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Win7 x64 booting natively via EFI (no BIOS emulation)

I don't have any DVD-drive on my MacBook Pro 17" 2011 model any more, it's been replaced by a extra 120GB Intel 320 series SSD.

I could always remove the SSD, re-install the DVD-driver just for testing purposes, but that shouldn't really be need as FAT32, ExFAT and NTFS formatted usb-drives with Windows installation on them should boot just fine while holding down the option key while booting.

Currently I've got four different USB-sticks:

1: NTFS formatted Windows 7 installation, created using Microsofts own Windows 7 USB DVD Download Tool. This is the one I have always used, and previously it has always been working. Just create it, pop it into the USB on my MacBook Pro and the boot up holding down the option key while booting.

2: FAT32 formatted Windows 7 installation, created by using Win To Flash.

3: FAT32 formatted Windows 7 installation created by using Boot Camp Assistant on my MacBook Air 13" 2011 model. There is no reason why this one shouldn't be working..

4: ExFAT formatted Windows 7 installation whereby I just extracted the Windows 7 ISO directly onto the USB-stick.



Each and everyone of these expect the NTFS formatted one will only show up as "EFI" instead of the regular "Windows" partition while holding down option while booting. If the BIOS emulator had kicked in it should have shown "Windows" instead of EFI and I would be able to install just fine. Instead I'm stuck with EFI installation mode which I have no interest in considering the current state of EFI installations.


All I want is to be able to install Windows using BIOS emulator the regular way, but my MacBook Pro seems to have forgotten all about BIOS emulation and wont even recognize NTFS formatted USB-sticks and partitions. If I take all four USB-sticks and try them on my MacBook Air 13" 2011 model or my Mac Mini 2011 model they will automatically show up as "Windows" and start the installation using BIOS emulation like my MacBook Pro is supposed to, but refuses to for some reason.
 
Ok,

Try the following.

Put USB stick 1 in your PC.
Copy the file USB:/boot/bootsect.exe to your harddisk, f.e. C-drive.
Open a command prompt as Administrator
c:
bootsect /nt60 e: /* where E: is the drive assigned to the USB flash drive */

Now your USB stick should be bootable.

Let me know if this works.
 
d3vi1 said:
I use GPT only MBRs. I only have a EFI Protective Partition on my drive, spanning the whole length of the drive. I've also found that Windows doesn't care about the length of the EFI Protective Partition in the MBR, as long as it's there and it's the only partition on the MBR.

I created a UEFI DUET iso file from the DUET Floppy image and it works like a charm on MBP6,2, MBA1,1 and MM9,1. It fails to boot on MBP5,3 due to some bug.

Try using this ISO file https://files.me.com/razvan.vilt/wm2ebv
Click to expand...

Ok, you don't use GPT. In this case you don't need it. Only MBR. To trigger BIOS emulation. Right?

Burned the ISO on a CD. Doesn't work on my HP. Only shows BError! on my screen...

Hhmm, I am a bit reluctant to buy a USB optical drive just for this...
 
I am making some progress here, so buying an external drive is not really necessary.

It is indeed the MBR which triggers the BIOS emulation. The only tool which I have found thus far which can write a correct MBR to the USB stick is DISKPART. If you execute the following steps, the correct MBR is written.

1. Insert a USB flash drive into your computer
2. Start -> Diskpart (or start a Command Prompt as an Administrator and type diskpart). This starts the Disk Partition tool which you need to use to format the flash drive. Once you see the DISKPART command prompt, type in the following commands
3. DISKPART> list volume /* shows all partitions and volumes together with drive letters incl usb volume */
4. DISKPART> list disk /* shows list of active disks */
5. DISKPART> select disk # /* # is the number for your USB flash drive */
6. DISKPART> clean /* deletes any existing partitions on the USB flash drive */
7. DISKPART> create partition primary /* create a primary partition on the USB flash drive */
8. DISKPART> list partition
9. DISKPART> select partition 1 /* select the newly created partition */
10. DISKPART> active /* make the new partition active */
11. DISKPART> format fs=fat32 quick /* format the USB drive with FAT32 file system */
12. DISKPART> assign /* assign a volume and drive letter to the USB drive */
13. DISKPART> exit /* exit Disk Partition */
 
Last edited:
mark1234 said:
Ok,

Try the following.

Put USB stick 1 in your PC.
Copy the file USB:/boot/bootsect.exe to your harddisk, f.e. C-drive.
Open a command prompt as Administrator
c:
bootsect /nt60 e: /* where E: is the drive assigned to the USB flash drive */

Now your USB stick should be bootable.

Let me know if this works.
Click to expand...


Didn't work, still only EFI bootable. Seems like my EFI Firmware is corrupt or something so I talked to my Apple service-partner and they are going to replace the motherboard on warranty as they expect the whole EFI ROM to be fishy.
 
Can somebody give some insight into why this install is failing with:

"Windows could not update the computer's boot configuration. Installation cannot proceed."

I ran through the instructions several times and it get that error message after it finishes expanding the files but before the first reboot.
 
I tried again but now replacing the GTP disk by a MBR partition table (MSDOS).
I installed DUET on an USB disk.

Basically what I did is:
- Create a MBR partition table and a partition as described
- Install with sh ./duet-install -m -s /mnt/usb/syslinux-405/mbr /dev/sdb1

It does work on my HP notebook.
On the Mac Mini the MBR on the USB is recognized as a "Windows" disk but after that the boot just said "Bad" and hangs...
 
bssayeda said:
Can somebody give some insight into why this install is failing with:

"Windows could not update the computer's boot configuration. Installation cannot proceed."

I ran through the instructions several times and it get that error message after it finishes expanding the files but before the first reboot.
Click to expand...

Check your partition table and the format of the ESP. Windows is very fussy about its ESP. In particular, if it's FAT16 rather than FAT32, Windows will try to create a second ESP, get confused, and fail. IIRC, the error message is similar or identical to what you report, but it's been a while since I tried this, so I'm a little foggy on the details.
 
I have got it working to boot into DUET from Usb!

Just did a basic test to see the PCI registers and it works.

Installation instructions below. Notice that I have two partitions c: and d:. In your situation you might have to change some letters in the installation instructions below.


Steps to create a bootable DUET USB disk
We are going to download the latest EDK2 sources from Subversion.
In the EDK2, there is a DuetPkg which we are going to install to a USB.
Please execute the steps below.
1. Install TortoiseSVN (http://tortoisesvn.net/downloads.html)
2. Create a directory d:\edk2_duet
3. right-mouse click on d:\edk2_duet -> SVN Checkout:
URL of repository: https://edk2.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/edk2/trunk/edk2
Checkout directory: d:\edk2_duet
4. Press the OK button
5. Uninstall TorToiseSVN since we have retrieved the sources from the repository and hence do not need it anymore.
6. Download Windows Server 2003 WinDDK (Windows Driver Development Kit), v3790.1830 from http://download.microsoft.com/download/9/0/f/90f019ac-8243-48d3-91cf-81fc4093ecfd/1830_usa_ddk.iso.
7. Extract the 1830_usa_ddk.iso file
8. Run /1830_usa_ddk/setup.exe and install to the default directory c:\WINDDK\3790.1830.
Remark: it must be installed to the c:-drive.
9. Open a DDK console (Start -> All Programs -> Development Kits -> Windows DDK 3790.1830-> Build Environments -> Windows Server 2003 -> Windows Server 2003 Free x64 Build Environment
10. In the DDK console, navigate to d:\edk2_duet
11. In the DDK console, run the command: edksetup.bat
This will initialize your environment by creating the required files in the d:\edk2_duet\Conf\ directory. You can safely ignore the warning about cygwin.
12. Open the file d:\edk2_duet\Conf\target.txt and make sure the follwing lines have the values:
TARGET_ARCH=X64
TOOL_CHAIN_TAG = DDK3790xASL
MAX_CONCURRENT_THREAD_NUMBER = 2

Remark: By setting the TOOL_CHAIN_TAG to DDK3790xASL we are indicating that we are going to use the compiler from the DDK and not from Microsoft Visual C.

13. In the DDK console, run the command: build -p DuetPkg\DuetPkgX64.dsc
It may take a while but it should complete successfully.
14. cd DuetPkg
15. run: PostBuild.bat
16. Close the DDK console
17. Plug in the USB stick on which you want to install DUET (assume that it will get assigned the drive letter E:)
18. Open a DOS Command Prompt as Administrator
19. format /fs:fat32 /v: DUET /q e:
20. d:
21. cd d:\edk2_duet\BaseTools\Bin\Win32\
22. genbootsector.exe -i e: -o UsbBs32.com
23.bootsectimage.exe -g UsbBs32.com D:\edk2_duet\DuetPkg\BootSector\bin\Bs32.com -f
24. del UsbBs32.com
25. Genbootsector.exe -o E: -i D:\edk2_duet\DuetPkg\BootSector\bin\Bs32.com
26. Genbootsector.exe -m -o E: -i D:\edk2_duet\DuetPkg\BootSector\bin\Mbr.com
27. unplug USB stick, then plug it in again
28. copy D:\edk2_duet\Build\DuetPkgX64\DEBUG_DDK3790xASL\FV\eFIlDR20 e:
29. mkdir e:\efi\boot
30. copy D:\edk2_duet\EdkShellBinPkg\FullShell\X64\Shell_Full.efi E:\efi\boot\bootx64.efi

You can also copy your own EFI shell from Grub or a simpler shell like the following:

copy D:\edk2_duet\EdkShellBinPkg\MinimumShell\X64\Shell.efi E:\efi\boot\bootx64.efi
31. Reboot and hold down the Option key and you can boot right into DUET
 
... then you could install windows 8 or 7 in EFI ?

Do you think it's possible to install on the HD ? So the system will be "transparent" !
 
kraades said:
Impressive! :eek: :eek: :eek:

I will try to reproduce it... :)
Click to expand...
Yes, in fact all credits go to "Pete Akeo".Without his blog it wouldn't have been possible.
http://pete.akeo.ie/2011/07/creating-bootable-uefi-duet-usb-stick.html
I finetuned some of his instructions.

----------
jlpek17 said:
... then you could install windows 8 or 7 in EFI ?

Do you think it's possible to install on the HD ? So the system will be "transparent" !
Click to expand...
Yes, boot into EFI DUET, then chainload Windows 8 or 7. I haven't tried it yet, but it is possible. Of course, in this scenario, the CSM is in between. I am curious to see whether an AHCI driver will work then.

[UPDATE] Tried to chainload to Windows 8. I see the "Fish" and then the following message appears "Your Computer ran into a problem and needs to restart: Inaccessible Boot Device".

------
I think it must be possible to install on HD as well.
 
Last edited:
mark1234 said:
Yes, in fact all credits go to "Pete Akeo".Without his blog it wouldn't have been possible.
http://pete.akeo.ie/2011/07/creating-bootable-uefi-duet-usb-stick.html
I finetuned some of his instructions.

----------


Yes, boot into EFI DUET, then chainload Windows 8 or 7. I haven't tried it yet, but it is possible. Of course, in this scenario, the CSM is in between. I am curious to see whether an AHCI driver will work then.

[UPDATE] Tried to chainload to Windows 8. I see the "Fish" and then the following message appears "Your Computer ran into a problem and needs to restart: Inaccessible Boot Device".

------
I think it must be possible to install on HD as well.
Click to expand...

Excellent work. I'm tempted to again try to install Win7 or Win8 EFI on my MBP 2011, but it's difficult to pry me away from my new Ivy Bridge PC.
 
I've been reading the last few pages of the thread - this looks to be some very interesting developments. well done mark1234 and others!

I'm very interested in this as well, and being able to get it to work on a Mac - "Windows To Go is a pretty cool feature and something that quite a few IT departments will be interested in. Long-story-short: you can install Windows 8 Enterprise onto a USB 3.0 stick and then plug that into any USB 3.0 capable machine (assuming the drivers are there for PNP) to boot that machine up. The idea is that a business can build these sticks and give them to employees to enable bring your own device (BYOD) while still using a corporate build of Windows."

more here - http://www.aidanfinn.com/?p=12496
 
srs5694 said:
Check your partition table and the format of the ESP. Windows is very fussy about its ESP. In particular, if it's FAT16 rather than FAT32, Windows will try to create a second ESP, get confused, and fail. IIRC, the error message is similar or identical to what you report, but it's been a while since I tried this, so I'm a little foggy on the details.
Click to expand...

You mean the EFI partition that OS X creates but doesn't use? (The one where we put the EFI shell)
 
The BIOS emulation setting is in the CSM layer. We cannot change it.
We might try to use another build from tianocore. We only need 1 file:
EfiLdr20. I see that there also exists a EfiLdr64 and EfiLdrPure.

Also check out the official builds from the project:

https://gitorious.org/tianocore_uefi_duet_builds/tianocore_uefi_duet_installer/archive-tarball/master

Since we now have the commands to create the bootsector on the USB stick we can easily change from DUET version.

I haven't had the time to test with different builds though.Also there seem to be EDK_UEFI64 builds and UDK_X64 builds. I do not know the difference between these.
 
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Isn't this because the BIOS layer is now saying IDE and we are trying AHCI?

Update 1:
I did try to disable AHCI by setting the registry entry but then I got:
:( KMODE EXCEPTION NOT HANDLED
I you Google on the error it says that this could be related to BIOS settings or the video driver...

Update 2:
Tried a reinstall but got the same error in early stages of the Windows 8 setup:
:( KMODE EXCEPTION NOT HANDLED

Can't we "just" dump the (all?) settings done by BIOS emulation from the EFI shell from within DUET?
And after that load the settings using the EFI shell and boot Windows in EFI mode? (without DUET)
 
Last edited:
bssayeda said:
Can somebody give some insight into why this install is failing with:

"Windows could not update the computer's boot configuration. Installation cannot proceed."

I ran through the instructions several times and it get that error message after it finishes expanding the files but before the first reboot.
Click to expand...

That part of the installation failed for me too. I followed instructions several pages back to continue the installation.
 
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