How to install Windows 7 on a MacBook with HDDs and no optical drive, without rEFIt

Posted by user1238528 on Super User See other posts from Super User or by user1238528
Published on 2012-06-13T19:17:06Z Indexed on 2012/10/26 23:05 UTC
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windows-7

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osx

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ssd

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boot-camp

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refit

I just removed the SuperDrive on my MacBook Pro and replaced it with an SSD. So now my laptop has a SSD, and a HDD, but no optical drive. I have Lion on the SSD and I want to install Windows 7 on the HDD. Unfortunately, Boot Camp only will install Windows off of the Windows DVD. I have made a bootable Windows 7 thumb drive but my MacBook Pro won’t boot off it.

So my question is how can I install Windows on the other HDD?

I have thought about maybe using Oracle VirtualBox to install it on that hard drive, but I don’t know if that would allow me to boot directly into Windows. I really don't want to go down the whole virtualization route.

I know I could just take out the SSD, put back in the optical drive, run the Windows 7 DVD, take the optical drive back out, put the SSD back in. But that sounds like a nightmare.

Also, I really don’t want to use things like rEFIt.

Any advice?

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