Possible to do separate drives dual boot with Sierra and Windows 7?

[BHuij]

I have a stable running install of Sierra on my SSD, and I want to have a separate drive with Windows 7 x64 since I was just given a free legit ISO and product key.

It looks like Boot Camp Assistant will only set up a Windows 10 install USB drive from what I'm reading. I decided to try anyway, but even though I have an MS-DOS (FAT) formatted 16GB flash drive plugged into my tower ready to become a Windows 7 Install drive, Boot Camp Assistant is only recognizing one hard drive as a possible destination to load my ISO onto: my time machine drive. Additionally, it gives me an error when I tell it where to find the ISO file, stating that it can only use a Windows 10 ISO file.

Doing some reading, I'm seeing mixed opinions. Some people have apparently succeeded in installing dual boots with Sierra/Win7 on this forum, but elsewhere online I'm seeing that Sierra/Win7 can't coexist on the same computer, even with separate hard drives.

So I guess my questions are:
1. Is this possible?
2. How can I create my Win7 install disk if BCA won't do it?


EDIT: I'm working on finding solutions here in real time as I wait for replies from you guys, so here's the latest.

-I am now attempting to use unetbootin to make my Win7 install drive out of the flash drive. Assuming this works, I will unplug all hard drives other than the one to which I will be installing Windows7, and try to install from the disk.

 

[Going Bald]

See the pinned guide for MultiBooting UEFI. Win7 / Win10 work the same and have the same restrictions - you must make sure to install Windows UEFI if you want to boot it from Clover UEFI.
Z77 probably has UEFI from the factory, unlike Z68 which requires a BIOS update to get UEFI.

I used the Windows Download tool for mine.. http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/31541-windows-7-usb-dvd-download-tool.html

 

[BHuij]

Solved: I decided it wasn't worth the extra work to boot using Clover for both of my OS's. Sierra now running stable under Clover and I just installed Win7 on the other drive on its own, so I boot before getting to Clover if I need to go into Win7. Regardless, both OS's now working flawlessly. I did end up just making the install USB on a Windows computer I have access to instead of trying to do it all from within OSX. Thanks!

 

[nkmacuser]

Solved: I decided it wasn't worth the extra work to boot using Clover for both of my OS's. Sierra now running stable under Clover and I just installed Win7 on the other drive on its own, so I boot before getting to Clover if I need to go into Win7. Regardless, both OS's now working flawlessly. I did end up just making the install USB on a Windows computer I have access to instead of trying to do it all from within OSX. Thanks!

Hi there,

I am in same situation as you:
- Perfectly stable working Sierra on one SSD
- I wish to add Win10 on another 2nd SSD

I tried the following step:
- made Win10 USB installer via Bootcamp in Sierra
- hooked up a 2nd SSD to PC
- Reboot; boot into the Win 10 USB Installer
- Choosed 2nd SSD as installation drive and installation went smoothly

Now, I can still boot into Sierra no problem,
however, I cannot boot into Win10 regardless of how I boot into it

1. boot into Win10 SSD by pressing 'del' to pick boot option , pick this 2nd SSD as boot drive but ends with black screen and white under-score blinking
2. boot into Sierra SSD by pressing 'del' to pick boot option, pick Sierra SSD as boot drive and Clover pops up as usual and can boot into Sierra as normal
3. boot into Sierra SSD by pressing 'del' to pick boot option, pick Sierra SSD as boot drive and Clover pops up as usual and if i select win10 drive, it ends with black screen and white under-score blinking

Do you have any clue on what might have went wrong?

Thanks a bunch!

 

[Going Bald]

Hi there,

I am in same situation as you:
- Perfectly stable working Sierra on one SSD
- I wish to add Win10 on another 2nd SSD

I tried the following step:
- made Win10 USB installer via Bootcamp in Sierra
- hooked up a 2nd SSD to PC
- Reboot; boot into the Win 10 USB Installer
- Choosed 2nd SSD as installation drive and installation went smoothly

Now, I can still boot into Sierra no problem,
however, I cannot boot into Win10 regardless of how I boot into it

1. boot into Win10 SSD by pressing 'del' to pick boot option , pick this 2nd SSD as boot drive but ends with black screen and white under-score blinking
2. boot into Sierra SSD by pressing 'del' to pick boot option, pick Sierra SSD as boot drive and Clover pops up as usual and can boot into Sierra as normal
3. boot into Sierra SSD by pressing 'del' to pick boot option, pick Sierra SSD as boot drive and Clover pops up as usual and if i select win10 drive, it ends with black screen and white under-score blinking

Do you have any clue on what might have went wrong?

Thanks a bunch!

When installing Win10 did you force install UEFI mode? i.e. hit hotkey to select boot device, select UEFI USB Win 10 installer
Win10 must be installed UEFI to be booted by Clover. See the pinned guide at the start of this forum.

 

[nkmacuser]

When installing Win10 did you force install UEFI mode? i.e. hit hotkey to select boot device, select UEFI USB Win 10 installer
Win10 must be installed UEFI to be booted by Clover. See the pinned guide at the start of this forum.

I looked at the following guide, https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/guide-multibooting-uefi-on-separate-drives.198869/

As mentioned above, I made win10 bootable USB through bootcamp as noted above given I only have working mac at home.

Please see the following diskutil commend result, I believe my win10 is UEFI?

FYI: I have Sierra installed on 1TB, and just installed Win10 on 500GB, where win10 still hangs up on blackscreen with white under score "_" blinking.

/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: GUID_partition_scheme *1.0 TB disk0

1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk0s1

2: Apple_HFS Sierra1TBNK 999.9 GB disk0s2


/dev/disk1 (internal, physical):

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: GUID_partition_scheme *500.1 GB disk1

1: Windows Recovery 471.9 MB disk1s1

2: EFI NO NAME 104.9 MB disk1s2

3: Microsoft Reserved 16.8 MB disk1s3

4: Microsoft Basic Data 499.5 GB disk1s4

 

[Going Bald]

I looked at the following guide, https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/guide-multibooting-uefi-on-separate-drives.198869/


/dev/disk1 (internal, physical):

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: GUID_partition_scheme *500.1 GB disk1

1: Windows Recovery 471.9 MB disk1s1

2: EFI NO NAME 104.9 MB disk1s2

3: Microsoft Reserved 16.8 MB disk1s3

4: Microsoft Basic Data 499.5 GB disk1s4

This tells me you missed a step in the linked guide. See the paragraph just before Win10 installation. Your drive should look like this:
/dev/disk1 (internal, physical):

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: GUID_partition_scheme *500.1 GB disk1

1: EFI NO NAME 200 MB disk1s1

2: Windows Recovery 471.9 MB disk1s2

3: Microsoft Reserved 16.8 MB disk1s3

4: Microsoft Basic Data 499.5 GB disk1s4

 

[nkmacuser]

Thank you very much, now I understand the whole process and was succesfully able to complete the install. Thanks a lot