just hold option at boot up. or hold command+option+p+r to reset your pram, then the mac'll look for the first partition with an efi bootloader (hopefully os x) to boot from.
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Win7 x64 booting natively via EFI (no BIOS emulation)
- Thread starter VirtualRain
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just hold option at boot up. or hold command+option+p+r to reset your pram, then the mac'll look for the first partition with an efi bootloader (hopefully os x) to boot from.
Thanks for that - trouble is holding down the option key does not work on a non efi graphics card - for some reason it just hangs.
I will try resetting the PRAM as you suggest - I was a bit afraid to do that in case it stuffs up my MBR but from what you have said it probably wont.
Thanks again
The only other difference that I notice is that on the bridge, on line A0, values for A8 - AB are set to 10 (16 decimal) in bios boot. in EFI, they're set to 0E (14 decimal), but i can't use the mm command to change that range like I would the previous values... It feels like I'm missing something, I just wish i knew what.
Well it did stuff up my MBR
I got the dreaded flashing cursor when I tried to boot Windows. Swapping the HDD with Windows 7 on to Bay 1 on my Mac Pro fixed the problem for now. However after running passmark tests on my Disks I am getting woeful speeds of around 3.5mbps WTF! I should be getting close to 300mbps I thought. Intel Storage manager says my disks are all Generation 2. I was getting better results before I enabled AHCI!All this trouble to enable AHCI is turning in to a PIA! Anyone have any clues as to why this is - Is this tweak only for SSDs (AHCI_enabler) - or does it apply to SATA2 drives as well?
My bad I need an SSD of course!
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Hi d3vi1,
Can I please have a copy of your application? I'd like to try it on a early 2011 MBP.
Well it did stuff up my MBR
All this trouble to enable AHCI is turning in to a PIA! Anyone have any clues as to why this is - Is this tweak only for SSDs (AHCI_enabler) - or does it apply to SATA2 drives as well?
Which method did u use? ACHIEnabler.app , Linux Script IDE2AHCI131 or patchedcode.bin
ACHIEnabler.app - i believe works on any Intel Mac made prior to 2011
patchedcode.bin only for new Sandy Bridge Mac's
IDE2AHCI131 should enable ACHI on any Mac "IDE will enable after reboot"
You should see speed improvement if your running 64bit Intel Drivers. Use Matrix drivers unless your running SandyBridge +
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i'll definitely give it a whirl too
I second that request. MBA 2010 and MBP late 2011. 3 diff model systems in one shot. Definitely a plus
I second that request. MBA 2010 and MBP late 2011. 3 diff model systems in one shot. Definitely a plus
I used AHCI_enabler - I have a MacPro 2008 (3.1)
Installed Intel Matrix Storage Manager - IATAENU8.9 (8.9.0.1023) maybe I installed wrong driver but I dont think so. I will check to see it installed properly.
Can you recommend a decent HDD benchmark?
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OSX?
diglloydTools Overprice, works well
SpeedTools - not sure if free version allows u to use benchmark
Diskspeed - from Mac App Store Doesn't take in consideration for compress data
PC
ATTO Disk Benchmark
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figured i was missing something
I figured I was missing something. I've been reading this entire post through and through and missed a minor (major) detail. I'm supposed to load the option rom first specific to my video card. Forgive my n00bness in asking this, but anybody have instructions on how to dump the VGA option rom for my air?
I found these instructions on the ubuntu website:
I believe it would be the 2nd line if this were the case. And once i have the rom, how do I load it?
edit: ok so I found the answer to my second question, loadpcirom [romfilename.rom] command in the EFI shell. Now gotta confirm the first question, or if i got that part wrong anyone please feel free to correct me...
I figured I was missing something. I've been reading this entire post through and through and missed a minor (major) detail. I'm supposed to load the option rom first specific to my video card. Forgive my n00bness in asking this, but anybody have instructions on how to dump the VGA option rom for my air?
I found these instructions on the ubuntu website:
Code:
To get the BIOS dump, you need to boot into BIOS mode, then use these commands to generate dump files:
dd if=/dev/mem of=/boot/vbios.bin bs=65536 skip=12 count=1
dd if=/dev/mem of=/boot/int10.bin bs=4 skip=16 count=1
It would create /boot/vbios.bin and /boot/int10.bin to be used by the loadbios command.I believe it would be the 2nd line if this were the case. And once i have the rom, how do I load it?
edit: ok so I found the answer to my second question, loadpcirom [romfilename.rom] command in the EFI shell. Now gotta confirm the first question, or if i got that part wrong anyone please feel free to correct me...
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Something you might want to look into to enable 64bit efi on your MacPro 3.1
http://netkas.org/?p=978
http://forum.netkas.org/index.php/topic,1123.0.html
Ok guys I see a lot of definitely improvements in this thread, but I see that some people are taking a step backwards. I have a 5 OS boot on my Mac Pro. The boot order goes like this:
Power --> hold down Option (This is NECESSARY to make all devices active) --> Select the default EFI partition I have "blessed" through OS X --> EFI shell is immediately loaded, automatically runs startup.nsh (which I have configured to set the proper parameters on my hardware), EFI shell loads a Grub.efi binary I have made -> Grub.
Once I get to the Grub menu, I basically chainload whatever OS I need. I am able to boot OS X, Windows 7(EFI), Windows Server 2008 (EFI), Fedora, and surprisingly VMware ESXi. If anyone is interested in this type of setup, on a Mac Pro, you can PM me so I can assist you. I have not have much success with a system with a single hard drive, so I can only assist with the Mac Pros. An unattended install is the way to go for Windows EFI boot. Without the video loading program by d3vi1, there is no way you can do an interactive install. Maybe this will be what motivates me to do a VGA driver.
Power --> hold down Option (This is NECESSARY to make all devices active) --> Select the default EFI partition I have "blessed" through OS X --> EFI shell is immediately loaded, automatically runs startup.nsh (which I have configured to set the proper parameters on my hardware), EFI shell loads a Grub.efi binary I have made -> Grub.
Once I get to the Grub menu, I basically chainload whatever OS I need. I am able to boot OS X, Windows 7(EFI), Windows Server 2008 (EFI), Fedora, and surprisingly VMware ESXi. If anyone is interested in this type of setup, on a Mac Pro, you can PM me so I can assist you. I have not have much success with a system with a single hard drive, so I can only assist with the Mac Pros. An unattended install is the way to go for Windows EFI boot. Without the video loading program by d3vi1, there is no way you can do an interactive install. Maybe this will be what motivates me to do a VGA driver.
Will this method work with a Mac Pro with a non EFI card though?
I am using a stock GTX460 so can not see the boot screen.
Holding down the option key just hangs the system.
Currently I am using Apples BootPicker at the OSX login screen to boot back to Windows. Resetting the PRAM every time is clunky. Bootpicker leaves OSX as the default boot drive, so this works for me.
BTW I have enabled AHCI enabled in Windows so Bootcamp.exe does not work to boot back in to OSX Lion, this is why I need Bootpicker.
I have 3 HDDs, One for OSX, 2 for Windows (one is for windows 7 only)
all SATA drives.
I enabled AHCI just to see if I could get it to work if I go down the SSD path.
I do not believe this will work without an EFI enabled card. Are you able to load .efi files at boot? Explain what happens when you turn on the power.
Nothing on the screen (blank) until I get to the login at OSX. Then panel
comes on. I had to install the Nvidia driver from their website to get this stock GTX460 to work (No ATY_init required!).
OPen GL,Cl, Cuda seems to be working OK with this card after a bit of tweaking (modded Nvidia Driver).
I also flashed an EVGA 8800gt with EFI BIOS and that works fine with option key.
However the GTX460 is better for games in Windows.
If only OSX used D3d instead OpenGL!
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so I used the 2nd dd command to extract my video option rom, but when i load it in the shell using loadpcirom, it gives me an error - not found 0 - and i still get the same black screen when windows loads.
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You can do an interactive install if you use the installer from the Windows 8 Developer Preview DVD and put it on usb. Just replace the windows 8 install.wim in the sources folder with the windows 7 one you have with your drivers injected. That way you don't have to go through the hassle of making an unattend or having to write a vga driver...
On another note, I don't have the video loading program by d3vi1. How do i get the correct dump for my vga option rom? and how do I go about loading it? If you look at my previous post i got an error.
And as far as using grub2-efi, any extra modules you loaded, and what commands did you use in the grub.cfg to load windows?
I will have an extra hard drive I can test with tonight. I will definitely try this method. If I can get everything working, I will write up a tutorial full of screenshots and detailed instructions.
vga option rom
does anybody have some instructions on how to save and load the proper vga option rom? the instructions i found earlier for DD from Linux in bios mode aren't working - the files they generate give me an error "not found" when i try to load them using the loadpcirom command. I also tried using nvflash and GPU-Z from within windows in bios mode, but those tools won't even dump a file, they just give me an error "bios reading not supported on this device" and "ERROR: Supported EEPROM not found"
does anybody have some instructions on how to save and load the proper vga option rom? the instructions i found earlier for DD from Linux in bios mode aren't working - the files they generate give me an error "not found" when i try to load them using the loadpcirom command. I also tried using nvflash and GPU-Z from within windows in bios mode, but those tools won't even dump a file, they just give me an error "bios reading not supported on this device" and "ERROR: Supported EEPROM not found"
I've seen a few weblinks, but I haven't been able to try anything. I probably won't be able to try until the weekend. I've had a really long work week.
Quick question guys. On my current setup, I have noticed that if I do a warm boot, it does not detect ALL hard disks. Only the first one. However, if I perform a warm boot and hold down option, it probes all available disks and those are available to me in Grub. Is there an option I can set that will automatically probe all devices without having to hold down option?
Have your tried installing eEFInd? It's the default boot manager on my MBP. It will scan for devices.
Did you mean:
http://www.rodsbooks.com/efi-bootloaders/refind.html ?
I suppose I COULD use this boot loader. However, I am not sure this can boot ESXi or Citrix XenServer. I need the ability to chainload other OSes and Grub 2 does this perfectly. I prefer Grub 2 - EFI since it provides a command line to manually boot an OS. The other feature I must have is since I am using EFI shell to set registers, I must have it run startup.nsh automatically. I have seen some errors with going from the EFI shell to the refit menu itself. I am not certain this is going to work for me. I did notice that scanfor option. I am looking for a way to probe all devices with EFI firmware.
http://www.rodsbooks.com/efi-bootloaders/refind.html ?
I suppose I COULD use this boot loader. However, I am not sure this can boot ESXi or Citrix XenServer. I need the ability to chainload other OSes and Grub 2 does this perfectly. I prefer Grub 2 - EFI since it provides a command line to manually boot an OS. The other feature I must have is since I am using EFI shell to set registers, I must have it run startup.nsh automatically. I have seen some errors with going from the EFI shell to the refit menu itself. I am not certain this is going to work for me. I did notice that scanfor option. I am looking for a way to probe all devices with EFI firmware.
FYI - aka "srs5694" followuing this thread is Rod Smith, developer for reEFIne. Here his reply when i ask about setting up refine.conf like grub.conf.
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