Win7 x64 booting natively via EFI (no BIOS emulation)

[doxnet]

@Quackers,

I have a 2012 rMBP 15in and I've encountered your exact situation with Windows 8.1 in EFI mode. I installed Windows 8 EFI earlier this year using rEFInd as my boot manager. I managed to get it to work pretty well (albeit without audio). I upgraded to 8.1 when it came out and encountered the black screen on boot. Despite trying multiple versions of the NVIDIA drivers, I kept getting the black screen on boot. I eventually got everything to work by using the bootcamp NVIDA drivers as well. This is unfortunate as this means we're stuck using these olders for now until Apple or NVIDIA figure this out (not holding my breath).

At this point, I'm actually considering selling this computer and getting the latest retina MBP which seems to have better EFI support. I like to use multiple OSes but the no audio in Windows is quite annoying. And I think Windows Update likes to update drivers automatically, so every couple of days I get a new set of NVIDIA drivers installed and I'm back to the black screen.

 

[Quackers]

@Quackers,

I have a 2012 rMBP 15in and I've encountered your exact situation with Windows 8.1 in EFI mode. I installed Windows 8 EFI earlier this year using rEFInd as my boot manager. I managed to get it to work pretty well (albeit without audio). I upgraded to 8.1 when it came out and encountered the black screen on boot. Despite trying multiple versions of the NVIDIA drivers, I kept getting the black screen on boot. I eventually got everything to work by using the bootcamp NVIDA drivers as well. This is unfortunate as this means we're stuck using these olders for now until Apple or NVIDIA figure this out (not holding my breath).

At this point, I'm actually considering selling this computer and getting the latest retina MBP which seems to have better EFI support. I like to use multiple OSes but the no audio in Windows is quite annoying. And I think Windows Update likes to update drivers automatically, so every couple of days I get a new set of NVIDIA drivers installed and I'm back to the black screen.

Yes but eventually my Boot Camp support Nvidia driver stopped working too.
As soon as a Nvidia driver is installed in Windows 8.1 the monitor drops out. Apparently we're not alone. Pc users with dual graphics chips are in the same boat - according to Google.

I believe the EFI support would have to come from a Boot Camp update and/or a firmware update so that no hybrid mbr is created whilst partitioning. Obviously new drivers would be needed to.
That may be a lot to ask for Apple - unless they include all of that in 10.9.1
But I can't see that happening.

 

[doxnet]

Yes but eventually my Boot Camp support Nvidia driver stopped working too.
As soon as a Nvidia driver is installed in Windows 8.1 the monitor drops out. Apparently we're not alone. Pc users with dual graphics chips are in the same boat - according to Google.

I believe the EFI support would have to come from a Boot Camp update and/or a firmware update so that no hybrid mbr is created whilst partitioning. Obviously new drivers would be needed to.
That may be a lot to ask for Apple - unless they include all of that in 10.9.1
But I can't see that happening.

Actually, I bet your bootcamp drivers stop working because Windows 8.1 somehow updates it silently to the builtin Windows 8.1 drivers because it thinks they are newer (which then fails with the black sreen). I then have to boot to safe mode and rollback the driver and everything works again, until it gets updated again. I wish there was a good way to prevent automatic driver installs. I changed the Windows Update setting, but that doesn't seem to help (http://www.eightforums.com/graphic-cards/32429-automatic-driver-update.html).

 

[Quackers]

The Boot Camp Windows installer somehow turns off the Intel HD4000 and doesn't even load the igdkmd64.sys intel driver. It isn't even on the system in a Boot Camp installation (normal one).
That doesn't happen in an EFI installation and that driver causes problems.
However, the main problem for me is that in EFI mode as soon as a Nvidia driver starts to load it dumps the monitor offline somehow.
That didn't happen in Windows 8 but it's happening in 8.1 so something has changed somewhere.

I've gone back to a Boot Camp installation for the moment but will keep an eye on any updates (firmware/Boot Camp) which may be forthcoming - not

Lol, first thing I do in a new install is turn off the automatic Windows Update download/install.

 

[doxnet]

The Boot Camp Windows installer somehow turns off the Intel HD4000 and doesn't even load the igdkmd64.sys intel driver. It isn't even on the system in a Boot Camp installation (normal one).
That doesn't happen in an EFI installation and that driver causes problems.
However, the main problem for me is that in EFI mode as soon as a Nvidia driver starts to load it dumps the monitor offline somehow.
That didn't happen in Windows 8 but it's happening in 8.1 so something has changed somewhere.

I've gone back to a Boot Camp installation for the moment but will keep an eye on any updates (firmware/Boot Camp) which may be forthcoming - not

Lol, first thing I do in a new install is turn off the automatic Windows Update download/install.

I should probably clarify that I'm using the bootcamp NVIDIA driver (v. 306.37) in EFI mode. Any newer drivers or the default windows 8.1 NVIDIA drivers causes the monitor to go black upon booting. I've also disabled the Intel graphics card to prevent it from crashing.

 

[Quackers]

Yep. If you go in to safe mode when you get the black or grey screen and have a look in device manager you will see that the PnP monitor has a yellow triangle with exclamation mark. If you delve into it it still says that the device is working properly but obviously something's wrong.

 

[doxnet]

Yep. If you go in to safe mode when you get the black or grey screen and have a look in device manager you will see that the PnP monitor has a yellow triangle with exclamation mark. If you delve into it it still says that the device is working properly but obviously something's wrong.

Interesting. Currently, I have to PnP monitors in Device Manager. One is tied to the Microsoft Basic Display Adapter and the other to the NVIDIA GT 650m device. I wonder if disabling the first one could potentially fix this problem? Probably not, sounds like you would have figured it out already haha.

 

[Quackers]

Interesting. Currently, I have to PnP monitors in Device Manager. One is tied to the Microsoft Basic Display Adapter and the other to the NVIDIA GT 650m device. I wonder if disabling the first one could potentially fix this problem? Probably not, sounds like you would have figured it out already haha.

Yes I tried that - no good.
There's also something else - on mine at least.
If you identify each screen I found that Windows thought that screen 1 was the Nvidia controlled one and screen 2 was the MS basic driver one.
However, Nvidia's control panel thought that it was controlling the screen that Windows said was the basic display one.
Just another curiosity.

 

[doxnet]

Yes I tried that - no good.
There's also something else - on mine at least.
If you identify each screen I found that Windows thought that screen 1 was the Nvidia controlled one and screen 2 was the MS basic driver one.
However, Nvidia's control panel thought that it was controlling the screen that Windows said was the basic display one.
Just another curiosity.

Yeah, my NVIDIA is attached to display 2, and I've set Windows to only use that display. Interestingly enough, the NVIDIA control panel only sees one display.

 

[Quackers]

I did some more experimenting last night (I can't help it, I'm sick ) and noticed something.
I deleted my EFI Windows 8.1 install and went back to a Boot Camp (Winninstall) installation (with ulterior motives).
I got everything working, including the Nvidia 327.02 driver and updated everything.
I also noted that the Intel HD4000 was not listed in device manager. Its driver was not loaded in Programs & Features and the igdkmd64.sys driver did not appear in Windows/System32/Drivers folder.

After several reboots I was happy that everything was stable.


At that point I fired up gdisk and deleted my recovery HD, leaving the EFI, Macintosh HD and Boot Camp partitions (1,2 & 4) and a 620MB space.
I then wrote a new protective mbr to the drive, making it GPT only again.

I then created a MSR partition of 128MB (which Windows apparently needs).
Wrote the changes to disc and rebooted.

Obviously no Windows entry any more, but OSX still booted ok.

I then booted from the EFI Boot (Windows) USB and proceeded to make the Windows system bootable via EFI by copying the boot files from C: to the EFI partition (bcdboot C:\Windows /s S: /f ALL - where S: is the EFI partition).

I rebooted and windows booted from the EFI Boot menu to the backlit black screen.
Booting in to safe mode I viewed device manager and the Intel HD4000 was now not only recognised but it had a driver installed too! Where did that come from?
Also igdkmd64.sys (the Intel driver) had miraculously appeared in the Windows/System32/Drivers folder.

How did that happen? I haven't connected to the internet and no system disc was connected which could have put that driver there.
Remember, it wasn't there in the Boot Camp installation.
This is the same Boot Camp installation booting from EFI. There should be no way that driver could materialise.

Maybe Windows has elves that run around inside replacing what's needed

Anyway, once I deleted that driver, uninstalled the monitor and disabled the Nvidia driver the system booted normally using the MS basic display driver.
Still no good. Just more wasted time (but I had time to waste )

 

[doxnet]

I did some more experimenting last night (I can't help it, I'm sick ) and noticed something.
I deleted my EFI Windows 8.1 install and went back to a Boot Camp (Winninstall) installation (with ulterior motives).
I got everything working, including the Nvidia 327.02 driver and updated everything.
I also noted that the Intel HD4000 was not listed in device manager. Its driver was not loaded in Programs & Features and the igdkmd64.sys driver did not appear in Windows/System32/Drivers folder.

After several reboots I was happy that everything was stable.


At that point I fired up gdisk and deleted my recovery HD, leaving the EFI, Macintosh HD and Boot Camp partitions (1,2 & 4) and a 620MB space.
I then wrote a new protective mbr to the drive, making it GPT only again.

I then created a MSR partition of 128MB (which Windows needs to boot in EFI mode).
Wrote the changes to disc and rebooted.

Obviously no Windows entry any more, but OSX still booted ok.

I then booted from the EFI Boot (Windows) USB and proceeded to make the Windows system bootable via EFI by copying the boot files from C: to the EFI partition (bcdboot C:\Windows /s S: /f ALL - where S: is the EFI partition).

I rebooted and windows booted from the EFI Boot menu to the backlit black screen.
Booting in to safe mode I viewed device manager and the Intel HD4000 was now not only recognised but it had a driver installed too! Where did that come from?
Also igdkmd64.sys (the Intel driver) had miraculously appeared in the Windows/System32/Drivers folder.

How did that happen? I haven't connected to the internet and no system disc was connected which could have put that driver there.
Remember, it wasn't there in the Boot Camp installation.
This is the same Boot Camp installation booting from EFI. There should be no way that driver could materialise.

Maybe Windows has elves that run around inside replacing what's needed

Anyway, once I deleted that driver, uninstalled the monitor and disabled the Nvidia driver the system booted normally using the MS basic display driver.
Still no good. Just more wasted time (but I had time to waste )

Wow. Sounds like a lot of work there, but we got some useful information. There must be something in the bootcamp BIOS bootloader that disables the Intel card before booting. As people have discussed in this long thread, maybe using a EFI shell script to power down the Intel card and switch to the NVIDIA card before booting may be the ultimate solution to get this working well under EFI boot. I haven't had time (and patience) to dig into this and figure out how yet, I find all the pci register stuff confusing.

 

[Quackers]

Yes, some people have already done something in that area and I believe they have the Intel graphics working.
Not sure that will help with Windows 8.1 though. I think that's a bit different.

Still, I'd like to know how they disable Intel as we could use that for EFI too.

I suspect that unless Boot Camp is updated so that it doesn't create a hybrid mbr and new support drivers are issued together with a mechanism for EFI to recognise other hardware we'll have to make do with what we can get - or use Boot Camp and its mbr.

 

[Sjmmon]

MBP 15" Haswell Retina install win7 via efi

I recently bought a MBP 15" Haswell Retina. everything I have done (pci register .slipstream drivers into iso and something), i install win7 through win4.0pe ,and when it was finished. i hold "opion" to load refit

but when I boot Windows to setup using efi shell: fs0:\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi, The loading (also in safe mode) stops/hangs after “disk.sys”. I dont kown why ? million times
is there something wrong?

sorry about my english! really need help , thanks

 

[Quackers]

I recently bought a MBP 15" Haswell Retina. everything I have done (pci register .slipstream drivers into iso and something), i install win7 through win4.0pe ,and when it was finished. i hold "opion" to load refit

but when I boot Windows to setup using efi shell: fs0:\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi, The loading (also in safe mode) stops/hangs after “disk.sys”. I dont kown why ? million times
is there something wrong?

sorry about my english! really need help , thanks

I haven't tried it on a newer rMBP.
Don't you get an EFI Boot option on the refit menu? If you do, what happens when you try that one?

 

[WillSR20]

I agree! The inconsistencies between people's experiences are amazing - even with the same hardware sometimes.
It's almost a lottery, it seems

My first Intel Mac was THE first Intel Mac, the Macbook Pro 1,1. I did every sort of bootcamp, windows, etc, it always worked.

Now I have an early 2011 MBP and I have NEVER been able to get bootcamp/windows to work properly. I hate it. I have had, like you mention, almost every incarnation of problem. Usually my problems surround a blinking cursor. This never happened once on my old machine. I feel it has something to do with the Core i7 or with Lion.

 

[Quackers]

My first Intel Mac was THE first Intel Mac, the Macbook Pro 1,1. I did every sort of bootcamp, windows, etc, it always worked.

Now I have an early 2011 MBP and I have NEVER been able to get bootcamp/windows to work properly. I hate it. I have had, like you mention, almost every incarnation of problem. Usually my problems surround a blinking cursor. This never happened once on my old machine. I feel it has something to do with the Core i7 or with Lion.

It certainly seems like it's a bit hit and miss.
My system seems to react differently every time I install something
Even Apple Support claim that EFI is unsupported in Boot Camp on any Mac.
However, there are posts and guides all over the place for doing just that on 2013 MBA's.
Go figure

 

[Sjmmon]

I haven't tried it on a newer rMBP.
Don't you get an EFI Boot option on the refit menu? If you do, what happens when you try that one?

when I try that one the machine just freeze .
in safe mode stops/hangs after “disk.sys

thanks

 

[woodslanding]

working for me so far!

I have a new mac mini. It came with a 1 TB disk, and I added a 256gb SSD.

Now I have windows 8.1 running side-by-side with mtn lion in efi mode on the SSD, with the original OS on the HD. It was a needlessly long process for me, but it's working now.

My main guide was this page:
http://spblinux.de/blog/2013/03/mac-...-opensuse12-3/

But by using RUFUS to create a bootable efi usb drive from my windows image, I was able to skip the second half where you hand copy files.

I used the console from the windows usb to clean the disk and create the windows partitions. Then I installed OSX from time machine according to the instructions. From there, it was just a case of using the windows usb to install. (It doesn't seem like I need refind. I installed it, but it stopped working every time I option-booted.)

Then I downloaded the newest version of bootcamp from apple and installed it. Both OSs boot quickly from the SSD..... OSX is crazy fast, windows not quite.

It was needlessly long because I accidentally formated my HD with the windows partitions, and had to rebuild the partition table from my parted magic disk using testdisk. Aaak! Fortunately I was able to get everything back but the original recovery partition. Guess I'll try to rebuild that at some point, but the internet boot saved my butt. I was able to use that to restore the mac partition on the ssd.

So like I say, everything seems to be working fine. I do notice only intel graphics in the device manager. Does that mean bootcamp disabled the other card, or does the mini not have that? Sound is fine, haven't tested sleep yet, but I don't really need it for my application (actually don't need sound either.....)

Thanks to everyone on these forums and elsewhere who has posted their solutions!

cheers,
-eric

 

[mark1234]

@woodslanding,

your post is somewhat confusing.
"It doesn't seem like I need refind. I installed it, but it stopped working every time I option-booted."

"Then I downloaded the newest version of bootcamp from apple and installed it. Both OSs boot quickly from the SSD..... OSX is crazy fast, windows not quite."

From the above, it looks like you are using Bootcamp now and are not EFI booting Windows. Bootcamp will create an MBR partition.
You can check it by using the Windows Disk Management tool and looking at the Windows partition. The Windows Partition should be a GPT partition. If it is not, then you are not EFI booting.

And how do you switch between Windows and OS X. By "Option booting"?

 

[mark1234]

I have just EFI installed Windows 8.1 on a Mac Mini 2012 with built-in Intel Graphics. To my surprise, everything went smoothly. No black screens and everyting is working including sound (Cirrus driver). I can switch between OS X and Windows by Alt/Option booting. Apparently, Microsoft finally has made it right!

 

[Quackers]

Windows 8.1 is a much better experience as far as EFI installation is concerned, for me. No more boot configuration errors! The installation is quite slow though.

Sadly it still thinks my rMBP has got 2 screens
One for the Nvidia card and the other is for the Microsoft Basic Display driver.
None for the Intel HD4000 though, even though it appears in device manager

Screen resolution is all over the place depending on which "screen" it chooses to use on boot up.

No sound still on mine.

It's all very confusing.

 

[xjerky]

NVIDIA Driver fails on 2010 Mac Mini and VGA BIOS under EFI boot of Windows 8.1

(Sorry if this is a double post...seems that most of the knowledgeable folks are on this thread)

I've installed Windows 8.1 on my Late 2010 Mac Mini (which has the NVIDIA 300m GPU) in pure EFI/GPT mode (no Bootcamp). Everything works after I install Bootcamp drivers (including sound), until Windows Update attempts to install the NVIDIA drivers. Once that happens, I end up in an endless reboot loop. So, I've read threads here saying that enabling I/O address space on the Display Controller and enabling VGA on the Display Controller's subordinate bus should do the trick, but what that does seem to prevent the endless reboot loop, I just get a black screen and that's it.

This is my EFI shell output:
shell>pci -i -b
.
.
00 00 17 00 ==> Bridge Device - PCI/PCI bridge
Vendor 10DE DEvice 0D76 Prog Interface 0
.
00 05 00 00 ==> Display Controller - VGA/8514 controller
Vendor 10DE Device 08A4 Prog Interface 0

shell> pci -i 00 17 00 -b
.
.
(Bus Numbers) Primary(18) Secondary(19) Subordinate(1A)
-----------------------------------------------------
00 05 05

(This is how I figure out that 00 17 00 is the bus that the Device Controller is attached to - please correct me if I'm wrong).

So, I wrote a short EFI shell script to set the proper registers:

echo "Setting Registers"
mm 05000004 1 ;PCI :7
mm 0017003E 1 ;PCI :8
echo "Booting Windows"
pause
fs0:\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi

I put the pause command so I can hit 'q' to verify that my registers are set properly, and they appear to be. Hitting Enter continues the boot process.

But, this fails whenever I use the NVDIA drivers (I also tried the Bootcamp-supplied NVDIA drivers, to no avail). I then have to boot into Safe Mode and uninstall the drivers to be able to boot into Windows again.

I'm getting tired of running Windows 8.1 with non-accelerated video, though....any idea why enabling the VGA BIOS isn't fixing the problem?

 

[monkeybagel]

(Sorry if this is a double post...seems that most of the knowledgeable folks are on this thread)

I've installed Windows 8.1 on my Late 2010 Mac Mini (which has the NVIDIA 300m GPU) in pure EFI/GPT mode (no Bootcamp). Everything works after I install Bootcamp drivers (including sound), until Windows Update attempts to install the NVIDIA drivers. Once that happens, I end up in an endless reboot loop. So, I've read threads here saying that enabling I/O address space on the Display Controller and enabling VGA on the Display Controller's subordinate bus should do the trick, but what that does seem to prevent the endless reboot loop, I just get a black screen and that's it.

This is my EFI shell output:
shell>pci -i -b
.
.
00 00 17 00 ==> Bridge Device - PCI/PCI bridge
Vendor 10DE DEvice 0D76 Prog Interface 0
.
00 05 00 00 ==> Display Controller - VGA/8514 controller
Vendor 10DE Device 08A4 Prog Interface 0

shell> pci -i 00 17 00 -b
.
.
(Bus Numbers) Primary(18) Secondary(19) Subordinate(1A)
-----------------------------------------------------
00 05 05

(This is how I figure out that 00 17 00 is the bus that the Device Controller is attached to - please correct me if I'm wrong).

So, I wrote a short EFI shell script to set the proper registers:

echo "Setting Registers"
mm 05000004 1 ;PCI :7
mm 0017003E 1 ;PCI :8
echo "Booting Windows"
pause
fs0:\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi

I put the pause command so I can hit 'q' to verify that my registers are set properly, and they appear to be. Hitting Enter continues the boot process.

But, this fails whenever I use the NVDIA drivers (I also tried the Bootcamp-supplied NVDIA drivers, to no avail). I then have to boot into Safe Mode and uninstall the drivers to be able to boot into Windows again.

I'm getting tired of running Windows 8.1 with non-accelerated video, though....any idea why enabling the VGA BIOS isn't fixing the problem?

For what it is worth, I never got this working on a 2010 either. During setup when it was detecting drivers, it would trigger a bugcheck and restart. Then Setup would say that one needed to start Setup again. I didn't work too hard at it, but I never got it to install. Shortly after that, the Mac mini's hard disk failed and I have not bothered to replace it yet. I have considered an SSD running OS X 10.6.8 as it is very stable and upgrading it to 16GB of RAM and installing VMware Fusion to host a few Windows virtual machines. I don't believe the performance of a native Windows install, unless it is successfully installed using EFI, would be acceptable as it probably would be running in IDE emulation mode thus without AHCI and TRIM support. I anticipate the stability and performance even running on top of OS X would exceed the native install since it would have slow disk access.

If you do get it to install I would be interested in hearing your solution. Have you tried to apply the .WIM file manually to the hard disk to see if that skips the problematic area in Windows Setup that causes the restart? I plan on getting the Mac mini out again one day and seeing what I can get it to do, but money is a little tight it being the holidays and I hate to put another spindle in it.

 

[xjerky]

If you do get it to install I would be interested in hearing your solution. Have you tried to apply the .WIM file manually to the hard disk to see if that skips the problematic area in Windows Setup that causes the restart?

Hmm, I'm not sue what you are referring to here, but I'm up for trying anything at this point! One thing I did notice is that using the HDMI interface, I kept a signal on my Dell monitor all the way until it rebooted, whereas if I use Displayport, the signal quickly dies out (Displayport does work using the Microsoft Basic Video driver).

 

[PizzaG]

Help Please!!

Hey guys, got a mid 2010 macbook core 2 duo with just nvidia 320m graphics. Windows 8.1 Pro installs fine in EFI mode, and everything works flawlessly except for the nvidia 320m drivers. Tried the bootcamp nvidia drivers and nvidia drivers from 100's on up to newest beta with same results. Installs fine but blank screen on reboot. The MS driver works fine but no acceleration which makes using windows pointless. I've read through alot of pages on this thread and am wondering if I'd be able to set the registers on boot to get my nvidia card working properly. The problem is I need some noob spoon feeding to get it done. My main question basically is if the registers thing you guys mention is my problem? From what I gather about the registers is that basically my mac isn't enabling the graphics card/nvidia drivers like it should. all the nvidia drivers install fine, just get a black screen and reboot upon reboot though. Have to remove nvidia drivers to get going again. Been at the video drivers for weeks and scoured the net looking for a fix or workaround and accidentally found this thread which seems to be most helpful and closely related to my issue. I would love some advice or help in the matter. I figure it's worth a shot if it will work. This is my kids laptop and he's used to windows for games and such so that's why i'm desperately trying to get the graphics working. Most games wont even run on windows with the crippled graphics