Recommended BIOS/UEFI Settings for Beginners

[vulgo]

First of all. Uninstall your bootloader from your OSX disk.

1) can I easily take my Win7/64 starting 512 GB (SDD) disk from a mainboard (GA-Z68X-UD3H-B3 rev. 1.1) with BIOS F12 and transfer it to the (hopefully soon arriving) mainboard GA-Z77X-D3H (probably BIOS F16) - and then change that mainboard's firmware to UEFI without reformatting the disk

You must boot the windows 64 bit installer in UEFI mode (UEFI bios) and install to a GPT formatted disk. Do this first, and install a program called EasyUEFI once windows is working. In BIOS settings disable windows 8 features.

2) can I easily take my macOS 10.9.5 (different starting disk, 500 GB HDD) from the above mentioned Z68X mainboard to the Z77X mainboard - before or after getting UEFI firmware on the board?

Next boot from a clover USB to your macOS disk. Run the clover installation package with installation target as the same disk you installed windows UEFI to. Install UEFI only in ESP. Use EasyUEFI in windows to change the boot order and make Clover the default loader if Windows is starting every boot.

So in answer to question 1) windows 7 requires a fresh install, and 2) your macOS drive will boot from clover either way.

 

[vulgo]

PS: currently I have Chimera v.2.2.1; Mac Pro 3.1 (so I may even change this to Mini 14.2 to get Sierra...). Sorry, it's getting late in Europe and I am too tired to write in better English

The system definition is not a magic bullet. Chameleon/Chimera/Enoch late boot replace boot.efi and the code is making optimisations with non-macs in mind. Clover Native Efi sets things like SMBIOS up first and then "hands it all over" to apples native "vanilla" boot.efi and from there things are more like a "real mac". Sorry for the english but forum rules.

 

[nununu]

thank you so much, vulgo, for sharing your expertise to my specific endeavor.
Since I still didn't get my new (used) board, I am rethinking this project and - with running out of time over the weekend - I am considering now, to check the new board first; i.e. I want to try to just replace the board and connect the Win7 boot disk to it (assuming the new board should be very, very similar, the difference is just one generation (Sandy board -> Ivy board; Ivy bridge processor remains the same, and I hope that GA-Z68X and GA-Z77X won't be too difficult for Win7 to update any drivers for everything... just hoping). That should allow me - in the best case scenario, that everything should work for Win7 - to see that the board is OK (running probably BIOS F16, as the seller had on his photos of the board). At a later stage, perhaps 2-3 weeks, I then may go through all the possible, unforseeable trouble to backup everything twice and install the new world of UEFI - for both Win7 AND MacOS Sierra...
So, with this "easy testing" in mind within the BIOS world, would there be an easy way to keep macOS 10.9.5 running within a weekend...

 

[vulgo]

thank you so much, vulgo, for sharing your expertise to my specific endeavor.
Since I still didn't get my new (used) board, I am rethinking this project and - with running out of time over the weekend - I am considering now, to check the new board first; i.e. I want to try to just replace the board and connect the Win7 boot disk to it (assuming the new board should be very, very similar, the difference is just one generation (Sandy board -> Ivy board; Ivy bridge processor remains the same, and I hope that GA-Z68X and GA-Z77X won't be too difficult for Win7 to update any drivers for everything... just hoping). That should allow me - in the best case scenario, that everything should work for Win7 - to see that the board is OK (running probably BIOS F16, as the seller had on his photos of the board). At a later stage, perhaps 2-3 weeks, I then may go through all the possible, unforseeable trouble to backup everything twice and install the new world of UEFI - for both Win7 AND MacOS Sierra...
So, with this "easy testing" in mind within the BIOS world, would there be an easy way to keep macOS 10.9.5 running within a weekend...

Newer UEFI motherboard should boot either disk. See clover wiki: what is what? options a and option b.

Native UEFI boot looks for the first VFAT partition with an 'EFI' folder in root path and executes code and loads drivers from there.

Legacy CSM boots with a BIOS shim and executes code from the MBR of a whole disk to boot the system.Bootloader implements EFI in software to load EFI os like macOS.

 

[nununu]

First of all. Uninstall your bootloader from your OSX disk.You must boot the windows 64 bit installer in UEFI mode (UEFI bios) and install to a GPT formatted disk. Do this first, and install a program called EasyUEFI once windows is working. In BIOS settings disable windows 8 features.
Next boot from a clover USB to your macOS disk. Run the clover installation package with installation target as the same disk you installed windows UEFI to. Install UEFI only in ESP. Use EasyUEFI in windows to change the boot order and make Clover the default loader if Windows is starting every boot.

So in answer to question 1) windows 7 requires a fresh install, and 2) your macOS drive will boot from clover either way.

I tried the "new" (i.e. used) board with a Win7 hdd (which had worked before as backup on my Z68x board) - it started, worked somehow, on the Z77x board, but after hours of testing, it turned out that the used new board had a little defect: only two of four DDR3 RAM slots are working (and not in DUAL mode). If I install anything in one of the first two slots, a high number of beeps makes my crazy (many more than five beeps, perhaps 10 or more). Only installing in the third, or third an fourth slot, seems to work with any of the four identical 4GB (Hyundai) 1600MHz RAM memories (which all worked and work again fine in my Win7/macOS10.9.5 Hackintosh on Z68x).
Now, I lost a whole sunny Sunday and try to give the defective Z77 board back (won't be easy), but should just stay with my running Hackintosh, not wasting more time and money.

My new (smaller) project is to keep the Z68x-ud3h-b3 (1.1) and upgrade from 10.9.5 to 10.11 or 10.12 (on 500GB HDD).
(and keep the Win7 64 as it is, fully running from a 512 SSD...

Or is there any likely solution to "repair" the two non-functional RAM slots on the Z77 board?

 

[vulgo]

Or is there any likely solution to "repair" the two non-functional RAM slots on the Z77 board?

Using slots 1 + 3 for the first bank and slots 2 + 4 for the second bank doesn't work? From the error beeps sounds maybe you have the slot order reversed (4 to 1 ) . You could try clearing the slots for any debris with a compressed air aerosol or a vacuum cleaner. If you are installing only 2 modules use slots 1 + 3.

 

[nununu]

I already have had the clean looking slots cleaned, _1 and _3 are out of order, only those two next to the processor work: _2 and _4 (I meanwhile counted the continuous appearing, short beeps: they seem to differ from around 17, 27, 37, 47). I also found a broken pin/missing pin head on the 1155 socket, I think this is/could be the reason.
I currently have no enthusiasm to even try to upgrade MacOS X from 10.9 to 10.12 or 10.13 - after reading too much about Clover, Chimera - and I am not confident, that I will find all the kexts for getting everything to work as it works now.

 

[Macboy123]

Never had any problems with VT-d or XD Bit enabled.

With newest Clover versions and Haswell/Skylake Builds, and appropriate graphics with (!) UEFI GOP vBIOS, system also runs with Windows 8 Mode / CSM completely disabled and Fastboot Ultra Fast, with 4K 3840x2160 Clover screen and 3-5 seconds boot up time for both OS-X Sierra and Windows 10.
Support and compatibility get even better all the time, so many thanks to the developers.

 

[NeverDay]

Help, I can not activate UEFI mother board! P8z68-Deluxe! when PCI ROM Priority is enabled, the system does not start, it gets frozen in the startup screen !! What to do?

 

[Vinov]

Hi, I have Asus Z97 pro wifi. Does it supports Mac OS.
MotherBoard - Asus Z97 pro wifi usb 3.1
Ram - 32Gb Gskill
Processor - i7 4790k.
Installed Win 10 uefi mode.