[Clover] Mavericks and Windows 8.1 dual boot + Parallels

[Mulder]

Hi guys,

I have a dual booting Mavericks 10.9.4 and Windows 8.1 system with Clover as bootloader. Each OS is on its own SSD and the Mavericks SSD has the EFI partition containing Clover and the Mavericks and Windows EFI files. However, I tried to load the Windows SSD into Parallels Desktop 9 but I can't seem to get it to work. I tried both legacy and EFI boot from Parallels, but could it be that Parallels can not find the EFI files since they are on the Mavericks SSD? Any help would be much appreciated.

 

[Going Bald]

Hi guys,

I have a dual booting Mavericks 10.9.4 and Windows 8.1 system with Clover as bootloader. Each OS is on its own SSD and the Mavericks SSD has the EFI partition containing Clover and the Mavericks and Windows EFI files. However, I tried to load the Windows SSD into Parallels Desktop 9 but I can't seem to get it to work. I tried both legacy and EFI boot from Parallels, but could it be that Parallels can not find the EFI files since they are on the Mavericks SSD? Any help would be much appreciated.

No guarantees, but try this:
1. mount the OS X drive EFI partition and copy the Windows boot folder to desktop.
2. delete the Win8 boot folder from the OS X drive EFI partition, unmount the OS X EFI partition
3. mount the Win8 drive EFI partition
4. copy the Windows boot folder to the Win8 EFI partition.
5. delete the folder from the OS X desktop.
6. reboot and now try Parallels

 

[Mulder]

No guarantees, but try this:
1. mount the OS X drive EFI partition and copy the Windows boot folder to desktop.
2. delete the Win8 boot folder from the OS X drive EFI partition, unmount the OS X EFI partition
3. mount the Win8 drive EFI partition
4. copy the Windows boot folder to the Win8 EFI partition.
5. delete the folder from the OS X desktop.
6. reboot and now try Parallels

Thanks for the help. However, my Windows drive doesn't have an EFI partition since it used the EFI partition on the OS X drive. I guess I have to reinstall Windows with EFI partitions on both drives to make Parallels recognise Windows. Or maybe I have to mount the EFI partition of the OS X drive. I will report back later today.

 

[Going Bald]

Thanks for the help. However, my Windows drive doesn't have an EFI partition since it used the EFI partition on the OS X drive. I guess I have to reinstall Windows with EFI partitions on both drives to make Parallels recognise Windows. Or maybe I have to mount the EFI partition of the OS X drive. I will report back later today.

Aha! You did not disconnect the OS X drive before you installed Win8. Windows wants its boot files on the first SATA port the BIOS looks at, so when dual booting separate drives, it is always best to disconnect all other drives and connect the Windows drive to the lowest numbered port - i.e. P0 or P1, depending on how your main board BIOS numbers them, when installing Windows.

 

[Mulder]

Aha! You did not disconnect the OS X drive before you installed Win8. Windows wants its boot files on the first SATA port the BIOS looks at, so when dual booting separate drives, it is always best to disconnect all other drives and connect the Windows drive to the lowest numbered port - i.e. P0 or P1, depending on how your main board BIOS numbers them, when installing Windows.

First of all, I just updated Clover to r2758. After that, I reinstalled Windows, but now with all other disks disconnected. I ended up with an EFI partition on my Windows SSD and of course, I already had an EFI partition on my OS X SSD. Clover recognises both disks and I can boot fine into both systems.
Now onto Parallels. I loaded my 'Bootcamp' partition from within Parallels and everything went well and I can boot my Windows SSD virtually

There is a small problem however. In my UEFI, I lost Clover as boot option. I don't know if this is due to the update or due to two EFI partitions. My first boot option is UEFI Other OS, which is OS X. It also looks like booting into Clover takes longer. The most annoying this is that if I boot into Windows through Clover and reboot, it boots straight into Windows again instead of Clover and in my UEFI, my first boot option is changed to UEFI Windows. If I change it back and reboot, it is changed again.
Any idea how to fix this? Could this be due to the update or conflicting EFI partitions?

Take care!

 

[Going Bald]

First of all, I just updated Clover to r2758. After that, I reinstalled Windows, but now with all other disks disconnected. I ended up with an EFI partition on my Windows SSD and of course, I already had an EFI partition on my OS X SSD. Clover recognises both disks and I can boot fine into both systems.
Now onto Parallels. I loaded my 'Bootcamp' partition from within Parallels and everything went well and I can boot my Windows SSD virtually

There is a small problem however. In my UEFI, I lost Clover as boot option. I don't know if this is due to the update or due to two EFI partitions. My first boot option is UEFI Other OS, which is OS X. It also looks like booting into Clover takes longer. The most annoying this is that if I boot into Windows through Clover and reboot, it boots straight into Windows again instead of Clover and in my UEFI, my first boot option is changed to UEFI Windows. If I change it back and reboot, it is changed again.
Any idea how to fix this? Could this be due to the update or conflicting EFI partitions?

Take care!

What happens if, in the BIOS on the BIOS Features screen, you set the Windows 8 Features to Windows 8 and disable CSM?

 

[Mulder]

What happens if, in the BIOS on the BIOS Features screen, you set the Windows 8 Features to Windows 8 and disable CSM?

I just tried your suggestion, but Windows reboots directly into itself again and the resolution gets worse too. I immediately returned to my old settings. I think I will try and mess with some EFI settings then.

 

[Mulder]

Ok, I got the dual boot running properly again! In my bios, I changed Boot Mode Selection to UEFI Only. This resulted in only two boot options, OS X and Windows. Then, I selected OS X as my first boot option and my second option as Disabled. This actually fixed the problem After that, I installed Clover as boot option and now Clover is my first boot option and the second and third are disabled. Everything is good now, so thanks for the help Going Bald!
There is however one thing. It takes literally forever to boot. It takes nearly 15 seconds between the motherboard logo and the Clover GUI. If I select OS X in Clover, it takes a second or two before it starts loading the kernel, but if I choose Windows, it begins booting immediately. Any idea how to fix this? I already edited a fresh copy of Clover's config.plist from the r2758 installer.
I also sometimes encounter a random reboot during the boot process of OS X. Seems like I still have some work to do.

 

[Mulder]

I also fixed the slow boot problem. It seemed that in my config.plist, I had Boot/Log=true. This makes Clover log everything and takes, as I experienced, a very long time. I set it to false and now everything boots smoothly!
However, I still encounter random reboots during the boot process of OS X. Any idea how I can fix that?