Booting Windows 8 EFI Partition with Parallels 8

Hi guys,

I have a Windows 8 x64 partition on my iMac mid-2011. It is running natively under EFI (not bootcamp-style BIOS emulation). I have the option of running OS X, or Windows 8 at boot time under the standard Apple boot loader.

It doesn't need MBR, or any of that traditional bootcamp-y stuff. It runs quite happily with GPT disks.

I noticed that Parallels 8 now has support for EFI guests.

I have attempted to point Parallels 8 to my Windows 8 EFI partition, set Parallels to use EFI Boot, but it dumps me out to some sort of EFI shell script interface, and doesn't work.

Is what I'm trying possible with Parallels 8? Is there a guide anywhere? Has anyone else managed to get this working?

Kind regards,
Mark.

 

I assume not...

Hi guys,

With the resounding silence on this thread, I assume the answer is no-one knows. Not very handy.

I can't even find documentation on the subject, not what I would expect from a company like Parallels.

I will try and poke around some more myself and see what I can manage.

Cheers,
Mark.

 

Hi, the EFI-bios support is rather experimental. That's why it is not documented.

What about your question, I'm afraid that I cannot provide any information because I have no rights to comment any plans or their absence..

 

Same problem

I also have the same problem.

On my Macbook Pro (Late 2011), I replaced the optical drive with the original SATA hard disk and installed an SSD as the first drive, where Mac OS X Mountain Lion is installed. A few days ago, I installed Windows 8 on a partition on the second disk. The disk has GPT partition scheme and Windows 8 is running under EFI. Mac OS X and Windows 8 boots perfectly, there are no problems there.

Yesterday, I bought Parallels Desktop 8. My intention was to import the boot camp as a virtual machine and run Windows 8 under Mac OS X. However, the system does not boot as it halts and asks me to configure it manually. (See screenshot below)

I tried enabling EFI boot under settings, which booted me to EFI shell. I tried to read the help on the shell commands, however couldn't find anything useful. Is there a way to use this shell and get Windows to boot?

 

I would also like to ask for better EFI support for booting Windows boot camp partitions. Windows 8 seems to be working really well, booted natively in EFI mode but I just get dumped to the EFI Shell in PD8.

 

For me, I just deleted my boot camp partition and now using Parallels with a virtual Windows 8. There wasn't any point using the boot camp partition without the integration of parallels (coherence mode).

 

So, it seems that PD8 can boot the Win8 install DVD without a problem in EFI mode. I may poke around to see if there's just an issue with how the EFI boot files were laid out when installing natively.

 

OK, two steps forward one step back it seems....

I got PD8 to boot Win8 in EFI mode but I had to reinstall it from scratch from within Parallels. I have a MBP with a second SSD in place of the disc drive, dedicated to Windows. It used to be a Win7 BootCamp drive but is now Win8. PD8 boots up fine now, but then I can't boot into Win8 natively in EFI anymore.

What seems to be the issue is that when I had installed Win8 natively in EFI mode it didn't create the EFI boot partition (or the recovery partition). So while I could boot into it fine from the Mac EFI, PD8 only sees the dedicated SSD which then didn't have any EFI boot partition. So running the install within PD8 ensured the Windows installer set up all the proper partitions. So now I probably need to recover the EFI booting options for the Mac so it sees the proper location of the Win8 system drive. Maybe I should've started from scratch, installed natively ensuring that all the necessary partitions get installed (either automatically or manually using examples from TechNet).

Anyways... for now I'm fine because I'm usually in Parallels but I wanted to run straight off my SSD vs a VDisk.

 

Boot Failed. EFI Hard Drive

I have installed Windows 8 via EFI, and made sure the proper 'Microsoft Reserved' partition was installed by setup. I can boot Windows 8 natively, via EFI, like a charm. Am now trying to get it to boot in Parallels. I have selected the 'Use EFI Boot' option in Parallels. I have tried selected one and/or both (all combinations) of the partitions under Configure>Hard Disk>Edit Partitions.

I always get the message 'Boot Failed. EFI Hard Drive' from the Parallels EFI shell.

Any suggestions? Anyone ver get this working?

Disk structure:
/dev/disk0
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *251.0 GB disk0
1: EFI 209.7 MB disk0s1
2: Apple_HFS Mac HD 200.0 GB disk0s2
3: Apple_Boot Recovery HD 650.0 MB disk0s3
4: Microsoft Reserved 134.2 MB disk0s4
5: Microsoft Basic Data BOOTCAMP 50.0 GB disk0s5

 

+1 - I second this request. I just get dumped to the shell, listing the Device mapping table. (which shows all of the partitions listed in my previous post.

 

it would be nice to find a resolution to this problem as I am having the exact same issue with my machine. I have installed Windows 8 into an EFI boot partition and let Windows 8 do the partitioning itself on the drive (it uses the entire SSD in my Mac Pro), yet Parallels is unable to boot into this partition?

I have tried all the options I can think of, but the core problems appears to be that Parallels simply can't figure out where the disk is located on the drive? Probably because Windows made the partitions, not the Apple Boot camp (which creates multiple partitions on the disk).

 

How I got it to work, was i made a small 200MB, virtual hdd, to use as the EFI boot loader.

In the Boot Order tab in Hardware, I moved the new Hard Disk to the top position, and enabled "Use EFI Boot"

Next I made sure my windows 8 installation media was plugged into my mac, in this case a bootable usb installer, but I'm sure a dvd/or mounted iso in parallels would work just as well.

I booted the machine, went ahead and skipped the auto configuration, for manual config.
if it didn't automatically boot into the windows installer. You at this point should see an command line like interface(this is the EFI Terminal), go ahead and type exit. select device manager, than select you installation media USB or DVD will be in the device name depending on the media your using (make sure you've mounted the usb device in parallels, usb icon at bottom of the window).

In the windows installer don't install windows. click repair computer.
click advanced options. and than command prompt.

DISCLAIMER: I take no responsibility for loss of data for using the following commands incorrectly.

while in command prompt do the following commands. "3 dashes indicate a comment that shouldn't be entered"

diskpart
list disk ---NOTE this lists the "disks" the parallels has access to.
select disk 1 ---WARNING make sure the disk number here is the 200MB virtual disk you created earlier.
clean
convert gpt
create partition efi size=200
format fs=fat32 quick label=EFI
select partition 1
assign letter=S
exit

C: ---this is assuming you have had windows installed and booted previously, drive letter could be different.
bcdboot C:\Windows /l en-us /s S: /f UEFI ---ditto here.

now go ahead and exit out of the command prompt, and shut down the virtual machine.
reboot the VM, and than you should now boot into windows 8.
You might have to "exit" out of the EFI terminal again, and choose a device to boot from again, but after that it should remember and continue booting properly.

Note. I had to re-activate windows 8. I ended up doing the phone activation, as it was telling me I've already used my maximum activations. the phone activation's worked with no problems though.

A few notes:
Native EFI booted windows 8 still works.
Sound works when in windows 8 VM.
Does not fix sound when booted natively in EFI.

 

Just to be clear, parallels is booting from your physical hard drive (like BOOTCAMP), not a VHD? (VM and Native boot access the same disk?)

 

Although I haven't tried this myself, this can work with Bootcamp, you can mix Bootcamp partitions with virtual disks under Parallels, for the same VM.

 

HunterD, yes its still booting into the physical partition for windows 8, the VHD is just being used as an EFI boot loader. as Parallel's can't seem to see the one already on the physical drive.

 

Brilliant!

 

Did you format your native OS partition as FAT32 or NTFS? Mine (C is NTFS, and though I can see the volume in diskpart, It shows 'RAW' as the filesystem, and thus I can't perform the bdcboot command.

I receive the following error message when attempting to switch to C: drive:

"The volume does not contain a recognized file system. Please make sure that all required file system drivers are loaded and that the volume is not corrupted."

Ironically, the native EFI partition also shows a 'RAW' (instead of FAT32, which it is)

I can still boot windows up natively.

 

Context info:

I have a 200gb partition for OSX.
I let Windows do the partitioning/formatting during win 8 EFI install (I just point it at the blank part of the disk and hit 'next'.. No manual partition creating/partitioning)
Windows creates 2 partitions.. An MSR (hidden) and the OS partition.

If I boot NATIVELY from windows install disk, then run diskpart, list vol, I see the native MAC EFI partition listed as FAT 32, and the windows-created OS partition listed as NTFS.

If I attach those to my parallels VM (set primary hard disk to my SSD) and boot from windows install disk through Parallels virtually, then run diskpart, both native MAC EFI and windows-created OS partitions show up as RAW.

Very strange.

How does your setup differ?

 

hunter, how did you install windows in the first place?

When I installed, I started with a clean drive following this tutorial:

http://bit.ly/W63qM6

the FAT32 EFI partition is the vary first on my SSD.

Don't know if this information helps.

when in disk part, you could do a "list volumes" command to see the mounted disk's and make sure the windows partition isn't mounted to another drive letter.

Not sure if I'll be able to help you any further, you've running into problems beyond my person experience.
Maybe a parallel's employee can shed some light on the subject.

 

Well thank you for your help.

I just shrink the existing Mac OSX partition via Disk Utility, and then reboot from my Windows 8 install USB drive (via EFI), then follow the normal installation procedure. Windows automatically does all the partitioning/formatting, etc that your article describes.

There is already a Mac-install created EFI Partition as well. (So I don't need to manually wipe the drive and recreate it)

Also, the 'find my Mac' functionality doesn't work unless a valid recovery partition exists, and (i believe) the only way I can get that is by allowing the OSX installation to install by default.

I will play around a bit more, but may end up back to Bootcamp for now.

Thanks again for your help!

Parallels - any comment as to why my windows-created boot partitions appear properly (as FAT32 and NTFS) when booting natively, but appear as RAW when booted via Parallels?