Asus X501A (UEFI confusedness)

[Didanix]

Hey guys,

just bought a new laptop (Asus X501A) with an i3 & HD 3000 and having some major problems with hackintoshery.

So far, I've tried everything, even Clover with hacky (U)EFI drivers, but I can't get anywhere.

My main problem is that from what I can gather, the "BIOS" seems to be UEFI only, as it doesn't allow me to just boot from a specific drive, but instead it requires me to either a) manually add boot entries in the bios or b) allow the installer (like Windows) do it for me.

For some reason, Unibeast (ie. Chameleon/Chimera) boots just fine, so I can install it and boot the installed Lion using the USB drive. However, if I install Chimera to the HDD, the BIOS can't see it, at all.

Why am I getting the feeling that this is a UEFI-only board and that there is no way in HELL that I'll be able to get Chimera/Chameleon to play nice with it?

Has anyone ever succesfully create a FAT32 partition with Chamelen/Chimera on it? I don't know if that would work, but with a UEFI-only board, it does support FAT32 natively (but not HFS), so I guess in theory it could work, I dunno.

Any kind of help, input, suggestions or even explanations would help!

PS. Just tried installing Windows 7 from a USB drive and the BIOS can't see it either.

EDIT: Apparently the official manual link on Asus's site directs me to a different models manual (PDF) and the manual has pictures of the BIOS with a "UEFI BOOT: Enabled/Disabled" option that my BIOS does NOT have.

 

[noscope900]

Hey Dude

Did you ever get it working. I purchased this laptop as my parents broke my old one, and if it wasnt a rushed purchase I'd have done more research but I thought it would be easy to do since it has i3.

At least can you get chimera to boot, and recognise a back up of lion. I can get hold of a copy through my freind.

 

[Didanix]

Pretty much gave up on it due to not finding proper working drivers for the touchpad/keyboard and there's no support for the internal wifi.

But, that said, the trick was to use the MBR hack for Lion (it's easy to google for) which basically allows you to install OS X on an MBR disk. This is useful because the UEFI BIOS can't boot from GPT disks (not Chimera anyway), but it can from MBR.

 

[noscope900]

Ok. Hows about, if I put Chimera on an MBR usb, and in another slot a drive with the recovery drive for 10.7. Would chimera detect the backup usb???

 

[noscope900]

I had a thought. What if you took the kexts required to use the mouse of the UX21 ulrtabook. They are the same.

 

[aot2002]

Pretty much gave up on it due to not finding proper working drivers for the touchpad/keyboard and there's no support for the internal wifi.

But, that said, the trick was to use the MBR hack for Lion (it's easy to google for) which basically allows you to install OS X on an MBR disk. This is useful because the UEFI BIOS can't boot from GPT disks (not Chimera anyway), but it can from MBR.

on the ASUS X501A,
you have get to the security tab in the UEFI, and disable I/O interface security, Save exit, then back in to the UEFI, BOOT Tab, and enable the USB, set it as the first boot device.