Help with Booting Windows 10 with Clover UEFI

[vulgo]

This unfortunately didn't work for me on Win7.
I just made a new Sierra install on a seperate SSD, and am now trying to boot Win7 and Win10 with it via Clover.
Win10 boots with the trick mentioned above, but Win7 isnt been seen by Clover, don't know why. Both disks are MBR.

Later i converted win7 MBR disk to GPT using AOMEI partition assistent, which creates an EFI partition on the disk. Now both Windows disks are beeing seen by clover (now GPT & MBR). But i get an error when trying to boot Win7. After trying some times booting via Clover, Win7 sometimes starts, but sometimes gives me an strange error.

Is it best to also convert the Win10 disk to GPT via AOMEI Partition Assistent?
Or should i make a new install of Sierra using UEFI instead of Legacy version of Clover?

Thanks in advance.

You can just install Clover UEFI to one of your EFI partitions, create the EFI boot menu entry to /efi/clover/cloverx64.efi, and set up your firmware to boot from it (disable legacy booting or order the UEFI option to boot first) That is enough to boot clover/macOS with your native EFI firmware and Windows 7 will be much happier than booting on Clover's modified reference EFI implementation.

 

[mascarponi]

You can just install Clover UEFI to one of your EFI partitions, create the EFI boot menu entry to /efi/clover/cloverx64.efi, and set up your firmware to boot from it (disable legacy booting or order the UEFI option to boot first) That is enough to boot clover/macOS with your native EFI firmware and Windows 7 will be much happier than booting on Clover's modified reference EFI implementation.

But i installed Sierra with unibeast in 'legacy' mode. After installing Sierra i installed multibeast with Clover also in Legacy mode. Can i just run multibeast again, and install Clover in UEFI mode? Is that what you mean?

Here is what happens;

Clover loads up, showing 3 drives. Left to right: Win7, Win10, Sierra. (Win10 and Sierra both working good)


Trying to Launch Win7:


Then i get this error:


Then, when booting from the Win7 disk only, i get this message. But Win7 starts normal when i choose: Start Windows Normally.


Any ideas why win7 is not working here, and Win10 does work?

 

[vulgo]

But i installed Sierra with unibeast in 'legacy' mode. After installing Sierra i installed multibeast with Clover also in Legacy mode. Can i just run multibeast again, and install Clover in UEFI mode? Is that what you mean?

Yes. Locate your 'legacy' Clover folder, which may be on an EFI partition or somewhere else. Back it up e.g. to the desktop. If its on the EFI partition where you are going to re-install Clover remove it, if it is on 'Macintosh HD' or whatever you can leave it. Then install Clover UEFI with similar settings to before. You can copy any kexts, additional files you actually need, from your Clover backup if you want.

At this point you should add an entry to /efi/clover/cloverx64.efi using the EFI shell bcfg command (see Clover documentation folder), EasyUEFI from Windows or the efibootmgr command from Linux. Then in firmware settings set the boot order to boot the entry you created first.

You may be able to boot Clover by selecting the disk where Clover is installed (identified as 'UEFI', the disk may appear in the menu twice if legacy boot options are presented) - however this is not guaranteed.

If your Clover folder wasn't on the EFI partition before or you didn't have to move it you will still be able to boot the legacy way by selecting the same disk in firmware settings NOT identified as UEFI.

Have a bootable Clover USB ready in case you cannot boot from the internal drive.

 

[vulgo]

Any ideas why win7 is not working here, and Win10 does work?

The error relates to Microsoft's booting mechanisms, which is a layer on top of EFI that only they know the reason for. If you press F2 at the Clover boot menu you get a preboot log saved to /efi/clover/misc/preboot.log. If you upload that file we can see what is loading on the Clover side and what the Clover menu entries are pointing to.

If Windows 10 is booting legacy, Clover just hands the MBR over to the service that boots that type of loader.

 

[mascarponi]

If you upload that file we can see what is loading on the Clover side and what the Clover menu entries are pointing to.

Ok, will do that tomorrow ! Thanks for your help!

 

[mascarponi]

If you upload that file we can see what is loading on the Clover side and what the Clover menu entries are pointing to.

I added the preboot.log as an attachment to this post, I hope the problem is in there. Thanks in advance!

 

[vulgo]

I added the preboot.log as an attachment to this post, I hope the problem is in there. Thanks in advance!

Thanks also post your config.plist

 

[mascarponi]

Thanks also post your config.plist

Here you go, in the attachment. Thanks!

Btw;
My win10 disk is MBR (I made the EFI partition with the Windows BCD tool)
My win7 disk is GPT, I tried to make the same EFI partition with BCD tool, which worked, but didn't showed up in Clover. So then I removed the EFI folder from C: and converted the disk to GPT using AOMEI partition assisted.

 

[vulgo]

Here you go, in the attachment. Thanks!

Btw;
My win10 disk is MBR (I made the EFI partition with the Windows BCD tool)
My win7 disk is GPT, I tried to make the same EFI partition with BCD tool, which work, but didn't boot. So then I removed the EFI folder from C: and converted the disk to GPT using AOMEI partition assisted.

Have you at any point manually added entries to the EFI boot menu for example using EasyUEFI? Or would AOMEI partition assistant have done so?

Seems you are already booting UEFI not legacy. Does the windows 10 (MBR) disk have a dedicated EFI partition? Can you confirm that these files exist

29:467 0:000 AddLoaderEntry for Volume Name=EFI
Boot0003 = Windows 7 EFI partition bootmgfw.efi on GPT disk partition 1 (EFI)
HD(1,GPT,1B0212E4-C431-490A-970D-7CF93FB2396A,0x800,0x31FFF)\EFI\MICROSOFT\BOOT\BOOTMGFW.EFI

\EFI\MICROSOFT\BOOT\BOOTMGFW.EFI on the EFI partition of the Windows 7 disk

29:511 0:000 AddLoaderEntry for Volume Name=W10
Boot0008 = Windows 10 EFI? partition on MBR disk partition 2 (W10)
HD(2,MBR,0x0FDBEFB6,0x32800,0x124DA5B0)\EFI\MICROSOFT\BOOT\BOOTMGFW.EFI

\EFI\MICROSOFT\BOOT\BOOTMGFW.EFI on the second partition of the MBR disk called W10. If so what is the filesystem of the partition?

 

[mascarponi]

Have you at any point manually added entries to the EFI boot menu for example using EasyUEFI? Or would AOMEI partition assistant have done so?

I didn't made any entries myself to the boot menu, and am not sure what AOMEI PA exactly does. But I found out this was a way to convert a MBR disk to a GPT disk without losing data. It does creates an UEFI partition on the disk which then is seen by Clover..

Should I install the UEFI version of Clover in my Sierra install now btw, as you suggested in post 59 ? Or should I wait with this step?