[Guide] Lenovo IdeaPad U330/U430/U530 using Clover UEFI

[danika015]

Hello!

I'd like to ask how long does the battery last on Lenovo U430 with Yosemite?

Thanks!

 

[RehabMan]

Hello!

I'd like to ask how long does the battery last on Lenovo U430 with Yosemite?

Thanks!

Battery life will always depend on what you're doing with the laptop. Right now, I have 30+ tabs open on Chrome, battery at 100% (just unplugged), iPhone plugged in to USB3, and external mouse on USB2, and while I'm typing this message the battery status shows 5:16 left.

 

[5i1v3rStorm]

battery life definitely is amazing, compared to my older 15,4" Z580.

Today I failed installing Windows 7 Pro x64 to the U330p. Since I kept in in UEFI mode, I had to prepare a Windows 7 UEFI bootable usb drive.

The installer didn't start (all I could see was "starting windows" and then some graphics glitches).

Safe boot is turned off.

===

Now I have installed Win7 to a partition by enabling the "legacy mode" in windows and selecting the installer pendrive from the bios' boot menu.

Windows is able to start but CLOVER doesn't "see" it. Obviously because it has been installed using the legacy boot mode.

I would rather use UEFI only but I can't start the installer.

Does anybody know a way to dual-boot OS X and Windows 7 on this machine so that CLOVER can boot them both?

 

[RehabMan]

battery life definitely is amazing, compared to my older 15,4" Z580.

Today I failed installing Windows 7 Pro x64 to the U330p. Since I kept in in UEFI mode, I had to prepare a Windows 7 UEFI bootable usb drive.

The installer didn't start (all I could see was "starting windows" and then some graphics glitches).

Safe boot is turned off.

===

Now I have installed Win7 to a partition by enabling the "legacy mode" in windows and selecting the installer pendrive from the bios' boot menu.

Windows is able to start but CLOVER doesn't "see" it. Obviously because it has been installed using the legacy boot mode.

I would rather use UEFI only but I can't start the installer.

Does anybody know a way to dual-boot OS X and Windows 7 on this machine so that CLOVER can boot them both?

I think I tried Win7 UEFI on my u430. It didn't work. It is clear this laptop doesn't implement CSM as required for Win7 (this is not a surprise). If you want Windows UEFI, stick with Win8+.

If you want to boot Win7 legacy from Clover, you'll need to modify the config.plist to scan for legacy entries. See Clover wiki: http://clover-wiki.zetam.org/Home

 

[5i1v3rStorm]

Thanks for the hint in the right direction. Here's how you dual-boot Win-7 and Mac OS X on the U330p:

0) Prerequisites: I had an MS-DOS formatted partition behind my OS X partition.

1) In BIOS set UEFI mode to "Legacy enabled" and "UEFI first" to make shure Clover get's booted.

2) You can then boot into the Win-7 installer by using the F12 key

3) After Installation has finished you can already select which OS to boot with the F12 key: Selecting your harddrive in UEFI mode will boot into Clover, selecting it in legacy mode will boot Windows. However, you need two more modifications to the Clover config file to be able to boot Windows from Clover:

3.1) In the "BOOT" section, set Legacy to LegacyBiosDefault. Otherwise the system freezes initializing the graphics card:

<key>Legacy</key>
<string>LegacyBiosDefault</string>

3.2) In the "SCAN" section, set scanning for legacy bootloaders to true:

<key>Legacy</key>
<true/>

===================== Rehabman! I still need some help ==================

Today I noticed I have VERY VERY BAD WiFi speed. It is always at 50 - 100 KB/s. No matter which protocol is used (SMB / FTP / HTTP etc.) and even directly in front of my WLAN base. Other machines can get 6 to 8 MB/s from that point.

I have two suggestions:

1.) I ruined the card when I tried to rebrand it and flashed it with wrong offset and length.

2.) It's a known problem and you have a fix?

Fortunately, it isn't that expensive and I can try a different card. Just wanted to make sure.

Thanks!

 

[RehabMan]

Thanks for the hint in the right direction. Here's how you dual-boot Win-7 and Mac OS X on the U330p:

0) Prerequisites: I had an MS-DOS formatted partition behind my OS X partition.

1) In BIOS set UEFI mode to "Legacy enabled" and "UEFI first" to make shure Clover get's booted.

2) You can then boot into the Win-7 installer by using the F12 key

3) After Installation has finished you can already select which OS to boot with the F12 key: Selecting your harddrive in UEFI mode will boot into Clover, selecting it in legacy mode will boot Windows. However, you need two more modifications to the Clover config file to be able to boot Windows from Clover:

3.1) In the "BOOT" section, set Legacy to LegacyBiosDefault. Otherwise the system freezes initializing the graphics card:

<key>Legacy</key>
<string>LegacyBiosDefault</string>

3.2) In the "SCAN" section, set scanning for legacy bootloaders to true:

<key>Legacy</key>
<true/>

Yes, this is typical setup for legacy Windows install via Clover UEFI.

Some notes:
- in step0, make sure you're doing that in Disk Utility. Because you need a hybrid MBR/GPT partition scheme.
- in step1, make sure you boot the Windows media in legacy mode, not UEFI
- be aware of the dangers of hybrid MBR/GPT: http://rodsbooks.com/gdisk/hybrid.html

===================== Rehabman! I still need some help ==================

Today I noticed I have VERY VERY BAD WiFi speed. It is always at 50 - 100 KB/s. No matter which protocol is used (SMB / FTP / HTTP etc.) and even directly in front of my WLAN base. Other machines can get 6 to 8 MB/s from that point.

I have two suggestions:

1.) I ruined the card when I tried to rebrand it and flashed it with wrong offset and length.

2.) It's a known problem and you have a fix?

Fortunately, it isn't that expensive and I can try a different card. Just wanted to make sure.

Thanks!

I have no such issue. Make sure you set the regdomain correctly for your locale.

 

[5i1v3rStorm]

Unfortunately it is set acordingly.

I have a second Atheros card which I can rebrand as well. This one has no BT on it - but if it has normal speed, it would show that I bricked the card with my faulty attempt to rebrand it. My bad... thanks anyway.

EDIT: It was a brick. I rebranded a second AR5B95 this time with the correct values. Works perfectly with full 6 MB/s.

 

[alphakp295]

rehabman,

I did the rebranding successfully! then i tried setting regdomain...
after setting regdomain using rcu and setting to listed us, the wifi is not being recognized in windows. it shows error code 10, unable to start...
i thought i bricked the wifi card... then i booted into ubuntu... and my wifi card works...
what seems to be the problem?? what should I do in order to fix this?

 

[RehabMan]

rehabman,

I did the rebranding successfully! then i tried setting regdomain...
after setting regdomain using rcu and setting to listed us, the wifi is not being recognized in windows. it shows error code 10, unable to start...
i thought i bricked the wifi card... then i booted into ubuntu... and my wifi card works...
what seems to be the problem?? what should I do in order to fix this?

After rebranding, the card will not work in Windows. You need to use USB WiFi for Windows.

 

[alphakp295]

I guess I did it correctly then!
Thank you so much!