To share discs from a Windows PC that has a built-in or external optical drive, use these steps: Download and install DVD or CD Sharing Update 1.0 for Windows. From Control Panel, open 'Hardware and Sound' Click 'DVD or CD Sharing Options.' Select the checkbox for DVD or CD Sharing.

If you own a MacBook Pro chances are pretty good that you’ve investigated something like the OptiBay which lets you replace your optical drive with a second hard disk. After I did a few months ago I started to look at installing a copy of Windows 7 on my Pro for things like League of Legends and the occasional Windows app. Unfortunately Boot Camp Assistant doesn’t like it when you’ve modified the Pro and there are some other snags that you’ll run into along the way. Through a few hours of trial and error I’ve come up with solutions to the problems that I’ve faced, so it’s time to pass on those fixes to you in hopes that maybe you won’t waste as much time as I did. Here is my step by step guide to install Windows 7 on MacBook Pro: What You Need • A flash drive, 4 GB or larger • A copy of • The • Overview. The Boot Camp process is relatively straightforward.

The Assistant will download a set of drivers for Windows to install and then it will allow you to select the size of the partition that you want to make. After the partition is created, your machine will restart and the Windows installation begins. From here it’s a matter of clicking Continue a number of times and then you’ll have a dual-booting MacBook.

Well, almost. Google chrome for mac mini. If you have a MacBook Air, Boot Camp doesn’t look for an optical drive. But if you have a MacBook or Mac Pro it will scream at you when you load it up. You can ignore the warning, but the assistant will stop dead in its tracks once you’ve selected your partition size. “The installer disc could not be found” is going to be the message that gives you fits. So let’s start from the beginning. First, take that ISO of Windows 7 and use Microsoft’s DVD/USB Download Tool to make a bootable flash drive with it.

Of what’s going on, but it’s a very simple process. Make sure you keep a copy of the ISO on your Mac. Once you have that completed, make sure that you have installed Toast. Locate that copy of the ISO on your Mac and right click it to open the menu, select Services, then use the Mount It option. This will “fool” OS X into thinking that you have a physical optical drive and the Windows 7 disc loaded into it. This is the solution to “The installer disc could not be found”. While the obvious answer here is to mount the disc image with OS X’s tools, they won’t work because the Assistant knows that you don’t have a physical disc in place.

It’s quite possible that there are other ISO mounting apps that will work for this, but I can only verify that it works with Toast. Now that you have the bootable USB and the ISO mounted, start Boot Camp Assistant and follow the steps. You’ll have two options that you can select at first. Make sure that both are checked, and then proceed to the next screen. On here, select “Save a copy to an external drive” and then click Continue to choose the path that you want to use.

You can not save these files to the bootable USB without some prior customization, so I suggest a second USB drive or just saving them to a folder on your desktop. If all goes well, you’ll have a dual-booting installation of Windows 7 on your Mac or MacBook Pro, no optical drive required. Potential Problems There are some snags along the way, and but they’re fortunately quite easy to avoid or work around. The first problem is that Boot Camp Assistant under Mountain Lion does not appear to format the partition to FAT, which is required for Windows to install. Fortunately you can do this yourself during the installation process. Just select the partition labeled BOOTCAMP and click Format.

This does not appear to have any ill effect on your OS X installation, but please make sure you have a current backup in place. You’ll probably think that your computer has frozen during the installation, as you’ll get stuck on a solid gray screen for periods that seem to last longer than they should. On many occasions I had to wait 3 or 4 minutes on these screens before the installer would continue. The next problem you’ll likely encounter is more of a curiosity than a serious issue. Chances are you’re using a smaller SSD as your main drive, with a large-capacity, spinning drive as your secondary. It would make sense to install Windows to that second drive, but it doesn’t always work. On a couple of occasions it appeared that no master boot record was written to that drive, as opposed to the main drive where it worked every time.