I'm hoping to format my 16gb usb drive to run windows so I can run certain applications (read: starcraft, lol) on my intel based macbook. I don't want to partition my hard drive because I don't want to put my mac-side at risk of viruses and other stuff. Plus I think it would be cool. I've done some thorough searching on google and a few mac forums and the results have been inconclusive. The best approach I have found is here (http://guides.macrumors.com/Boot_Cam...External_Drive) but it requires that I remove the hard drive, and I'm trying to avoid that if possible, because it's a pain in portables.

Does anyone here have a set up like this working? Or attempted, and failed to achieve a setup like this? I know a lot of you guys frequently talk about your computer projects, so I'm hoping you can chime in with input and advice on this matter. Also, I'll be running Windows 7, incase that changes anything.

 

The performance of any write intensive applications installed on the thumb drive will be terrible, but the bios should allow you to choose from a boot [device] menu (assuming it's the same as a PC).

 

During the windows install if you have the flash drive installed it will show up as a Removable Drive on the list of drives you can install the OS on, just select the flash drive, simple.

 

screw starcraft, starcraft 2 is going be out and just buy it for your mac.

 

... there is a version of starcraft for mac you know :x

 

You mention that you are worried about viruses etc. Whether you boot Windows from a USB drive or from another partition won't make any difference w.r.t. security - unless you are planning to disconnect the Mac's hard drive while running Windows.

If you really want to keep the drive physically separate, I would suggest an external USB hard drive rather than flash. USB flash drives are extremely slow and are not designed for OS operation.

Having said all that, its still a fun project to play with. I had to create a bootable XP installation disk on a flash drive to restore my netbook's SSD. In this instance, I wanted to make the USB drive look like a bootable CD, which is slightly different from installing an OS onto it. There are a bunch of tools under the name usbMultiboot10 which are great for setting up bootable partitions on a flash drive. In my case, the installer needed to be able to boot XP, then run ghost to re-image the netbook's drive.