Hi folks,
I have a MacBook Pro 8.1 late 2011 (A1278) that came originally with a Superdrive. I got rid of the Superdrive and replaced it with an SSD. Now I need Windows 8.1, but my primary hard drive has two different instances of OSX and have not plenty of space to do it, so, I would like to install Windows in the secondary SSD. But my mac is unable to boot from USB or any external device. So, my only choice is to re-connect my superdrive and use it to install Windows in a new partition of my primary internal drive. Since my EFI version is below 2 (SMC Version (system): 1.68f99,) according to what I have read, I can not install Windows in an external drive (otherwise I´d put the secondary SSD in an enclosure and will go ahead). So, my plan is, as said before, to install Windows in a partition of my primary disk and then Winclone it to restore the image to the secondary SSD after replacing the temporary superdrive used and get back to the original scenario. Then I´ll erase the original Bootcamp partition and restore my OSXs on the primary hard drive as they were. At the end, Windows is going to be internally on the same computer with the same drivers, etc., but in a different hard drive. My question is: Would I have any problem with Windows or Bootcamp for doing this? Will Windows run smoothly after the change? Is there something I have to do previously? I have read your article about moving a Bootcamp partition from one Mac to another. This case is within the same Mac but to a different hard drive.
A few years ago I restored a Winclone image of Windows 7 to a secondary internal hard drive of the same computer. However, Sierra and Windows 8 are major words with a lot of security, etc., and I´m not sure if I can proceed in the same way.