Bootcamp from external SSD drive

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DanieleD2

Junior Member
Hello,
I need to run my Bootcamp partition in Parallels; I have installed Windows, though, on an external SSD drive, specifically a Lexar LRWSSD512U. I have gone through the steps of creating an empty virtual machine and changing the HD location, but it will not recognise my external SSD; will only show the Mac internal storage.
Any ideas?
 
Karthik@Parallels said:
@DanieleD2 Hi. You'll have to import it as a virtual machine into Parallels Desktop & transfer it over to said storage device.
Click to expand...
Well, the whole point of this procedure was to have the partition both available as Bootcamp and as well in Parallels. Wouldn't this prevent me to boot it from the EFI?
Arun@Parallels said:
Hi @DanieleD2 please help us with the screenshots, we will check and assist you further.
Click to expand...
I have attached the Disk Utility details of my external SSD drive. My procedure was to create a new virtual machine, select "Continue without source", and then access the VM's properties under "Hardware > Hard Disk" (forgive my liberal translation, I do not use Parallels in English), but I couldn't find my hard disk there in the list on the right.
 

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DanieleD2 said:
It does not
Click to expand...
This could be strongly related to what is causing the issue. To rule out this possibility, please contact Apple support and have them ensure that the boot camp installation is detected by the Mac under both Disk Utility (Finder -> Go -> Utilities -> Disk Utility) and Startup Disk (Apple Icon -> System Preferences -> Startup Disk).
 
Last edited:
Well, guess what: I was trying to update Windows on my external SSD, so I stumbled upon the Startup option again in macOS, and I do actually have my Windows partition present. See attachment.
So, seeing now that my Mac SEES the partition correctly, what's up with Parallels not showing it as a Bootcamp disk?
Thanks!
 

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I'm also curious on this.
I want to run bootcamp from an external SSD inside of parallels. (NOT as a VM, but a Virtualized Disk)
I also have BOOTCAMP shown as a possible startup disk (Apple Icon -> System Preferences -> Startup Disk).
I didn't use bootcamp assistant to set windows up, but installed bootcamp drivers manually after windows install.
 
Same here; I tried to create a .vmdk file (and VBox would boot correctly) but Parallels doesn't allow me to select it so I'm stuck
 
FWIW, I'm doing it right now. I followed the 9to5Mac video on YouTube to create my Boot Camp on an external Samsung T3. I just couldn't get the cloning method to work for me... So, after deleting my "original" Boot Camp partition on my iMac, Parallels had no problem using the external SSD to create the VM.

I might suggest that you completely uninstall Parallels, the reinstall. You want to make sure that there are no remnants of any other Boot Camps for Parallels to get confused with. Also disconnect any other external drives. That way, there's nothing out there for Parallels to find.

Hope this helps.
 
I was dealing with the same problem and came across here. I've installed Windows 10 to an external SSD and wanted to create a Boot Camp VM on Parallels. But whenever I wanted to create a VM, it always gave me the error PRL_ERR_DISK_PARTITION_NOT_FOUND. Also there's a similar topic here.

After seeing the following post from one of the team members, it made me curious though.
Hemnath@Parallels said:
Does the Mac detect the boot camp installation under this location: Apple Icon -> System Preferences -> Startup Disk?
Click to expand...


After a little research I've found out that, the external drive should use GUID partition table. That cost me reinstall of the Windows 10 but after that Parallels had no trouble on creating a VM for it.

Also it's good to mention, PRL_ERR_DISK_PARTITION_NOT_FOUND error made me think that being a NTFS drive, Parallels was failing to write to disk. So I also installed Paragon NTFS. And through the process of creating a virtual machine I had Paragon NTFS running. Even after converting to GUID partition table, if you face the same problem that may be the problem as well. I just wanted to play safe and kept it running to avoid another trial. But my gut says it would be fine without it as well.

A few things to note:
  • I've followed this video to install Windows 10 on external drive.
  • I'm running macOS Sierra 10.12.6
  • I'm using MacBook Pro 15" 2017
  • My parallels version: 13.0.1 (42947)
  • And I used the Windows image that Parallels downloaded when I wanted to create a Windows VM.
Hope this helps everybody.
 
Holy crap I think I got it working! I have no idea what I did to make it work but let me write out the list of things I did.

First off, I have the 13.1 update - that's necessary I think.
Then, I STOPPED ( not suspend) the BootCamp vistual machine, and opened up the open the configurator. Under hard disk I had my External Drive selected as SATA 0:1. It says Disk Capacity is 200MB - probably looking at the EFI partition - but I don't think I have EFI enabled.

Next, I went to Boot Order, unchecked everything except External Device. Selected my External SSD as the Ext Boot Device, and checked SELECT BOOT DEVICE ON STARTUP. I powered on the Virtual Machine pressed the ESC button, selected the External Drive and after about 30 seconds it started booting in.

For the record my setup is a BootCamp installation made on an External SSD drive that I made using the rather complex "Installing Bootcamp on an External Drive" process. Im running Win 10. I was running Build 1607 because I can't update Windows 10 when booted directly to the Bootcamp drive. So I booted it into Parallels and am now installing the 1703 Creators Update.
 
ParallelsS1 said:
Holy crap I think I got it working! I have no idea what I did to make it work but let me write out the list of things I did.

First off, I have the 13.1 update - that's necessary I think.
Then, I STOPPED ( not suspend) the BootCamp vistual machine, and opened up the open the configurator. Under hard disk I had my External Drive selected as SATA 0:1. It says Disk Capacity is 200MB - probably looking at the EFI partition - but I don't think I have EFI enabled.

Next, I went to Boot Order, unchecked everything except External Device. Selected my External SSD as the Ext Boot Device, and checked SELECT BOOT DEVICE ON STARTUP. I powered on the Virtual Machine pressed the ESC button, selected the External Drive and after about 30 seconds it started booting in.

For the record my setup is a BootCamp installation made on an External SSD drive that I made using the rather complex "Installing Bootcamp on an External Drive" process. Im running Win 10. I was running Build 1607 because I can't update Windows 10 when booted directly to the Bootcamp drive. So I booted it into Parallels and am now installing the 1703 Creators Update.
Click to expand...

Thank you, worked perfectly! I did not have an existing Bootcamp VM, so I went through the process of creating a new one by selecting "Continue without a source", and then select the External Device.
Cheers!
 
I'm having the quite the same issue but I'm encountering this problem: I have set up a Bootcamp on an external disk that used to be the internal disk of my old macbook. So that, I have: one partition for MacOS, two EFI partitions one for the old Bootcamp and one for the new external Bootcamp (I needed to create a new one, because it won't let me re-using the old one). When I enter the Hard Disk Parallels configuration, and select the right partitions, after I click on OK, I check if it has been set up properly but I notice that automatically selects all the partition without allowing me to choose. I think that is the problem due to the virtual machine not starting for me, but I don't know how to solve it, probably by erasing that first EFI partition?
 

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