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Ok, So I have a bit of a unique situation here I could use some help on.

I've modded my summer 2011 MBPro to have 2 harddrives by replacing the optical drive. OSX Mountain Lion is installed on a single partition of a 120GB SSD. The second drive is 750GB, partitioned as 550GB, 150GB, and ~50GB. I've set the 550GB to act as my OSX homefolder, but I'd like to install windows 7 and Windows 8 on the remaining partitions. It Took a while, but by following this guide, I eventually found a way to install Windows without a CD/DVD drive by following this http://huguesval.com/blog/2012/02/installing-windows-7-on-a-mac-without-superdrive-with-virtualbox/

It worked flawlessly for creating both windows 7 and windows 8 images that I could clone onto FAT32 partitions. However, I have encountered a problem when trying to triple boot. After I put Windows 8 onto the ~50GB partition and tried to boot into windows 7 I get an error that says something like:

error: 0x0000000e The Boot selection failed because the required device is inaccessible.

If I re-clone the windows 7 image onto the drive and select the option to "replace BCD" file for the drive, windows 7 will boot but windows 8 now gives me the same exact error.

I realize this is a pretty extensive setup, but if anyone has some insight I'd love to hear it.

Edit: I've tried installing windows from a USB, but my firmware doesn't let me. I get an error "No boot device detected". I get the same error when trying to use an external CD/DVD drive. As far as I know, only the recent 2012 Retina Macbook Pros and Macbook Airs are able to install windows via USB.

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  • Have you considered running one of the Windows editions in a virtual machine?
    – user3463
    Oct 20, 2012 at 3:23
  • Can I ask why you are not creating a bootable USB stick with the Windows 7/8 installers on it so you can just run the installation like you normally would with a cd from the usb stick? Oct 20, 2012 at 3:44
  • @Nathan You can flag your post, and ask a mod to merge your logins so you don't appear as two separate people Oct 20, 2012 at 23:46
  • @RandolphWest I have considered it, but I'd like to see what windows 8 can do with my full system specs. Oct 21, 2012 at 0:27
  • @AngelBrighteyes Mac firmware is tricky, not every model can boot to usb for Windows Installs. Oct 21, 2012 at 0:28

2 Answers 2

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If you have an ISO of Windows 7 and Windows 8, then boot into one of the Windows operating systems and install YUMI – Multiboot USB Creator (Windows). Add both of the Windows ISO installation disks to a USB drive that is big enough (roughtly 4gb should work for both windows discs).

Next, install Windows 7 and Windows 8 as you normally would booting from the USB drive. Also I would like to make a note here... if you go into the "advanced" drive configuration and format/pick the drive that you want to install Win 7/8 to then it will not attempt to "make two separate partitions". I never let the windows installation automattically configure the hard drive. I've not ever had the windows installation create magical secondary partitions as is stated in the tutorial that was listed.

Also, you can slipsteam the drivers and most up to date service pack for windows following this tutorial to make the installation for windows smoother, especially since the drivers for your mac will then be "built" into the install disc.

Good luck =D

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This is how I did it:

  1. Install OSX on a flash card using your MacBook to do so.
  2. Start OSX from the flash card.
  3. Make three partitions on the SSD: one partition to put OSX on, one partition to put Windows 7 on, and one to put Windows 8 on.
  4. Take the SSD out the MacBook and put as external on any Windows PC.
  5. Format the Win 7 and Win 8 partitions to NTSF.
  6. Mount the SSD in a (Intel) PC and install Win 8 on the Win 8 partition, just until the first restart.
  7. Force the PC off and take the SSD out.
  8. Put the SSD into the MacBook and start. After Windows is installed you can run bootcamp (with external CD drive).
  9. Mount the SSD again in the Windows PC and do the same with Win 7. Run it in the MacBook and run bootcamp just the same as you did before.
  10. Install OSX on the SSD partition from the flashcard. Use the Hdisk that is in place of your optical drive as storage for files. If you use iTunes put all the files here and change the destinationfolder in iTunes because the SSD will be too small.

Works excellently on a MacBook Pro 13" i7 processor 8Gram, as I have.

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