How to: Boot Camp without a Boot Screen

[h9826790]

ok but then can anyone explain me how legacy bootloader can display the text with my non mac efi GPU? i would have expected a non powering screen as an adequate behaviour!

If can display text, we can display anything. The problem is nothing can be display yet.

We generally believe it's possible to use rEFInd to activate the GPU by running some basic driver. I tried with another member here, but nothing achieved. (You may also try Clover)

If you can figure out how to do it, please let us know. That will be a Hugh contribution to the cMP group.

 

[lilins]

If can display text, we can display anything. The problem is nothing can be display yet.

We generally believe it's possible to use rEFInd to activate the GPU by running some basic driver. I tried with another member here, but nothing achieved. (You may also try Clover)

If you can figure out how to do it, please let us know. That will be a Hugh contribution to the cMP group.

can’t figure out yet, but look:

i’ll test again tomorrow, but this was displayed on a non mac efi gpu:

 

[h9826790]

can’t fire out yet, but look:

i’ll test again tomorrow, but this was displayed on a non mac efi gpu:

View attachment 760872

That's the broken Windows partition activated the GPU in basic mode.

Try remove the Windows hard drive and check if you can still see those text.

 

[lilins]

That's the broken Windows partition activated the GPU in basic mode.

Try remove the Windows hard drive and check if you can still see those text.

except the windows partition is not broken.

i can access it blindly with alt and all to the right, and uefi win will boot.

but if i choose windows boot in mac os startup pref i end up with the no bootable drive screen - which must be the legacy bootloader.

if legacy bootloader can activate basic gpu mode, why a legacy windows bootloader wouldn’t be able to do it?

 

[Jayson A]

except the windows partition is not broken.

i can access it blindly with alt and all to the right, and uefi win will boot.

but if i choose windows boot in mac os startup pref i end up with the no bootable drive screen - which must be the legacy bootloader.

if legacy bootloader can activate basic gpu mode, why a legacy windows bootloader wouldn’t be able to do it?

I had the same exact problem. I was running macOS off of a PCIe card with an SSD attached to it and Windows was on an SSD in drive bay one. The problem was the PCIe card. If that card is installed on my system, Windows won't boot unless I hold down option and choose it from the startup.

I'm guessing there's a problem with using the optical drive bay for your windows drive. What I ended up doing is ditching the PCIe card and partitioning the SSD into macOS and Windows partitions and keeping it in SATA bay 1. That seems to work everytime now.

Funny thing is... I went to put a blank non-boot drive in my PCIe card and suddenly the computer wouldn't boot anymore, just like before. Took out the PCIe card and it booted just fine.

 

[lilins]

I had the same exact problem. I was running macOS off of a PCIe card with an SSD attached to it and Windows was on an SSD in drive bay one. The problem was the PCIe card. If that card is installed on my system, Windows won't boot unless I hold down option and choose it from the startup.

I'm guessing there's a problem with using the optical drive bay for your windows drive. What I ended up doing is ditching the PCIe card and partitioning the SSD into macOS and Windows partitions and keeping it in SATA bay 1. That seems to work everytime now.

Funny thing is... I went to put a blank non-boot drive in my PCIe card and suddenly the computer wouldn't boot anymore, just like before. Took out the PCIe card and it booted just fine.

I'm going to dig into this by switching windiws drive to normal sata drawer and trying to put a non bootable drive to the optical bay

 

[h9826790]

except the windows partition is not broken.

i can access it blindly with alt and all to the right, and uefi win will boot.

but if i choose windows boot in mac os startup pref i end up with the no bootable drive screen - which must be the legacy bootloader.

if legacy bootloader can activate basic gpu mode, why a legacy windows bootloader wouldn’t be able to do it?

In that case, Windows is broken, otherwise, you already booted into Windows.

And Windows can activate the GPU, but not any other boot loader.

Technically, if the initial Windows boot process can activate the GPU, then we can use similar method to active the GPU as well, but the problem is how?

Can we only extract that part, and then make a boot loader to let us choose booting between macOS and Windows? I don't think so.

Is there any other boot loader? Yes, e.g. rEFInd. However, as I said, we still can't figure out how to make it activate the GPU yet.

Those text means you are already in the Windows booting process, but somehow failed to locate the Windows system files. That's it.

I will be more than happy to see that your GPU can shows some text without Windows help. Please set Windows as the target boot drive, shut down, pull out the Windows drive, then boot again. You should see absolutely nothing on the screen. If there is any text, that will be a great news for us.

 

[lilins]

Well,

Just tested

removed windows ssd from optical bay, not any other dd in optical bay

drawer 1 and 2 my MacOS fusion drive

drawer 3 windows ssd

drawer 4 my main volume clone

system pref -> startup disk choose bootcamp

reboot

same black screen "no bootable device"

I remove bay 3 (win ssd)

reboot -> same black screen "no bootable device"

i put back my game data hdd in bay 3

reboot -> same black screen "no bootable device"

had to reset pram to go back to my main fusion drive

SO:

1) this message display on screen doesn't come from either bootloader (MBR) or Windows as it shows even if disk not in here

2) i still think this is because bootcamp try to find a legacy mbr on the mac pro and not an uefi boot partition as in more recent mac, that is why the emulated legacy bios say that.

BUT

the emulated legacy bios can display something on non mac efi GPU.

if i can make more test, just tell me

*EDIT*

I have to confirm that my windows install is definitely not broken. starting windows with alt at boot (blindly of course) or with win ssd as the only ssd just workd and launch my windows (uefi install)

 

[h9826790]

Well,

Just tested

removed windows ssd from optical bay, not any other dd in optical bay

drawer 1 and 2 my MacOS fusion drive

drawer 3 windows ssd

drawer 4 my main volume clone

system pref -> startup disk choose bootcamp

View attachment 760991

reboot

same black screen "no bootable device"

View attachment 760992

I remove bay 3 (win ssd)

reboot -> same black screen "no bootable device"

i put back my game data hdd in bay 3

reboot -> same black screen "no bootable device"

had to reset pram to go back to my main fusion drive

SO:

1) this message display on screen doesn't come from either bootloader (MBR) or Windows as it shows even if disk not in here

2) i still think this is because bootcamp try to find a legacy mbr on the mac pro and not an uefi boot partition as in more recent mac, that is why the emulated legacy bios say that.

BUT

the emulated legacy bios can display something on non mac efi GPU.

if i can make more test, just tell me

*EDIT*

I have to confirm that my windows install is definitely not broken. starting windows with alt at boot (blindly of course) or with win ssd as the only ssd just workd and launch my windows (uefi install)

It's good to know that.

So, the process may be like

1) Computer start with Mac EFI (no boot screen for non Mac EFI GPU)

2) if go to macOS, then nothing will shows until GPU driver is loaded.

3) if go to Windows, then the system will fallback to emulated legacy BIOS. At this stage, the GPU will magically activated.

However, if this is true, not sure if we can utilise this function.

because until we choose Windows, the Mac won't give us the emulated BIOS.

But this is still a great finding, and thanks for proving me wrong. Learn something new today.

 

[lilins]

It's good to know that.

So, the process may be like

1) Computer start with Mac EFI (no boot screen for non Mac EFI GPU)

2) if go to macOS, then nothing will shows until GPU driver is loaded.

3) if go to Windows, then the system will fallback to emulated legacy BIOS. At this stage, the GPU will magically activated.

However, if this is true, not sure if we can utilise this function.

because until we choose Windows, the Mac won't give us the emulated BIOS.

But this is still a great finding, and thanks for proving me wrong. Learn something new today.

I was also wrong because i thought it was already reading from the MBR at this point.

In my head:
Mac
EFI - EFI Partition - Mac System
Win EFI
EFI - EFI Partition - Win System
Win Legacy
EFI - Emulated Bios on EFI Partition - Win Boot MGR - Win System

but seems like Emulated BIOS is not on any partition but within EFI so I was thinking wrongly we could temper something.

on the other hand, if Emulated Bios is directly handled by EFI, at some point EFI is able to activate non mac EFI GPU video.



the best thing we could have is a clover style like bootloader wich can load basic display drivers and draw something on screen ^^

 

[h9826790]

the best thing we could have is a clover style like bootloader wich can load basic display drivers and draw something on screen ^^

Yes, I tried (both Clover and rEFInd), but achieve nothing so far. If you have any idea / achievement, please let us know. I am more than happy to run the tests for you.

 

[lilins]

Yes, I tried (both Clover and rEFInd, but achieve nothing so far. If you have any idea / achievement, please let us know. I am more than happy to run the tests for you.

wish i was smart enough to find something XD

 

[haralds]

What are the long term implications of leaving SIP disabled permanently?

Has anybody tried Boot Runner? This appears to work as an overlay on the MacOS login screen, so should get around the problem of not having boot screens. It also works with SIP enabled.

https://twocanoes.com/products/mac/boot-runner/

For BootRunner you only need to disable NVRAM write protection.

csrutil enable –without nvram​

 

[MisterAndrew]

I figured it out. I had to re-install windows. I corrupted something on the drive or something. All is working well now.

I had a similar problem with a USB 3.1 card installed that Windows didn't like. I took it out and it's happy.
[doublepost=1525754112][/doublepost]

Hi, unearthing the thread. Just to tell you i finally managed to have a working windows boot drive with my vega 64 (even though i can't have access to all the sapphire features from their strixx software...?

My only problem is switching from one os to the other

From windows if i choose reboot to osx - i reboot to winwin

From High Sierra if i choose reboot to bootcamp - i end up with a no bootable device, insert boot disk.

my win ssd is in optical bay 2

tried installing my gt120 in slot 4 but i end up not being able to log in to osx due to distorted image on the gt120 (hdmi to the screen + DVI to hdmi adapter)

in the end... the gt120 is useless to me and i can't switch os... how did everyone with high sierra win 10 1709 did?

edit.

for win to mac the issue seems to be SIP, but even with csrutil enable —without nvram i get same issue - strange. because of mac pro bootcamp version i was also thinking about the way HS boot (preboot volumes etc..) that may differ from before. but even on hfs+ i had same issue.

for mac2win i also think it’s the bootcamp version who is looking for legacyboot instead of uefi boot.

It seems to work best if you have Windows installed in the 1st SATA hard drive bay. Don't select bootcamp from the startup disk pane in MacOS system preferences because it will point to a partition on the Mac boot drive that does not exist. Select the MacOS boot drive as the startup disk so it always starts up in MacOS. Only start Windows using BootChamp or Boot Runner. To switch to MacOS from Windows simply restart from the Windows menu. Do not use the Boot Camp control panel.

 

[lilins]

It seems to work best if you have Windows installed in the 1st SATA hard drive bay. Don't select bootcamp from the startup disk pane in MacOS system preferences because it will point to a partition on the Mac boot drive that does not exist. Select the MacOS boot drive as the startup disk so it always starts up in MacOS. Only start Windows using BootChamp or Boot Runner. To switch to MacOS from Windows simply restart from the Windows menu. Do not use the Boot Camp control panel.

ok i’ll test that, but bootchamp or boot runner usage means disabling SIP, right?

 

[BillyBobBongo]

ok i’ll test that, but bootchamp or boot runner usage means disabling SIP, right?

Not entirely (see attached)

As a side note the command

csrutil enable –without nvram

did not work for me, I had to use

csrutil enable -–without nvram

.

 

[lilins]

Not entirely (see attached)

View attachment 761085

As a side note the command

csrutil enable –without nvram

did not work for me, I had to use

csrutil enable -–without nvram

.

oh yes i’ve seen that i’m gonna try i’ll tell you!

 

[BillyBobBongo]

If it helps I took a look at both Boot Runner and BootChamp. I thought I would like the idea of going to a screen where I could select my boot drive, but in reality I'm lazy and the extra steps annoyed me. I've settled on using BootChamp and I'm more than happy with the results.

 

[lilins]

If it helps I took a look at both Boot Runner and BootChamp. I thought I would like the idea of going to a screen where I could select my boot drive, but in reality I'm lazy and the extra steps annoyed me. I've settled on using BootChamp and I'm more than happy with the results.

Thanks

Managed Booting into Bootcamp from osx with this solution

But then

when i reboot it always reboot into Windows. will try the bootcamp startup disk feature but i am not sure it works

I can confirm it now bootchamp works right for booting to Windows (even in the optical bay) but IMPOSSIBLE tu boot back to mac from windows

 

[MisterAndrew]

Thanks

Managed Booting into Bootcamp from osx with this solution

But then

when i reboot it always reboot into Windows. will try the bootcamp startup disk feature but i am not sure it works

I can confirm it now bootchamp works right for booting to Windows (even in the optical bay) but IMPOSSIBLE tu boot back to mac from windows

Select the Mac boot disk in macOS in Startup Disk in system preferences. It should say “You have selected...as the startup disk”. Then it will always start into macOS. You can do it from Recovery Mode if you’re not able to boot into macOS. It’s all in the first post of this thread.

 

[lilins]

Select the Mac boot disk in macOS in Startup Disk in system preferences. It should say “You have selected...as the startup disk”. Then it will always start into macOS. You can do it from Recovery Mode if you’re not able to boot into macOS. It’s all in the first post of this thread.

Well that is pretty much what i did, but again, i am going to try again

just setted up win ssd in bay one, my fusion in bay 2&3 and to be sure i disconnected my boot clone in bay 4

i booted in recovery, setted SIP without nvram, setted may fusion as main boot drive.

i hope we agree this is good config.

now i will try what you said by booting win from bootchamp and booting back after and see if i get back to my mac boot drive.

 

[lilins]

finally managed to do it.

the recognition of my Logitech K811 BT kb in both MacOS and Win10 was a terrible pain in the ass

now i am testing Boot Runner, but i may find also this solution not very useful. i think i have an idea on how to make this more simple and efficient, need to take a look at boot champ source to see how it works to select the drive and tell it to reboot

 

[lilins]

So. As a utility to reboot to Windows partition whe nalready in my session, BootChamp is a good thing. I totally approve.

Boot Runner is too heavy for me and not very elegant.

So i am working on something to make this more elegant to reboot to bootcamp right from login screen with just one click.

It should look like this in the end:

So When Win10 is having its update multi reboot episodes i don't have to login to reboot. as Boot Runner but less heavy in my mind. hope i'll be able to do this as i want.

If some are interested, i'll try to keep updated on my progress...

 

[h9826790]

So. As a utility to reboot to Windows partition whe nalready in my session, BootChamp is a good thing. I totally approve.

Boot Runner is too heavy for me and not very elegant.

So i am working on something to make this more elegant to reboot to bootcamp right from login screen with just one click.

It should look like this in the end:

View attachment 761335

So When Win10 is having its update multi reboot episodes i don't have to login to reboot. as Boot Runner but less heavy in my mind. hope i'll be able to do this as i want.

If some are interested, i'll try to keep updated on my progress...

This looks interesting.

Even need few more seconds to boot to the login page (compare to normal boot loader). But with a SSD, this is not a big problem.

However, I don't know how to do it in the light way. All I can think of is using the native stuff.

e.g. Open a new account called "Windows 10". And then auto run bootchamp when login to that account in order to reboot the Windows. But that will occupy lots of space due to require a new user account.

 

[lilins]

This looks interesting.

Even need few more seconds to boot to the login page (compare to normal boot loader). But with a SSD, this is not a big problem.

However, I don't know how to do it in the light way. All I can think of is using the native stuff.

e.g. Open a new account called "Windows 10". And then auto run bootchamp when login to that account in order to reboot the Windows. But that will occupy lots of space due to require a new user account.

with a limited skeleton, a launchd at login and the good script, i think it could be not too heavy.