Booting Windows 7 on BootCamp with Areca RAID EFI BIOS

[Spacedust]

Is it possible to force Windows 7 to boot when Areca RAID controller is flashed with Mac PRO EFI BIOS ?

I know that Windows 7 is able to boot EFI. What I want to achieve is to be able to boot OS X and Windows 7 from the same Areca card.

Currently if I use normal BIOS on Areca I'm able to boot Windows 7 and to see array under OS X, but I'm unable to boot OS X. When I use EFI BIOS I'm able to boot OS X and see the array, but unable to boot Windows 7.

Maybe using some Chameleon bootloader will help me ?

I'm switching from ARC-1231ML 2 GB to ARC-1680IX-24 4 GB tommorow

 

[nanofrog]

You cannot use BootCamp with a RAID card, no matter the make, model, ....

Last time this was attempted, a RAID card could only contain one OS in a MP (not a limitation of the card, as multiple OS's can be run from an Areca when being run in other main boards).

So you'll likely have to use a separate HDD/SSD for one OS, and run the other from the Areca.

You can give it a try, but I don't expect Apple has make the necessary changes to the boot loader portion of their firmware.

 

[Spacedust]

By Bootcamp I mean two separate arrays one for Windows and one for OS X so I want be sharing the same disks. I just don't want to buy another Areca card because of price and space reasons (all my PCI slots are filled - BBU is blocking one of them). I'm using my card with Windows only and it boots without any problems.

 

[nanofrog]

By Bootcamp I mean two separate arrays one for Windows and one for OS X so I want be sharing the same disks. I just don't want to buy another Areca card because of price and space reasons (all my PCI slots are filled - BBU is blocking one of them). I'm using my card with Windows only and it boots without any problems.

You won't be able to just partition the drives, create separate arrays, and boot from each (I do get what you're trying to do; guess I should have mentioned this method won't work either).

Unfortunately, it's been tried in MP's (partition method to create separate arrays), and didn't work. Even arrays built from separate drives didn't work (on the same card).

Seems Apple's EFI Bootloader (part of the EFI firmware) can't handle this sort of configuration.

Separate cards are the only thing that's not been tested IIRC (likely due to cost; slot configurations could be a problem <one ends up in a 4x lane slot>, even if they're available).

Only thing that is confirmed to work and doesn't cost a fortune (no second PCIe card), was to put one of the OS's on a separate boot disk, and attach it to the system via one of the built-in SATA ports.

Sorry it's not better news. But at least there is a way to run multiple OS's when using a RAID card, if not ideally the way you'd prefer to accomplish it.

 

[Middleman-77]

By Bootcamp I mean two separate arrays one for Windows and one for OS X so I want be sharing the same disks. I just don't want to buy another Areca card because of price and space reasons (all my PCI slots are filled - BBU is blocking one of them). I'm using my card with Windows only and it boots without any problems.

Well, there IS a way around this...

You just want to run Windows without sacrificing any more card space right?
How about running Parallels in OSX? That should solve the problem, shouldn't it? There's been lots of reports of Windows running at almost native speeds in Parallels without sacrificing speed. Using it with the Areca RAID should do the trick (installed on it), since on a Parallel install will be seen as one large file.
And if you need to migrate your data over from the Bootcamp install just use Parallels Transporter...