Using OCZ RevoDrive as Windows 7 Bootcamp partition

[bluesteel]

how can i use an OCZ RevoDrive as a Windows 7 Bootcamp hard drive? i'd like to run Windows 7 from this hard drive, but i have read that OS X doesn't recognize the drive. if this is the case, then how would i go about installing Windows 7 on a RevoDrive, and once installed, how would i boot from it when i want to get into Windows?

thanks for looking

 

[Spacedust]

how can i use an OCZ RevoDrive as a Windows 7 Bootcamp hard drive? i'd like to run Windows 7 from this hard drive, but i have read that OS X doesn't recognize the drive. if this is the case, then how would i go about installing Windows 7 on a RevoDrive, and once installed, how would i boot from it when i want to get into Windows?

thanks for looking

It should boot normally in Windows 7 just like normal SSD drive.

 

[666sheep]

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1083744/

Try this narrow white rectangle in site's upper right corner

 

[bluesteel]

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1083744/

Try this narrow white rectangle in site's upper right corner

i did use the white rectangle and found that post a few days ago...lol i didn't quite understand what the person in that post did. i was hoping that i could just pop a RevoDrive in, and OSX Disk Utility would recognize the drive, but i guess that is not the case.....or is it?

if i get Windows 7 installed on the Revo, will the drive show up in OSX System Preference/Startup Disk so that i can restart into it?

 

[666sheep]

You may find some clarification here: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2583940 or maybe PM elvisizer for detailed info?

 

[elvisizer]

hey guys!
so, yeah, my revo X2 works fine as a windows boot drive, the only wrinkle is that you have to use a regular hard drive to hold the boot environment. The OSX bootloader will not offer the revo itself as a boot drive.
let me know if you have any questions.

 

[elvisizer]

double post, sorry!

 

[DavidHad]

-

 

[chilli49shorty]

Hi All

Just joined to post a reply / throw another curve ball. I'm very interested in using a X2 Revo Drive in my 2009 Mac Pro. I have setup my machine from day 1 as RAID 0 (2 Disk Drives running OSX) I eventually wanted to put Win 7 to play games but obviously cant because of Bootcamp not liking RAID config on the Boot Disk

If I use rEFIt can I get the Revo drive to boot into Windows (using my RAID slice to run rEFIt boot manager and kick the drive into running windows)

I do have a 3rd disk to store work not on the array (stand alone disk) I can put rEFIt on this disk if the RAID wont work!

Not bothered if Bootcamp assistant / tools dont work or both OSes cant see each other - will be happy booting machine from rEFIt.

 

[elvisizer]

refit will not query the PCI-E bus for boot devices, so unless you relocate the windows boot environment to a disk attached to the SATA bus the revo will not be available for booting.

 

[nanofrog]

refit will not query the PCI-E bus for boot devices, so unless you relocate the windows boot environment to a disk attached to the SATA bus the revo will not be available for booting.

Did you try using it without rEFIt?

Just asking, as the EFI Boot Loader *might* be able to set/store the Revo as a boot device (suspect it's an interaction issue between the system's EFI and Revo's BIOS based firmware though).

 

[elvisizer]

Did you try using it without rEFIt?

Just asking, as the EFI Boot Loader *might* be able to set/store the Revo as a boot device (suspect it's an interaction issue between the system's EFI and Revo's BIOS based firmware though).

yep, it's the same with and without refit.
it's really not a big problem, though- just put the BCD store on a standard sata drive, and you're all set. You can even do that auto-magically with windows 7's automatic startup repair if you boot from the install CD, it's braindead simple.

 

[nanofrog]

yep, it's the same with and without refit.
it's really not a big problem, though- just put the BCD store on a standard sata drive, and you're all set. You can even do that auto-magically with windows 7's automatic startup repair if you boot from the install CD, it's braindead simple.

Thanks for the update.

 

[fallegre]

yep, it's the same with and without refit.
it's really not a big problem, though- just put the BCD store on a standard sata drive, and you're all set. You can even do that auto-magically with windows 7's automatic startup repair if you boot from the install CD, it's braindead simple.

Hello Elviser,

I just bought myself a revodrive x2 to put in my MAC early 2008.
I understand you manage to boot windows from the revo, right ?

Could you explain me how to put the BCD store on a standard drive please ?

Thanks

 

[Spacedust]

Hello Elviser,

I just bought myself a revodrive x2 to put in my MAC early 2008.
I understand you manage to boot windows from the revo, right ?

Could you explain me how to put the BCD store on a standard drive please ?

Thanks

bcdboot c:/windows /s F:

where F: is your revodrive, partition needs to be set as active also make sure that bcdedit values are correct for this drive.

 

[elvisizer]

Hello Elviser,

I just bought myself a revodrive x2 to put in my MAC early 2008.
I understand you manage to boot windows from the revo, right ?

Could you explain me how to put the BCD store on a standard drive please ?

Thanks

here's what I did, step by step (though it's been almost a year since I installed 7 on my revo, so don't kill me if I forget anything!)
1. boot from windows 7 installation dvd
2. load revo boot driver from USB media
3. install windows onto revo.
4. when windows attempts to start from the installation on the revo it will fail. Make sure you have a standard SATA drive installed and formatted NTFS, then boot from the windows CD again, load the revo driver from USB again, and choose the 'automatic startup repair' option. That will find the windows installation on the revo and setup the boot files for it on your SATA drive.
5. reboot again- at this point, you should see a windows option in refit or the standard OS X boot manager. select it, and OS X will use the boot files on the sata drive to boot, then run windows from the revo. At this point, you can do the boot sector mod to switch to AHCI mode if desired- that's working fine for me with this config as well.

 

[fallegre]

where F: is your revodrive, partition needs to be set as active also make sure that bcdedit values are correct for this drive.

Thanks for your answer Spacedust,

I'm afraid I will need more explaination as I never done this before

So I will receive my revo tomorrow morning, I put it in the MAC.
Apparently from what I've seen in other forums, even if I supply windows drivers for the revo on installation it will not allow me to install, right ?

So what do I do step by step from there ?

I launch windows from my current HDD and copy it to the revo and then do the bcdboot thing ?

Sorry, but if someone could explain me in details how to proceed I would be much gratefull !

By the way my current windows runs directly from EFI (no MAC OSX installed)

----------

here's what I did, step by step (though it's been almost a year since I installed 7 on my revo, so don't kill me if I forget anything!)
1. boot from windows 7 installation dvd
2. load revo boot driver from USB media
3. install windows onto revo.
4. when windows attempts to start from the installation on the revo it will fail. Make sure you have a standard SATA drive installed and formatted NTFS, then boot from the windows CD again, load the revo driver from USB again, and choose the 'automatic startup repair' option. That will find the windows installation on the revo and setup the boot files for it on your SATA drive.
5. reboot again- at this point, you should see a windows option in refit or the standard OS X boot manager. select it, and OS X will use the boot files on the sata drive to boot, then run windows from the revo. At this point, you can do the boot sector mod to switch to AHCI mode if desired- that's working fine for me with this config as well.

Cool !

I've just seen your post, thanks a lot.

I receive my drive tomorrow so I shall try the way you explained in this post.

Thank you very much, at least I know that it's possible.

 

[fallegre]

here's what I did, step by step (though it's been almost a year since I installed 7 on my revo, so don't kill me if I forget anything!)
1. boot from windows 7 installation dvd
2. load revo boot driver from USB media
3. install windows onto revo.
4. when windows attempts to start from the installation on the revo it will fail. Make sure you have a standard SATA drive installed and formatted NTFS, then boot from the windows CD again, load the revo driver from USB again, and choose the 'automatic startup repair' option. That will find the windows installation on the revo and setup the boot files for it on your SATA drive.
5. reboot again- at this point, you should see a windows option in refit or the standard OS X boot manager. select it, and OS X will use the boot files on the sata drive to boot, then run windows from the revo. At this point, you can do the boot sector mod to switch to AHCI mode if desired- that's working fine for me with this config as well.

My RevoDrive is up and running on my MPB.

I'd like to thanks Elvisizer who has been a great help on this.

Thank you Elvisizer.

Thanks also to Spacedust who has been contributing.

...

 

[Spacedust]

My RevoDrive is up and running on my MPB.

I'd like to thanks Elvisizer who has been a great help on this.

Thank you Elvisizer.

Thanks also to Spacedust who has been contributing.

...

I have similar setup and I don't use any other HDD's at all The setup was preety painful but it works perfectly.

 

[elvisizer]

I have similar setup and I don't use any other HDD's at all The setup was preety painful but it works perfectly.

how did you get the OS X boot manager to see the windows installation on the revo without putting the BCD store on a sata drive?
Since the os x boot manager doesn't poll pci-e for bootable devices, I didn't think that would be possible.

edit: oh, wait, are you talking about the configuration in your signature? 'cause that appears to be using sata based ssd's for windows, not a PCI-e ssd like the revo.

 

[Spacedust]

how did you get the OS X boot manager to see the windows installation on the revo without putting the BCD store on a sata drive?
Since the os x boot manager doesn't poll pci-e for bootable devices, I didn't think that would be possible.

edit: oh, wait, are you talking about the configuration in your signature? 'cause that appears to be using sata based ssd's for windows, not a PCI-e ssd like the revo.

I'm running from Areca ARC-1210 RAID controller. PCI-EX is the last from which Areca will boot.

First there are all 4 bays, then DVD's, then PCI-EX at the end.

Try this in OS X:

sudo su
disklist
bless -device /dev/disk4s2 -legacy -setBoot

where disk4s2 is the PCI-EX card partition.

Of course it will always boot from PCI-EX, if you want to boot from something else then just press ALT when booting and choose the other drive. The card will be invisible in OS X Boot Manager.

 

[elvisizer]

I'm running from Areca ARC-1210 RAID controller. PCI-EX is the last from which Areca will boot.

First there are all 4 bays, then DVD's, then PCI-EX at the end.

Try this in OS X:



where disk4s2 is the PCI-EX card partition.

Of course it will always boot from PCI-EX, if you want to boot from something else then just press ALT when booting and choose the other drive. The card will be invisible in OS X Boot Manager.

i never bothered to try bless since I needed to have my wife be able to switch OS's, and she's not commandline capable. I'll give that a try to see if it succeeds tonight. I would think it probably would, though having the BCD store on the other drive will complicate things. I'll have to set up a BCD store on the revo to do a real test.

 

[Spacedust]

i never bothered to try bless since I needed to have my wife be able to switch OS's, and she's not commandline capable. I'll give that a try to see if it succeeds tonight. I would think it probably would, though having the BCD store on the other drive will complicate things. I'll have to set up a BCD store on the revo to do a real test.

I'm just holding alt on bootup and manually choose OS X if I want to boot it.

 

[chrisrand]

At this point, you can do the boot sector mod to switch to AHCI mode if desired- that's working fine for me with this config as well.

OK, so I know this an old thread, but its got a lot of views so I am sure others are interested.

I recently purchased a RevoDrive X2 240gb on major clearance for only $129 with 2 year warranty and want to install it for use with Windows.


So about that AHCI mode, is this the guide you used
http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/f...ing-AHCI-for-Windows-on-MBP-2011-now-possible

I understand the benefits, but one of the downfalls is no sleep support which I use all the time. Do you know any work arounds for that?

Thanks

 

[elvisizer]

wow that's cheap. I paid about $700 for my 240GB revo2 back in 2008!
I did not use that OCZ guide to set up ahci, I used the script and guide from this forum instead. In my case, the script never correctly identified the windows boot drive, so I had to specify the drive name myself. that was the only issue I ran into. I checked your link to OCZ, that looks fine, too, but I can't say for sure since I've never used it.
About sleep, i never bothered turning it off, haven't had any issues with it that I recall, but I don't leave my machine on much if i'm not using it, so i'm not a good test case for that unfortunately . . . .
My reason for enabling AHCI is to get the 2 ODD SATA ports on the motherboard to work under windows- I use one for my Blu-ray burner. I didn't see any performance differences between ahci and non-ahci modes, but YMMV.