MP 1,1-5,1 Windows on PCIe SATA SSD?

[voraciousvegan]

4,1->5,1. Can I boot W10 on a PCIe 2.5" SSD if I'm just cloning my current W10 over, not a clean install (as I understand, you can't clean install over PCIe)? When I was initially installing W10 on this Mac Pro, I remember it was impossible to do thru Bootcamp, although Bootcamp drivers were later installed. I have a BIOS install & want to avoid extra steps like bootloaders if possible.

 

[joevt]

BIOS install won't boot anything except the DVD drives and the four internal SATA drive bays.
If there was a BIOS boot loader on one of the internal SATA drive bays, and it loaded a BIOS driver for the PCIe 2.5" SSD, then it could work, but I don't know of such a boot loader/driver combination.

Maybe it could be converted to UEFI boot (use Windows USB to install Windows EFI boot loader to EFI partition and edit the BCD to point to your Windows installation - search elsewhere for what is required for that). But that might not work or it might be dangerous. Search for solutions using OpenCore or RefindPlus which add some protection of NVRAM of the Mac Pro when booting Windows in EFI mode.

 

[voraciousvegan]

Thanks. Do you know if I go the OpenCore/rEFInd route, if I'd have to completely reinstall Windows from scratch? I'm assuming that's a yes if I need an EFI install and currently have BIOS, but just making sure. If I have to do things from scratch & can't just clone over, I'll just stick to an SATA bay.

 

[joevt]

Thanks. Do you know if I go the OpenCore/rEFInd route, if I'd have to completely reinstall Windows from scratch? I'm assuming that's a yes if I need an EFI install and currently have BIOS, but just making sure. If I have to do things from scratch & can't just clone over, I'll just stick to an SATA bay.

I don't think you have to reinstall Windows. You just have to fix the Windows EFI boot stuff. The folder structure of the EFI partition should look like this (I put the Windows EFI stuff in a separate partition called WINDOWS)


The folders you need to start with are:

EFI
    Boot
Microsoft
    Boot

The bootx64.efi file is a copy of the bootmgfw.efi file.

Maybe one of these will work:

Fix UEFI Boot: Fix for Windows 10, Windows 11, 7, and 8

This article explains step-by-step solutions that you can use to fix your computer’s UEFI boot for these Windows versions: Windows 10, Windows 11, Windows 7, and Windows 8. This how-to articl…

neosmart.net

How to Repair the EFI Bootloader on a GPT Hard Drive for Windows Operating Systems | Dell Iceland

How to Restore Deleted EFI System Partition in Windows | Windows OS Hub

This article will show you how to manually restore an accidentally deleted Windows EFI boot partition on a UEFI computer. This easy way to manually re-create bootable EFI and MSR…

woshub.com

After that, you should have most of the files/folders that I showed.

Notes:
- You don't need an MSR partition.
- If you need to change partitions, do it in macOS.
- If you need to convert GPT/MBR hybrid to GPT, use iPartition.app and deselect the "Show in Windows" check box for all the partitions that have it selected.
- The normal size of the EFI partition in macOS is 200 MB. You don't need to change the size if yours is different.
- Macs don't have a UEFI menu so don't go looking for it.
- Booting Windows in UEFI mode with RefindPlus or OpenCore may be dangerous to your NVRAM's health. Backup your rom. Boot to RefindPlus, go into the EFI Shell, dump the contents of all the NVRAM variables dmpstore > dmpstore.txt, then try booting into Windows UEFI. If that works, reboot into RefindPlus, dump the contents of all the NVRAM variables again, check for any big changes. If no big changes, then maybe it's ok.
- EasyBCD is an excellent utility for modifying the BCD (the BCD has many options you can change - it's like boot-args in macOS; it also has a menu like RefindPlus/OpenCore that you can show/hide, there's also a timeout for the menu).
- Attached is a script - run it before modifying your partitions like this sudo ./dumpvols.sh > dump1.txt 2>&1, make your changes, then do it again with a different file name and compare. The script shows GPT and MBR info, and also shows the contents of the first block of each partition so you can see if there's bios boot code in them. For legacy booting, you can make sure the MBR partitions match the GPT partitions (start and length) and make sure that a bootable partition is marked as active (an asterisk * in the fdisk output).

Edit: script moved to https://gist.github.com/joevt/a99e3af71343d8242e0078ab4af39b6c

 

[Petri Krohn]

(as I understand, you can't clean install over PCIe)

A user on the private MacProUpgrade Facebook group reports success in installing Windows on an NVMe drive. Evidently the problem is that the Mac Pro sees NVMe drives as external. The method uses WinToUSB to transfer a Windows installation to an external drive. The guide followed was this video.

On the video Windows is first installed on VMWare Fusion virtual machine, but I do not know if this step is necessary, if you already have a Windows installation.

 

[startergo]

A user on the private MacProUpgrade Facebook group reports success in installing Windows on an NVMe drive. Evidently the problem is that the Mac Pro sees NVMe drives as external. The method uses WinToUSB to transfer a Windows installation to an external drive. The guide followed was this video.

On the video Windows is first installed on VMWare Fusion virtual machine, but I do not know if this step is necessary, if you already have a Windows installation.

I have installed it directly in my MacBookPro15,1. I used OpenCore to make my OWC NVME enclosure seen as internal. Alternatively you can use Innie to make the drive appear as internal. In the cMP5,1 there are no issues installing Windows in UEFI and booting on an NVME drive.

 

[voraciousvegan]

I have installed it directly in my MacBookPro15,1. I used OpenCore to make my OWC NVME enclosure seen as internal. Alternatively you can use Innie to make the drive appear as internal. In the cMP5,1 there are no issues installing Windows in UEFI and booting on an NVME drive.

Most of this talk is focused on NVME, which I understand requires UEFI, but I'm still confused about the requirements for PLAIN SATA drives in PCIe. Under any circumstances, can a plain SATA drive in PCIe be made to boot a BIOS W10, with any of the above mentioned methods (for example Innie, since the drive is seen as internal)?

Let's say it's impossible -- OK, converting BIOS to UEFI is possible. The next issue is updating BootROM to 140.0.0.0.0, required for OpenCore. Given that I used a dosdude patcher and also had to jump thru hoops to get my flashed GTX 970 drivers working, I want to avoid flashing the BootROM. Which of these methods will work without a BootROM flash? Innie? rEFInd?

 

[h9826790]

Most of this talk is focused on NVME, which I understand requires UEFI, but I'm still confused about the requirements for PLAIN SATA drives in PCIe. Under any circumstances, can a plain SATA drive in PCIe be made to boot a BIOS W10, with any of the above mentioned methods (for example Innie, since the drive is seen as internal)?

Let's say it's impossible -- OK, converting BIOS to UEFI is possible. The next issue is updating BootROM to 140.0.0.0.0, required for OpenCore. Given that I used a dosdude patcher and also had to jump thru hoops to get my flashed GTX 970 drivers working, I want to avoid flashing the BootROM. Which of these methods will work without a BootROM flash? Innie? rEFInd?

UEFI Windows is required to run Windows on any drive that's on PCIe card. NVMe or SATA won't make any difference.

Innie is irrelevant.

You may try rEFInd+.