Install Windows on MacBook Pro without Optical or USB Boot I have a Mid-2010 MacBook Pro (MacBookPro6,1) and my optical drive has died. I need to install Windows on it, and was hoping to do so via Boot Camp.

I have a Windows 7x32 .iso and have also created a (nominally, untested) bootable USB stick via the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool. Using the tip on this page I can mount the disk image locally and get Boot Camp to create the Boot Camp partition, but when I reboot I see "No bootable device -- insert boot disk and press any key". Presumably this is because I cannot boot from USB on this older model MacBook Pro.

I've purchased Paragon NTFS in the naïve hope that creating a NTFS partition and copying the ISO or bootable USB to that would work, and tried using rEFIt to boot from such devices. In both cases the end result is a black screen with flashing underline, but no further message.

I also have an external drive (USB and FW800) that I can format and partition in any way that might be helpful.

Is there any way I can get Boot Camp/Windows 7 working on this machine…other than replacing my optical drive with one that works?
You can boot from an external USB drive from this MacBook Pro. Use bootcamp to copy the ISO on a 8Gig (or more) USB Drive. Then boot from it by pressing option at the boot chime.