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Hello! I have iMac Intel 21.5” late 2012. My HDD is failing and I want to replace it with SSD. SSD is new and I plan to install Windows on it. I don’t want to install OS X. I have Windows boot USB — used it before to install Windows on old HDD. The difference is, old HDD already had OS X installed, new SSD is clean. Can I just replace hard drive, insert USB and smoothly setup Windows? Or I need to install OS X first, then use boot camp etc. ? What are the steps?
Hi leo, I have an Imac mid 2011 27inch that I did exactly this on but I did not write down any steps. I ended up using OSX on the SSD. at any rate I found a few guides that look fairly decent. https://www.intowindows.com/how-to-insta… https://www.wikigain.com/install-windows… One word of advice. If there is anything on that old drive you care about make sure you back it up in two places before touching the machine. I backup to the cloud as well as to a local drive. When I installed windows 10 on the mac I simply created a windows 10 boot thumb drive and booted from that after I installed the SSD. I then let windows partition the disk and install as normal. it worked fine but I decided to go back to OSX as I did not have a license for windows and did not want to purchase one. besides I like OSX just as much as windows. I find it more stable by a long shot. I did make a video on tearing down and replacing the hard disk on my system. I don’t remember if they went to the slim case in 2012 so if they did my video wont be much help. https://youtu.be/vQ5sS6H1NaE
