Running Yosemite and want to install windows 10 Preview on seperate SSD

Allo!

I have been attempting to install this windows 10 preview from an ISO (http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/preview-iso#ID0EDB0LB0BA) they provide on their site.

My issue is that my USB doesn't seem bootable and I cannot figure out why. The first attempt, I went into windows 10 and had it at installation until it failed stating that I didn't have the correct configuration files (alright...) so I downloaded a windows 7 iso and couldn't even get my computer to recognize it as a bootable drive to start the windows installation.

Does anyone have experience with this? Or know of a post? I can't seem to find anything to help me out but the biggest issue seems to be installing a bootable version of Windows onto a USB stick to install.

Swelly said:

Allo!

I have been attempting to install this windows 10 preview from an ISO (http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/preview-iso#ID0EDB0LB0BA) they provide on their site.

My issue is that my USB doesn't seem bootable and I cannot figure out why. The first attempt, I went into windows 10 and had it at installation until it failed stating that I didn't have the correct configuration files (alright...) so I downloaded a windows 7 iso and couldn't even get my computer to recognize it as a bootable drive to start the windows installation.

Does anyone have experience with this? Or know of a post? I can't seem to find anything to help me out but the biggest issue seems to be installing a bootable version of Windows onto a USB stick to install.

Click to expand...

If you have UEFI, you can make a Win10 bootable USB simply by copying all the files/folders from the ISO to a FAT32 partition on the USB that is large enough.

If you don't have UEFI or want to use legacy, use the "Win7 USB Download Tool" (from Microsoft) to create your USB.

The product of hard experience and many web searches:
Win 10 is easiest installed from a DVD, deal with it or spend hours trying to make a USB key that may not workeven though it should.
If you do not know how to choose a boot device at start up or work through boot issues in the UEFI rethink your desire to try Win 10 (see below).
Win10 may refuse (it routinely does) to install if there is more than one hard drive, internal or USB, attached to the computer. Ergo unplug everything except the drive you want to put Win 10 on, which is only safe practice anyway to protect your OSX install. That goes for every new version release: it will roll back to the prior version if there are any other drives attached to the computer. You will see.
It can be difficult to install new versions from within Win 10 because of the need to shut down, detach all other drives and then point the mobo to the Win 10 drive. It takes longer than you would expect to install every version of Win 10.
Win 10 does strange things to UEFI settings so be sure you are willing do deal with that. In my sad experience random boots to Win10 sometimes cause changes to the UEFI on the next boot. It is not simply a matter of choosing legacy or UEFI in the mobo settings. That may be particular to my Gigabye mobo.
Since installing Win 10 I have had to make sure that every drive that has a bootable OS in the computer (Yosemite, Win 8 and Win 10) is seen as a bootable device in the UEFI hard drive settings to avoid problems, something that was never an issue before Win 10 (only the Yosemite/Chimera drive had to be seen as a boot device).
There can be serious ownership conflicts over data drives created in Win 7 or 8 that are best avoided but that's your call.
Fortunately Chimera sees Win 10 and offers to boot to it, at least I have not had problems.
I actually like many things about Win 10 but it is not as easy to install/use as Win 7/8 were in their betas.