdown menu to set the Scheme to Master Boot Record.

Use the dropdown menu to set the Format to MS-DOS (FAT).

You can use any name you wish (up to 8 characters), but we suggest naming the external WIN10.

Click the Erase button.

The device will likely have the name of the USB flash drive manufacturer listed.

You can leave the Name field as is.

We wont be using Boot Camp Assistant to partition a drive or step us through the install process.

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Make sure the checkbox labeled Download the latest Windows support software from Apple is checked, and then click Continue.

Select the device you wish to have the Windows support files installed on; this should be the USB flash drive you prepared earlier.

After making your selection, click Continue.

Boot Camp Assistant will download and install the needed Windows support software on the selected device.

Once the install is nearly complete, youll be asked to provide your administrator password so the Boot Camp Assistant can change the file permissions on the USB flash drive.

Scroll through the list and locate the external drive you plan on using to install Windows.

If you followed our suggestion earlier, it will be named WIN10, and will be of the type DOSFAT32.

Once you locate the external drive, make a note of its Identifier.

The Identifier appears in the last column and will have the format of the word disk followed by a number.

In our case, the identifier is disk4.

Now that we know the disk identifier, we need to eject the disk so its no longer connected logically to the Mac (it will still be connected physically).

Locate the WIN10 disk on your Desktop or in the Finder window sidebar.

We can do this because in the previous step, we mapped the external drive to a VirtualBox virtualized disk.

You may notice the menu is empty or does not contain the virtual disk file we created earlier.

Click the folder icon just to the right of the dropdown menu.

This will allow you to browse to the bootcamp.vmdk file, which is located in your home folder.

Select the bootcamp.vmdk file, click the Open button and then click the Create button.

VirtualBox has created a virtual environment for us to install Windows 10 in that will actually perform the install on the external drive.

The next step is to mount the Windows 10 ISO you downloaded earlier from Microsoft.

In VirtualBox, select the Windows 10 virtual machine, and then locate the Optical Drive.

Best External Hard Drive For A Bootcamp Mac