Help with Booting Windows 10 with Clover UEFI

[vulgo]

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?

Thanks. Clover is already installed for UEFI. Please see previous post request for information on a couple of things.

 

[mascarponi]

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

The win10 disk has no dedicated UEFI partition, but i created an EFI folder when booted into Win10 in the C: folder via this trick;
https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/...dows-10-with-clover-uefi.174198/#post-1139181
And i am able to boot this disk via Clover. Windows10 boots fine.

The win7 disk has a dedicated UEFI partition, because AOMEI made it by converting it from MBR to GPT.
I then was seen by clover, but gives me an error when booting. (it sometimes does boot however).

win7 disk
\EFI\MICROSOFT\BOOT\BOOTMGFW.EFI on the EFI partition of the Windows 7 disk




and win10 disk

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



The second partition of this MBR disk is called; W10

 

[vulgo]

The win10 disk has no dedicated UEFI partition, but i created an EFI folder when booted into Win10 in the C: folder via this trick;
https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/...dows-10-with-clover-uefi.174198/#post-1139181
And i am able to boot this disk via Clover. Windows10 boots fine.

The win7 disk has a dedicated UEFI partition, because AOMEI made it by converting it from MBR to GPT.
I then was seen by clover, but gives me an error when booting. (it sometimes does boot however).

Ok. I think you should set up (or clean up) your boot menu with EasyUEFI as you have Windows installed. This page seems to have a link to the free version. Post a screenshot of the boot menu as that app finds it.

 

[mascarponi]

Ok. I think you should set up (or clean up) your boot menu with EasyUEFI as you have Windows installed. This page seems to have a link to the free version. Post a screenshot of the boot menu as that app finds it.

Ok, this is what EasyUEFI finds.
Disk 0 = Win7
Disk 1 = Win10
Disk 2 = OSX Sierra with Clover

 

[vulgo]

Ok, this is what EasyUEFI finds.
Disk 0 = Win7
Disk 1 = Win10
Disk 2 = OSX Sierra with Clover

View attachment 301762

Great. Remove all entries except 1st and 4th (both called 'Windows Boot Manager')

Create a new entry for 'other OS' type, browse to /efi/clover/cloverx64.efi on the EFI partition of disk 2. Name it 'Clover' and order it to the top so it boots first.

Looking through Microsoft's docs the preferred way to multiboot Windows versions seems to be to have the Windows Boot Manager choose - i.e. one UEFI 'Windows Boot Manager' loader -> BCD menu entries for Windows 10/Windows 7. Is that what you are looking to do?

Edit: As you are booted to Windows 7, if you can assign a drive letter to the EFI partition you could run this command:

bcdboot c:\windows /s z: /f UEFI

replacing z: with the drive letter of the EFI partition - this might help with windows 7 not booting regularly

 

[mascarponi]

Thanks for your help Vulgo!
Is it not dangerous removing those UEFI entries except for the 1st and 4th?
I will try it, but have to clone my Win7 disk first i think.
I'd like to end up with a Clover menu where i can boot Win7, Win10 or OSX Sierra. Win10 & Sierra are working already like this, but like i posted before booting Win7 gives me an error.

Btw; in the meantime i tried converting the Win7 GPT Disk back to MBR, which is done in less than 1 minute, so Win7 is back to where it was. Now it doesn't show up in Clover again..although i created an EFI folder in C:\ with the BCD tool like done here;
https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/...dows-10-with-clover-uefi.174198/#post-1139181

I don't get why this doesn't work for my Win7 disk.

 

[vulgo]

Thanks for your help Vulgo!
Is it not dangerous removing those UEFI entries except for the 1st and 4th?
I will try it, but have to clone my Win7 disk first i think.
I'd like to end up with a Clover menu where i can boot Win7, Win10 or OSX Sierra. Win10 & Sierra are working already like this, but like i posted before booting Win7 gives me an error.

Btw; in the meantime i tried converting the Win7 GPT Disk back to MBR, which is done in less than 1 minute, so Win7 is back to where it was. Now it doesn't show up in Clover again..although i created an EFI folder in C:\ with the BCD tool like done here;
https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/...dows-10-with-clover-uefi.174198/#post-1139181

I don't get why this doesn't work for my Win7 disk.

The only entries in the EFI boot menu you need correspond to boot loader files in the vendor folders (e.g. Microsoft, Clover etc the ones you confirmed existed previously, the same ones Clover was adding to its own menu). Cloning windows 7 will not clone the boot menu, it is stored in NVRAM. Entries pointed to non-existing files, hardware devices, /efi/boot/bootx64.efi and vendor specific paths are not needed in the menu for booting the EFI bootloaders we are interested in.

Removing the EFI partition from the Win7 disk means the 'Microsoft Boot Manager' entry #1 now no longer points to an extant file path so it won't do anything and Clover won't show anything for that entry.

It is preferable to convert the disks to GPT, then run the command in #71 to create both the correct EFI boot option and corresponding Microsoft folder + boot configuration files on the EFI partition (do this one at a time booted from the OS you are configuring). Removing the extra entries will avoid ever increasing 'Windows Boot Manager' options and related problems booting Windows (after all Windows expects there to be only one Windows Boot Manager per system)

You can use EasyUEFI to manually create an entry pointing to C:\EFI\...\bootmgfw.efi on the windows 7 disk. Question is which entry is which now that you have converted the drive back to MBR? Maybe you can use EasyUEFI/Disk Management and work out which entry #s (if any) point to bootmgfw.efi on the two C: drives.

At the very least add the Clover entry and order it first, if it was booting first before it was falling through a Windows entry.

 

[mascarponi]

Ok clear (i suppose).
However i'm a bit hesitating to do these steps right now because i can't really get into the situation where my Win7 disk doesn't boot anymore (need it for work). I'm now also doubting to do a whole new installation of a second Win10 which then replaces Win7, as it seems that Win10 is doing better with clover.

Edit: As you are booted to Windows 7, if you can assign a drive letter to the EFI partition you could run this command:

replacing z: with the drive letter of the EFI partition - this might help with windows 7 not booting regularly

But does that mean that the EFI partition (assigned with a drive letter) is always visible in Windows Explorer e.g. ?
Or should i only assign this drive letter temporarely?

Much thanks for your help anyway!

 

[vulgo]

But does that mean that the EFI partition (assigned with a drive letter) is always visible in Windows Explorer e.g. ?
Or should i only assign this drive letter temporarely?

It will only get the letter temporarily.

However i'm a bit hesitating to do these steps right now because i can't really get into the situation where my Win7 disk doesn't boot anymore (need it for work). I'm now also doubting to do a whole new installation of a second Win10 which then replaces Win7, as it seems that Win10 is doing better with clover.

They both use the exactly the same mechanism to boot. The difference is in Microsoft's boot store data and the EFI boot menu entries. One working firmware menu entry + a corresponding up-to-date BCD configuration = always works. The bcdboot command creates both. Without these things you may get errors. Having the Windows installer USB/recovery tools to hand can be extremely useful for some of these errors. Your boot menu should look like this:

• #1 Clover (points to /efi/clover/cloverx64.efi)
• #2 Windows Boot Manager (points to current location of Windows 7 /efi/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi)
• #3 Windows Boot Manager (points to current location of Windows 10 /efi/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi)

Your config.plist is set for Clover to get its entries from the hypothetical firmware menu above as per @Macintyre post you linked. However with that setup having extra or false EFI entries is likely to cause problems, OS not showing up etc. A Clover custom entry pointing to Windows 7's current /efi/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi will likely get it to show up again. Whether it boots or not that way should be down to the BCD boot store i.e. not Clover or EFI boot menu related, but with multiple 'Windows Boot Manager' entries the behaviour may not be as expected.

 

[mascarponi]

The difference is in Microsoft's boot store data and the EFI boot menu entries. One working firmware menu entry + a corresponding up-to-date BCD configuration = always works. The bcdboot command creates both. Without these things you may get errors.

But then i still don't get why this command; bcdboot C:\Windows /s C: /f uefi did work to make Win10 boot via Clover, but didn't work for Win7 (both MBR disks back then). Both commands did create an EFI folder on the C:\ drive though.

Anyway, i'm going to try the steps in your last posts to clean up the EFI boot menu next weekend when i got more time.
For now i stick to boot up Win or OSX via F12 in Bios bootmenu. It's not that bad since i don't switch OS'es that much, but clover boot menu is a littel slicker.

Thanks again for your great help Vulgo!