Boot Screen on GOP Card with Next Loader... Kind of...

[abdyfranco]

Next Loader with Development UEFI Emulator (DUET)
Reading some comments in this forum, I found that some users with non-EFI graphics cards got video output when Mac Pro was in legacy mode.

I decided to try this on my Mac Pro, using a non-EFI Nvidia GT 710 card, which was kindly donated by @two-mac-jack, And then I booted my Windows installation on Legacy mode. Because my Windows installation is on UEFI mode, I got the "No bootable device -- insert boot disk and press any key", That means the VBIOS driver of the graphics card is working and I can get boot screen on legacy mode.

I compiled and built an ISO image of DUET, then burn it to CD, DUET has the ability to emulate a UEFI environment in Legacy systems.

Once the DUET was booted, the card was initialized in GOP mode and the DUET menu appeared at my monitor's native resolution. Then I proceeded to insert the USB drive on which I have installed Next Loader and then I started the loader.efi file from the DUET menu and bingo! Next Loader loaded in UEFI GOP mode on an non-EFI card.

Unfortunately the joy lasted little and is that DUET is not able to detect any boot drive in the Mac Pro, no matter if it is an internal hard drive, a disk or a USB drive.

I'm not sure if this is a step forward in the development of Next Loader, or a step back.

 

[h9826790]

Thanks for all this info, and of course your time and effort.

IMO, even this seems not that good for Next Loader at this moment. But this is a real big forward step to have GOP boot screen.

 

[DearthnVader]

Next Loader with Development UEFI Emulator (DUET)
Reading some comments in this forum, I found that some users with non-EFI graphics cards got video output when Mac Pro was in legacy mode.

I decided to try this on my Mac Pro, using a non-EFI Nvidia GT 710 card, which was kindly donated by @two-mac-jack, And then I booted my Windows installation on Legacy mode. Because my Windows installation is on UEFI mode, I got the "No bootable device -- insert boot disk and press any key", That means the VBIOS driver of the graphics card is working and I can get boot screen on legacy mode.

I compiled and built an ISO image of DUET, then burn it to CD, DUET has the ability to emulate a UEFI environment in Legacy systems.

Once the DUET was booted, the card was initialized in GOP mode and the DUET menu appeared at my monitor's native resolution. Then I proceeded to insert the USB drive on which I have installed Next Loader and then I started the loader.efi file from the DUET menu and bingo! Next Loader loaded in UEFI GOP mode on an non-EFI card.

Unfortunately the joy lasted little and is that DUET is not able to detect any boot drive in the Mac Pro, no matter if it is an internal hard drive, a disk or a USB drive.

I'm not sure if this is a step forward in the development of Next Loader, or a step back.

Could you upload this version of DUET?

 

[Rastafabi]

This is just how Clover BIOS works. It's basically loading Clover EFI using Duet. For some further testing you could just install Clover in BIOS mode to an internal MBR disk and then replace the clover files with for instance the MacLoader or rEFInd ones.

Theoretically it should even be possible to create a refind MBR EFI USB disguised as macOS, which automatically start a legacy boot residing on itself which in turn starts MacLoader or a second ordinary instance of rEFInd in the EFI/REFIND directory.



PS: I use this do enable BOOTCAMP's restart to macOS feature which does not work on APFS. – refind.conf if configured to automatically chain load macOS.

 

[abdyfranco]

Could you upload this version of DUET?

You can compile DUET from the Next Loader source code or you can burn a CD with this compiled ISO image: https://www.dropbox.com/s/z2oy5vvm052cnr3/DUET.ISO?dl=0

 

[startergo]

Are you still working on this project and the boot manager @abdyfranco ?

 

[flyingmanatee]

Are you still working on this project and the boot manager @abdyfranco ?

Looks like the last commits were from May of 2019...

GitHub - abdyfranco/next-loader: Next Generation EFI-Based Boot Manager designed for Intel Mac.

Next Generation EFI-Based Boot Manager designed for Intel Mac. - abdyfranco/next-loader

github.com

 

[abdyfranco]

Are you still working on this project and the boot manager @abdyfranco ?

I'm working on a new Boot Manager version, written from scratch But unfortunately ], Next Loader has been archived and will not be updated anymore, since Boot Manager will be the replacement for Next Loader, which frankly works better for many people compared to Next Loader.

 

[handheldgames]

I'm working on a new Boot Manager version, written from scratch But unfortunately ], Next Loader has been archived and will not be updated anymore, since Boot Manager will be the replacement for Next Loader, which frankly works better for many people compared to Next Loader.

I greatly appreciate the update and your efforts as I've recently started down the path to use a spare 5,1 cMP that's been collecting dust for years as a high sierra / windows media center 8.1 box. If you are looking for any collaboration on an objective-c based mac app, please feel free to reach out.

 

[h9826790]

I am wondering is DUET can be use with OpenCore. Which will allow us to have boot screen, boot manager, and HWAccel (via OpenCore SMBIOS spoofing).

 

[startergo]

I am wondering is DUET can be use with OpenCore

can you get a boot screen with DUET? I did not know that it was possible. Not with the cMP5,1.

 

[thielt]

Hi there,

I have a question about configuring the next-loader boot options, as I did not fully understand the documentation.

I installed next-loader after I had installed Windows 10 with the help of Apple boot camp.

The installation of next-loader went smoothly, but now I have three boot options, which are automatically recognised: "Windows EFI", "Mac OS X" and "Windows (Legacy)". I used only first two options (Windows and Mac OSX). "Windows (Legacy)" does not work and I am not sure where this option is coming from. A screenshot of my partition table is below.

I would like to remove the "Windows (Legacy)" option from the book options, but do now know how to do this in the configuration files (loader.conf or stanzas.conf). Any advice would be appreciated.

Can anyone help with this?

Thanks so much and best wishes,
Tobi

 

[tsialex]

Hi there,

I have a question about configuring the next-loader boot options, as I did not fully understand the documentation.

I installed next-loader after I had installed Windows 10 with the help of Apple boot camp.

The installation of next-loader went smoothly, but now I have three boot options, which are automatically recognised: "Windows EFI", "Mac OS X" and "Windows (Legacy)". I used only first two options (Windows and Mac OSX). "Windows (Legacy)" does not work and I am not sure where this option is coming from. A screenshot of my partition table is below.

I would like to remove the "Windows (Legacy)" option from the book options, but do now know how to do this in the configuration files (loader.conf or stanzas.conf). Any advice would be appreciated.

Can anyone help with this?

Thanks so much and best wishes,
Tobi

View attachment 944066

This project is dormant/dead at the moment. Use OpenCore to have GOP pre-boot configuration support:

OpenCore on the Mac Pro

This guide explains how to use the excellent OpenCore boot loader to install, run, and update the latest version of macOS on the MacPro5,1, resulting in a clean, unaltered operating system just like on a supported Mac.

forums.macrumors.com

 

[thielt]

This project is dormant/dead at the moment. Use OpenCore to have GOP pre-boot configuration support:

OpenCore on the Mac Pro

This guide explains how to use the excellent OpenCore boot loader to install, run, and update the latest version of macOS on the MacPro5,1, resulting in a clean, unaltered operating system just like on a supported Mac.

forums.macrumors.com

Thanks for the quick reply. I am fairly happy with next-loader and would prefer to keep it, as it should not be too difficult to remove the unwanted third boot option. Any possibility for an advice on how to remove it?

Thanks so much and best wishes,
Tobi

 

[tsialex]

Thanks for the quick reply. I am fairly happy with next-loader and would prefer to keep it, as it should not be too difficult to remove the unwanted third boot option. Any possibility for an advice on how to remove it?

Thanks so much and best wishes,
Tobi

Sorry, not from me, since I never used it and answered your post just to point to the current solution.

Like I said before, everyone moved to OpenCore the moment that pre-boot configuration support was achieved with PC GPUs and the few people that used NextLoader back in the day are now using OC.

 

[Dayo]

I have never tried Next Loader but know it is a fork of Refind and think that the config would likely work on the same principles as Refind's.

You can therefore try adding "Windows (Legacy)" with the quotes, or perhaps just "Legacy", to the dont_scan_volumes option.
I presume there is such an option.

This is a band aid around some other issue why a non existent thing should be coming up but should work for your purposes.