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W7 x64 on Macbook Air without OSX?
- Thread starter boshuter
- Start date
VinylxScratches
Golden Member
Use a program to to zero out the hard drive, then pop in a W7 disc and install it w/o an OS. I did this with a Mac Mini.
secretanchitman
Diamond Member
didnt know that you can straight install windows without having osx installed. my friends have used boot camp assistant in windows and when they get to the installer, they delete the osx partition and just straight up use windows.
Thats the way I would prefer to do it, but I tried that once with W7 on a USB stick and it booted to the stick ok but asked for some drivers before it would start the install. I have no idea what drivers it wanted (maybe usb?). I may try it this way again using a W7 dvd instead of the usb stick. Can anyone confirm the MBA will boot to the Windows install if I get this method to work?
I tried this method once, but after deleting the OSX partition, the MBA would not boot, it just hung at the grey screen. There are 3 partitions after installing W7 with bootcamp; a 200mb GPT, the OSX, and the bootcamp partition. I'm not sure if I deleted the OSX and the 200mb GPT partition the first time. Maybe it's necessary for the MBA to boot?
secretanchitman
Diamond Member
did you try holding down alt/option when it was loading? or did you just let it load?
I understand some people are OCD about haveing their software partions absolutly perfect, but for the 0.01% difference in performance and then absolute minimal disk space required, I don;t understand why you wouldn't want OS X installed also.
Think of it this way, you crash windows and need to bid on an ebay auction before you could ever reinstall, just boot to OS X and bid......
Sorry that this is not on topic, I know it will work strictly with windows, and I hope you can figure it out as I would also like to find out.
Think of it this way, you crash windows and need to bid on an ebay auction before you could ever reinstall, just boot to OS X and bid......
Sorry that this is not on topic, I know it will work strictly with windows, and I hope you can figure it out as I would also like to find out.
Tyranicus
Senior member
In the case of the MacBook Air, you are dealing with a small hard drive. So, if you are going to use only one OS, I can understand not wanting to use up any of the space on another drive.
I successfully installed windows 7 x64 on my mac mini. I did try holding the "c" down at startup btw I am using a pc keyboard. That made things worse because it automatically detected the dvd and started the setup procedure. Now I had a bad hard drive and ram even though I checked them repeatedly. That caused some issues but other then that all I can suggest is attach a usb dvd drive and see if that matters. With my old mac mini I only had a windows xp upgrade disc so I had to insert another disc for it to allow the install.
compman.... I have nothing against OSX, I just don't use it, and this MBA only has a 64gig SSD. I've got OSX on a 15gig partition now, but thats a large percentage of my drive for something I just don't use. I can install Snow Leopard on a usb drive in case I need to boot to OSX for updates or a problem with Windows.
I have no problem installing both OS's using bootcamp, but the last time I tried to just delete the OSX partition, the MBA would not boot. I ended up having to reinstall both OS's, this time I'd like to find out exactly what I need to do before I try again.
I have no problem installing both OS's using bootcamp, but the last time I tried to just delete the OSX partition, the MBA would not boot. I ended up having to reinstall both OS's, this time I'd like to find out exactly what I need to do before I try again.
You want to leave the 200MB partition intact, that is the EFI boot file. So, reinstall OS X, run Boot Camp Assistant (I think the main point is just that is edits the EFI to allow for BIOS emulation), insert your Windows install media, delete the OS X partition and only the OS X partition, create a new Windows partition there and go from there.
Yea, a guy convinced his boss to buy him an intel Mac with the understanding that it would have Windows on it as well. The guy assumed that it would be a trivial exercise to put it on there since it was intel based. After he tried and failed, he put up $100 of his own money on his site to anyone who knew the 'recipe' to getting it on there. Time went by, and no solution came, but others joined in wanting one, so they donated as well until the pot grew to about $14,000. The prize money was then split between 2 parties that both demonstrated repeatable methods to boot Windows on a Mac.
About a month later, the first BootCamp beta went out.
And the winner is.... hennessy1. You don't need that EFI partition.
I just stuck the W7 dvd in the usb super drive and booted to it by holding the "alt" key. I deleted all partitions on the hdd and made one partition of the whole drive to install Windows. W7 did add it's usual 100mb system partition, but there is no EFI partition. The MBA boots directly to Windows just like any other Windows laptop. I have Snow Leopard installed on an external usb drive in case I ever need it.
Thanks everyone for the help.
That must be programmed into the bios (or whatever Apple calls it). I'm still able to boot to any bootable drive/device by holding the alt key at the chime; if I do nothing, it just boots to Windows.
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