>> fdisk
>>
> That's looking like a very attractive option. ATM.
>
> I've spent most of the day trying to make this Win8 machine, and I use
> that word loosely, dual boot. I've created partitions, I've deleted
> partitions, I've made bootable thumb drives. I've been unable to boot at
> all. I've changed settings in the BIOS as if I were testing a truth table.

BIOS?

Don't you mean UEFI? ;-)

And that might well be your problem. UEFI doesn't use the boot block *at 
all* during the boot process; it uses its own completely new system of 
booting...



...unless you turn on BIOS compatibility mode, in which case it works 
just like before.



Oh, and did I mention? You may have Secure Boot turned on. If so, only 
digitally signed operating systems (e.g., Windows 8) can be used.



Did I mention this has been the bane of my life for the past month?

Post a reply to this message

On 13/04/2014 10:02 AM, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
>>> fdisk
>>>
>> That's looking like a very attractive option. ATM.
>>
>> I've spent most of the day trying to make this Win8 machine, and I use
>> that word loosely, dual boot. I've created partitions, I've deleted
>> partitions, I've made bootable thumb drives. I've been unable to boot at
>> all. I've changed settings in the BIOS as if I were testing a truth
>> table.
>
> BIOS?
>
> Don't you mean UEFI? ;-)
>
Maybe I do. Maybe I don't ;-)

> And that might well be your problem. UEFI doesn't use the boot block *at
> all* during the boot process; it uses its own completely new system of
> booting...
>
>

So I found out.

Does message ring a bell?

Windows cannot be installed on this disk. The selected disk is of the 
GPT partition style.


>
> ....unless you turn on BIOS compatibility mode, in which case it works
> just like before.
>
>
I turned the setting to legacy. Then it could not find a bootable disc. 
And I could not install Win7 to make it bootable.
>
> Oh, and did I mention? You may have Secure Boot turned on. If so, only
> digitally signed operating systems (e.g., Windows 8) can be used.
>

I switched that off too.

>
> Did I mention this has been the bane of my life for the past month?

I don't think so. But I've not been keeping up with the newsgroups, 
recently.
The whole thing is very annoying.

-- 
Regards
     Stephen

I solemnly promise to kick the next angle, I see.

Post a reply to this message

>> And that might well be your problem. UEFI doesn't use the boot block *at
>> all* during the boot process; it uses its own completely new system of
>> booting...
>
> So I found out.
>
> Does message ring a bell?
>
> Windows cannot be installed on this disk. The selected disk is of the
> GPT partition style.

The whole thing should eventually make everybody's lives *easier*. GPT 
is much simpler and more sane than the existing MBR nonsense. And the 
EFI boot process is much simpler and easier to manage, with a butt-load 
of useful new features.

Trouble is, all this stuff is brand-new. And consequently, a lot of it 
seems to be buggy as hell! I couldn't even get the OpenSUSE installation 
DVD to *boot* on our test laptop until I reflashed the firmware. 
Apparently the firmware it was shipped with doesn't implement half the 
functionality correctly, and it's only once you've updated it that 
things start to work right.

The other sad thing is... EFI offers a whole bunch of new functionality 
that is supposed to make our lives easier. But everybody is only 
bothering to implement the parts of EFI required for Win8 certification. 
(And sometimes not even all of that!) So it looks like all the old hacks 
and workarounds for the BIOS being rubbish are going to be replaced by a 
whole new generation of hacks and workarounds for EFI not being 
implemented properly... *sigh*

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