You are able to install windows off a usb key in any mac you choose (regardless if it has an optical drive or not! that's actually irrelevant) The only reason your unable to boot from the key is, you've got to actually make the usb key 'bootable'. I know this thread is a bit old but I hate misinformation! Hope this helps anybody that had the same problem as me, I did a lot of googling!

The windows installation should now be running, and all thats left now is to choose the Bootcamp partition when it asks, and to click on it, click drive options, click format, and then click next to continue on with the installation. I did not find any discussions of simply pressing the C key to boot from USB in similiar threads, and people just said that you need the disk if your mac has an optical drive. This command tells the mac to boot from USB. When the computer restarts after bootcamp finishes, insert the bootable windows 7 USB into the mac when the screen is black, and then hold down the C key as soon as you hear the mac turning on sound. Once windows was installed, it was easy to open the USB and run bootcamp settup.Ħ. Run Boot Camp, I chose to skip downloading the drivers and did that separately here: by cliking on the macbook pro model and then the number in the grid to download the boot camp drivers to a separete usb. (open daemon tools, click quick mount, click the iso file, very easy!) This tricks bootcamp into thinking that a windows 7 install disk is inserted.ĥ. Use Daemon Tools Lite (free, found here: ) to mount the ISO file thats on your mac. Also transfer a copy of the ISO file to the macĤ. (this has to be done on an exisiting windows machine, but there are googable solutions to do this process using just a mac)ģ. Use Windows 7 USB DVD Download tool (found here to make a bootable windows 7 USB. Download the Windows 7 ISO file here: /Ģ.

I had a similiar problem where I wanted to install windows on a macbook pro (early 2009) that had a broken optical drive, using a bootable windows 7 USB, but the mac wouldn't recognize the USB because it only checks in the optical drive.ġ.

Windows xp on macbook air 2008