n00bie question on how to Install Windows 7

Berryracer

Platinum Member
Oct 4, 2006
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I gifted my mom a Mac Book Air 13.3' which has a 120 GB SSD

She hates Mac OS and can't get used to it so I offered to maybe install Windows 7 on it but I have a few questions so please bare with meh:

1) If I totally format the SSD she has and install Windows 7, can I in the future reinstall MacOS by simply holding Command + some F button to initialize the setup which will download the Mac OS files from the web? or is that not a possibility if the SSD's partition was tampered with

2) Where do I get the drivers for the Mac Book Air for Windows 7?

3) If I want to install Windows 7 side by side, baring in mind that here SSD is only 120 GB how would you do it, where would you partition the SSD from, and what is the procedure in detail

please help meh Im a n00bie
 

Berryracer

Platinum Member
Oct 4, 2006
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I am not clear about this step:


"After the installation of Windows is complete and you insert your installation flash drive or disc containing the Boot Camp support software (while booted in Windows), it is automatically installed on your Mac."

where do I get that boot campt support software?

Also, how much space does Mac OS need? I don't know how much shall I partition for MacOS and how much for Windows

She will store all her personal data on an external HDD
 

Kaido

Elite Member & Kitchen Overlord
Feb 14, 2004
48,732
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I am not clear about this step:


"After the installation of Windows is complete and you insert your installation flash drive or disc containing the Boot Camp support software (while booted in Windows), it is automatically installed on your Mac."

where do I get that boot campt support software?

Also, how much space does Mac OS need? I don't know how much shall I partition for MacOS and how much for Windows

She will store all her personal data on an external HDD

Download is here: (put it on a USB stick or CD; it's the driver pack)

http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1638

You can probably shrink OSX down to about 10 gigs without any issues.
 

vailr

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
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Since you have an external USB drive: make a bootable backup clone copy of OSX using the external USB drive. Boot OSX using the external HD, then use OSX's Disk Utility to re-partition the internal SSD ~20 GB HFS formatted for OSX, the remainder formatted as FAT 32. A fresh install of OSX Mountain Lion only uses about 7 GB of HD space. Begin the Windows installation, and change the formatting from FAT 32 to NTFS. So: anytime you wanted to re-install OSX onto the SSD, you'd boot using the external HD, then clone copy what's on the external HD back to the internal SSD.
Cloning software: Carbon Copy Cloner or Super Duper.
 
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Kaido

Elite Member & Kitchen Overlord
Feb 14, 2004
48,732
5,470
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Since you have an external USB drive: make a bootable backup clone copy of OSX using the external USB drive. Boot OSX using the external HD, then use OSX's Disk Utility to re-partition the internal SSD ~20 GB HFS formatted for OSX, the remainder formatted as FAT 32. A fresh install of OSX Mountain Lion only uses about 7 GB of HD space. Begin the Windows installation, and change the formatting from FAT 32 to NTFS. So: anytime you wanted to re-install OSX onto the SSD, you'd boot using the external HD, then clone copy what's on the external HD back to the internal SSD.

Yeah. I haven't done a Boot Camp install for awhile, but last time I did (with XP), you could delete the original OSX partition so that it was 100% Windows without any issues. OSX is a little bit different than Windows in that all of the drivers for all of the Mac computers are included with every install, so you can swap the drive to any other modern Mac and also boot off a USB or other external drive. So keep an external bootable copy of OSX (even a 16gb USB stick works fine) and then just run the laptop with Windows only.