Win7 x64 booting natively via EFI (no BIOS emulation)

[624636]

To DaGr8Gatzby : You seems to have installed Windows 7 in EFI. Have you got some problem(s) regarding your Graphic Card ?

If not, is it possible to give us the result of pci -i 00 00 00 > *.txt for your VGA adapter and for your Pci Bridge

(for those interested in posting your "log", you have to replace "00 00 00" by the values of your VGA Adapter and the related PCI bridge. Mine is here.

Have you tested the installation of Windows 8 ?

 

[mark1234]

You are doing the right steps... for what I know.

For the Mac Mini, I have connected my monitor both via HDMI and via displayport. Both ways end with a black screen. So I do not think that the display signal of your iMac is put onto the external displayport.

What iMac (which year) do you have.

 

[624636]

For the Mac Mini, I have connected my monitor both via HDMI and via displayport. Both ways end with a black screen. So I do not think that the display signal of your iMac is put onto the external displayport.

Yes I have tested and nothing on the external screen.

---
I have a new track :

In EFI shell type "drivers -b" without ""
You will see all the drivers that the firmware has ;
For my iMac the last line is "ATI Radeon UGA Driver 01.00.383"

Maybe we could update this version and I think the command "drivers" could unload/load drivers till you reboot.

But where we can find these EFI drivers ? Is it contained in the graphic card firmware or in the Mac firmware ? Is it possible to dump the EFI drivers of another card and use it ?

My guess is that EFI drivers are unified between cards of the same manufacturer BUT Apple modify it in order to works with OSX and the BIOS mode. It could be a good hope !!!

(i.e. We will make a Windows entry that launch startup.nsh file witch set register and load a different EFI drivers)

I think (http://forum.netkas.org/) could be a good help.
---

You can also see that there is CFG column.
Maybe there is some *.cfg file in order to configure devices ?

---

I post my output of drivers -b

You could obtain yours by typing :
fs0:
drivers > drivers.txt

 

[kraades]

If you want to try it, it is best to first try it by booting in the EFI shell from an USB stick. I will post a message at night for you how you can create this USB stick very easily. Or you can google for refIT or rEFInd.

I am on Windows only. No OSX...
I tried copying the cdr image using the dd command on Ubuntu but to no avail.

 

[DaGr8Gatzby]

Okay I did that but now a new issue, I cant get past the product key page. I entered the Windows 8 key and my Windws 7 Pro Key and no luck It says "We couldnt verify the product key. Try entering it again."

does it make a difference which setup.exe I execute?

If you slipstream the Windows 7 install.wim into the windows 8 installer, it will cross check the serial number with the product keys located on the install.wim frmo Windows 7. Therefore, you want to place the Windows 7 serial in this box. You also want to double check that the EULA displays the version of Win7 you want to install. In my Case it was Enterprise.

----------

To DaGr8Gatzby : You seems to have installed Windows 7 in EFI. Have you got some problem(s) regarding your Graphic Card ?

If not, is it possible to give us the result of pci -i 00 00 00 > *.txt for your VGA adapter and for your Pci Bridge

(for those interested in posting your "log", you have to replace "00 00 00" by the values of your VGA Adapter and the related PCI bridge. Mine is here.

Have you tested the installation of Windows 8 ?

I have one GPU, which is the GT120 that came with my Mac Pro. Therefore, I am not having issues that most people are having. I really wish I had a dual GPU setup so I could help you guys out more.

I'll post in a few hours my EFI output.

----------

To DaGr8Gatzby : You seems to have installed Windows 7 in EFI. Have you got some problem(s) regarding your Graphic Card ?

If not, is it possible to give us the result of pci -i 00 00 00 > *.txt for your VGA adapter and for your Pci Bridge

(for those interested in posting your "log", you have to replace "00 00 00" by the values of your VGA Adapter and the related PCI bridge. Mine is here.

Have you tested the installation of Windows 8 ?

I am not interested in Windows 8

 

[bssayeda]

If you slipstream the Windows 7 install.wim into the windows 8 installer, it will cross check the serial number with the product keys located on the install.wim frmo Windows 7. Therefore, you want to place the Windows 7 serial in this box. You also want to double check that the EULA displays the version of Win7 you want to install. In my Case it was Enterprise.

----------



I have one GPU, which is the GT120 that came with my Mac Pro. Therefore, I am not having issues that most people are having. I really wish I had a dual GPU setup so I could help you guys out more.

I'll post in a few hours my EFI output.

----------



I am not interested in Windows 8

Hmm strange. I'm putting in my product key for windows 7 professional but it's not taking it. Is there a way to remove the other editions of windows from a wim file?

 

[mark1234]

@Kraades:



The efi shell is only one efi file.

We are going to use the shell.efi from Grub as posted by the GreatGatsby.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4308827/Grub.zip

Unpack the zip file and take out the file

/Grub/efi/tools/shell.efi


1. Insert a USB flash drive into your computer
2. Start -> Diskpart (or start a Command Prompt as an Administrator and type diskpart). This starts the Disk Partition tool which you need to use to format the flash drive. Once you see the DISKPART command prompt, type in the following commands
3. DISKPART> list volume /* shows all partitions and volumes together with drive letters incl usb volume */
4. DISKPART> list disk /* shows list of active disks */
5. DISKPART> select disk # /* # is the number for your USB flash drive */
6. DISKPART> clean /* deletes any existing partitions on the USB flash drive */
7. DISKPART> create partition primary /* create a primary partition on the USB flash drive */
8. DISKPART> list partition
9. DISKPART> select partition 1 /* select the newly created partition */
10. DISKPART> active /* make the new partition active */
11. DISKPART> format FS=FAT32 /* format the USB drive with FAT32 file system */
12. DISKPART> assign /* assign a volume and drive letter to the USB drive */
13. DISKPART> exit /* exit Disk Partition */
14. mkdir efi
15. cd efi
16. mkdir boot
17. Now we have to copy the EFI shell file to the /efi/boot directory. This file has to be named bootx64.efi.
So we are copying the file shell.efi and rename it to bootx64.efi.


The EFI boot manager (i.e. the firmware) looks for an EFI executable program to run called
\efi\boot\bootx64.efi. This is a default operating system boot loader.



Reboot and hold down the option key to boot from the USB stick right into the efi shell.

 

[624636]

It seems that Graphic Card has two roms : One for the "card" and an EFI rom

I think that EFI driver could only be in graphic card firmware otherwise the motherboard have to contain EFI drivers for all card and update it all the time.

We have to recover an EFI Rom for ATI, INTEL and NVIDIA regular card (... PC Card) and extract the driver from it.

Once it's done, load it with a bootloader like rEFInd ... and pray for it works.

---

Correct me if i'm wrong but it seems that ATI New Single Graphic Card has hybrid EFI rom which permit to be recognized by MAC Pro and PC. That's why these new cards works directly without flashing on Mac Pro. It could explain why DaGr8Gatzby has no problem.

 

[mark1234]

Is this driver not stored in NVRAM? How does it work when you update the firmware with for example new Thunderbolt firmware. I guess it is stored in NVRAM. (NVRAM= Non Volatile RAM).

When we all join forces we must come closer to a solution.

 

[kraades]

Reboot and hold down the option key to boot from the USB stick right into the efi shell.

Ok, I am now looking at the grub prompt...

 

[bssayeda]

Hmm strange. I'm putting in my product key for windows 7 professional but it's not taking it. Is there a way to remove the other editions of windows from a wim file?

Okay I finally got past the product key part but once my install gets to where it has expanded the files I get an error saying that "Windows could not update the computer's boot configuration. Installation cannot proceed." After that it rolls back and undoes the whole install. My system is a Early 2011 17in MacBook Pro with Lion 10.7.3 and Mountain Lion 10.8 DP 4 installed on it (for IT Development and iOS Development). My setup is:

Disk0s1: Default EFI Partition (Has DaGr8Gatzby's Grub files in it)
Disk0s2: Lion
Disk0s3: Lion Recovery
Disk0s4: Mountain Lion
Disk0s5: Mountain Lion Recovery
{Free Space Where Windows 7 Pro should go but isnt}.

 

[mark1234]

Ok, I am now looking at the grub prompt...

Sorry, there was a mistake in my instructions. You have used the wrong efi file from the zip file.
Correct instructions:

Unpack the zip file and take out the file

/Grub/efi/tools/shell.efi

Now we have to copy the EFI shell file to the /efi/boot directory. This file has to be named bootx64.efi.
So we are copying the file shell.efi and rename it to bootx64.efi.

 

[kraades]

Now we have to copy the EFI shell file to the /efi/boot directory. This file has to be named bootx64.efi.
So we are copying the file shell.efi and rename it to bootx64.efi.

That is better.
(BTW you don't have to use diskpart; quick format in Windows will also work)

Question: Are all setting done in EFI shell non destructive? Not permanent and only for that session/boot?

----------

[/COLOR]

You could obtain yours by typing :
fs0:
drivers > drivers.txt

See attachment. Macmini5,1.

 

[mark1234]

When you modify a register it is only for that session and it will get lost when rebooting.

What is interesting to see is that in the driver list, there are two EFI graphics drivers:

SandyBridge EG2 Graphics Driver
AMD Radeon Driver 01.00.561

Our Mac Mini Model 2011 only has the Intel HD3000 Chipset and not the ATI chipset.
Could it be possible that Windows 8 is using the AMD Radeon driver and thus that this is causing a black screen? This is something which d3v1l also has mentioned something similar in one of his previous posts:

Quote:
"Furthermore, it would also be interesting to know which video card is connected to the outputs of the Mac Mini by default. On Macs, the EFI environment usually has drivers for both video cards (except in MBP6,2) and only activates the Graphics Output Protocol on the one with EDID Discovered and EDID Active. UGA is available on all graphics cards though (on systems that offer also UGA).

You can see that by doing a devtree in the EFI Shell.

If on your system the VGA settings are correct by default but the EFI system uses the discrete adapter it means that although Windows runs correctly, you will never see anything as the gMux is connected to the wrong card."

 

[624636]

But we seems to have the exact same problem and I have only one graphic card !

 

[mark1234]

Yes, we have the same problem. And we both have 1 graphic card. I only see that we have two EFI drivers installed, one Intel and one ATI.
I see that you have one EFI driver installed "ATI Radeon UGA Driver 01.00.383".
Also I see another (graphic?) driver at your iMac: AGP Driver.

It's probably a dead-end and has nothing to do with it. But is there some way to remove one of the EFI drivers?

 

[kraades]

You can see that by doing a devtree in the EFI Shell.

SandyBridge EG2 Graphics Device. See attachment.

BTW
Explanation of the columns in the drivers output:

DRV - The handle number of the EFI driver
VERSION - The version number of the EFI driver
TYPE - The driver type.
Bus Driver
[D] Device Driver
CFG - The driver supports the Driver Configuration Protocol
DIAG - The driver supports the Driver Diagnostics Protocol
#D - The number of devices that the driver is managing
#C - The number of child devices that this driver has produced

 

[kraades]

There are commands for connecting and disconnecting devices to drivers.

See connect.txt for the connected devices.

I already tried "connect 3C C5". It said "Succes" but it didn't change anything in the behavior.

It was just an idea...

 

[mark1234]

It's good to have some fresh ideas.
Question:
After the "connect 3C C5" did you chainload the microsoft Bootloader by executing

fs0:
EFI\Microsoft\Boot\Bootmgfw.efi

 

[kraades]

I did now, but it didn't make any difference...

I guess the device and driver are already connected fine.
If I disconnect the device the screen freezes as expected.

And yes, the audio driver is also included in the Windows 8 CP Intel beta driver package.
But in Windows 8 you don't see the controllers show up in device manager like in Windows 7(*) so there is no driver to update.

(*) the devices with the red dots are not shown in Windows 8

As said before we probably have to set some register(s) to have Windows 8 pick up the Intel devices...

BTW
See attachment for some efi command output...don't know if it is useful...

 

[624636]

What is interesting to see is that in the driver list, there are two EFI graphics drivers:

SandyBridge EG2 Graphics Driver
AMD Radeon Driver 01.00.561

Our Mac Mini Model 2011 only has the Intel HD3000 Chipset and not the ATI chipset.

So it seems that the EFI drivers are on Mac's firmware and not in Graphic Card firmware !

Any idea on how to dump it ?

Your MacMini has an updated drivers for ATI RADEON but I don't think it solves the problem. Maybe the drivers from a MAC PRO could be more interesting.

I lost confidence !

 

[mark1234]

If you look at the details there are differences to note.

Look in the drivers list at the type column.

SandyBridge EG2 Graphics Driver has type B (=Bus Driver)
AMD Radeon Driver 01.00.561 has type ?

The question mark possibly indicates that the hardware is not available.

In the list of jlpek17 I see the following

ATI Radeon UGA Driver 01.00.383 has type D (=Device Driver).

So on the iMac, the VGA driver is of a different type then on the Mac Mini.

 

[624636]

As soon as we can dump EFI drivers I could test this updated drivers ... i'm investigating !

 

[mark1234]

Ok,

So I have made some progress. My initial thought was that my Intel Graphic chip is on bus 0, so I do not have to set the VGAE register of the corresponding PCI bridge. I was wrong!!!!!
When I set the VGAE register of any PCI bridge who has Primary Bus=0, I am able to boot into Windows 8 and I do not get a black screen. As long as the primary Bus=0 of the PCI bridge this works. When the primary bus of the PCI bridge is not 0, and I set the VGAE register of this PCI bridge, I will end up with a black screen.

So I am able to boot into Windows 8 now with the Intel accelerated graphic driver. However, there is an exclamation mark behind the "Intel HD Graphics" in the device manager. The message is as follows:

The device cannot find enough free resources that it can use (Code 12).
If you want to use this device, you will need to disable one of the other devices on this system.

I have tried it with all PCI bridges with primary bus=0 and I will always get the message above.

People with a Mac Mini Model 2011 with built-in Intel graphics can simulate it with:

boot into efi shell
mm 0001003e 8 -pci
fs0:
\efi\microsoft\boot\bootmgfw.efi

 

[kraades]

Real progress!!! Very nice.

Yesterday I read through all the 24 pages of this post and I stumbled on your post where you said that you don't need to change anything. I was about to ask you if you were sure about this. But you have read my mind.

I seem to remember there is a post of jlpek17 where he also talks about some sort of (similar?) resource problem?

Edit:
I have the same results.

Code 12: This device cannot find enough free resources that it can use

Diagnosis
Two devices have been assigned the same input/output (I/O) ports, the same interrupt, or the same Direct Memory Access channel. The assignment was made by either the basic input/output system (BIOS), the operating system, or a combination of the two.

Resolution
This error message can also appear if the BIOS did not allocate enough resources to the device. You can use Device Manager to determine where the conflict is and disable the conflicting device.