How To Install Windows 8 On Mac

Eager to install Windows 8 on Mac. I will guide you to install. Follow the simple steps to install windows 8 on Mac PC. 

Requirements to install Windows 8 on Mac PC :

1. Windows 8 bootable DVD, ISO or USB (Windows 8 developer preview ISO download)

2. A USB drive with 8GB or more capacity

We are going to use the Boot Camp Assistant software available on Mac. Boot Camp helps you install Windows OS on Intel-based Mac by downloading the necessary support software, creating a partition on your disk for Windows, and then starting the Windows installer.

NOTE: We assume that you have an Intel-based Mac machine with Boot Camp Assistant version 4.0 or later. It’s always a good idea to backup the important data on your computer before installing Windows on Mac. We used Mac mini (mid 2011) to install Windows 8 on the Mac. The procedure to install Windows 8 on other Mac machines might be a bit different.

Procedure:


1. Launch Boot Camp Assistant software. To launch it, go to Utilities and click on Boot Camp Assistant to open it.

2. Once launched, click Continue button on the introduction screen to see the list of options available for your Mac. You will see three options:

# Create a Windows 7 install disk

# Download the latest Windows support software from Apple

# Install Windows 7

If Create a Windows 7 install disk option is not available on your Mac, it’s because your computer doesn’t support installing Windows from USB flash drive. Simply select the other options available and click Continue button.

By default, all three options are enabled. If you are on Mac Mini or MacBook Air, use the first option (Create a Windows 7 install disk) to create a bootable Windows 8 USB flash drive to install Windows 8 directly from USB flash drive. Click Continue button to proceed to the next step.

3. (Please skip this step if you haven’t selected Create a Windows 7 install disk option in the above step) In this step, you need to select the Windows 8 ISO file and the USB device that you want to use to install Windows 8. Boot Camp Assistant will create a bootable USB drive for Windows 8 installation. Once you select the ISO file and destination USB drive, click Continue button.

Click Continue button if you are prompted with “The drive will be erased” message. Boot Camp Assistant may take a several minutes to create the bootable Windows 8 USB drive (it will also download Windows support software from Apple). Once Boot Camp Assistant finishes creating bootable Windows 8 USB, you will get “Boot Camp Assistant is trying to add new helper tool. Type your password to allow this” message. Type in the password and click Add Helper button to continue.

4. Boot Camp Assistant now takes you to Create a partition for Windowswindow. Drag the divider between the partitions to set the size of the partitions. We recommend a minimum of 30 GB for Windows partition (Microsoft recommends 16 GB but if you want to install other software on Windows 8, allocate 30GB).

Click Install button to start partitioning the drive and then begin installing Windows 8 on your Mac. Your Mac machine will automatically reboot to begin installing Windows. You will see “Booting from Boot Camp Assistant created boot drive” message.

OR

If you haven’t selected Create a Windows 7 install disk option in step 2, please insert the Windows 8 installation DVD into the tray and click Install button to start partitioning the drive and then Windows installation. Your Mac machine will automatically reboot to begin installing Windows.

From here on follow the on screen procedure until you need to select a partition to install Windows. In the Where do you want to install Windows? screen, select the partition named BOOTCAMP to install Windows 8. Make sure that you format the BOOTCAMP partition before selecting it as an unformatted drive may give “Windows cannot be installed to this disk x partition x” error.

To format the BOOTCAMP partition, select the partition in the list, click Drive options (advanced) and then click Format button. Click Ok button for the prompt.

Click Next button to begin installing Windows 8 on BOOTCAMP partition. Follow the on screen instructions to finish installing and configuring Windows 8. If you are new to installing Windows 8, follow our step-by-step Windows 8 installation procedure.

5. Once Windows 8 is installed and running, you need to install Mac-specific drivers and other support software for Windows. The support software is on the same USB drive if you have selected Download the latest support software from Apple in step 2. Open the Windows 8 USB flash drive (that you have created using Boot Camp Assistant)and navigate to WindowsSupport folder and then double-click on setup.exe file to start installing all drivers and Apple Software Update.

If you are getting “Boot Camp requires that your computer is running Windows 7” error,  then you need manually install all drivers and Apple Software Update. Open the Windows 8 USB drive and navigate to Drivers > Apple. Here you will find all Apple drivers and other software. Manually install all required drivers one-by-one.

If you want to install drivers for third-party hardware such as NVidia and ATI, you can find the required drivers under Drivers folder in the same drive. Good luck!

If you get Software you are installing has not passed Windows Logo testing message, click Continue Anyway button.

When you switch on your Mac, hold down the Alt key or Option key to see an option to boot into Windows or Mac. Good luck!

How to Install Windows 7 / Vista From a USB Drive

Today, I will show in this post how you can make windows 7 bootable disk with the help of command prompt without any third party software.


Tools Required:

1. USB flash drive with a minimum capacity of 4 GB.

2. Windows 7 / vista set-up DVD.

 Step-1: Plug-in your USB flash drive and backup all the existing data from it. Because data will be lost during this process. 

Step-2: Open the command prompt. If you are using Windows 7/Vista then open it with administrator rights*.

* Goto Start - All Programs - Accessories - Right-click on “Command Prompt” and select “Run as Administrator”.

Step 3: In the command prompt, type in the following command:

DISKPART

This will start the Microsoft DiskPart utility as shown below:

Now issue the following command:

LIST DISK

This will show you a list of  available disks on your system. Disk 0 is usually the hard disk. In my case, Disk 5 is the USB drive (this can be a different one in your case). To recognise which drive is your USB drive, you can focus on Size also. Here, as screen shot below Disk 5 is Online condition and its size is 7634, hence its my 8 GB USB Drive. Now issue the command as shown below:

SELECT DISK 5

NOTE: In the above command, 5 is the USB drive number on my system. If you have a different number on your system, then you need to replace 5 with that number.

Step-4: Now issue the following list of commands one by one as shown below:

CLEAN

CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY

SELECT PARTITION 1

ACTIVE

FORMAT FS=NTFS QUICK

ASSIGN

EXIT

Now, Minimize the command prompt and proceed to the next step.

Step 5: Insert the Windows 7/Vista installation disc and note down the “drive letter” of your DVD drive. In my case, it is letter “H:”. Now type the following list of commands as shown below:

H: CD BOOT



CD BOOT



BOOTSECT.EXE /NT60 M:(NOTE: M: is your USB drive letter)



EXIT

Step-6: Now copy the whole contents of your Windows 7/Vista installation disk into the USB flash drive.

That’s it! Your USB drive is now ready to boot and install the OS for you. Don’t forget to enable the “USB Boot” option and change the “boot priority to USB device from hard disk” in your BIOS settings.

Note : The whole procedures are same for windows Vista / 7 and Windows 8.