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I'd like to know if there's a method to get Windows 7 or Windows 8 Developer Preview to install to a GPT disk on my traditional IBM PC BIOS setup. Windows 7, of course, rejects my GPT partition, because I don't have UEFI. Well, Debian and Grub 2 seem to work fine... So I want to know if there's a way to force Windows to work as well.
I'd seriously prefer avoiding hybrid MBR/GPT, because it's quite fragile and feels hackish, but it does work. I would assume the main blocker is that Microsoft is simply not adding support in their BIOS bootloader for GPT, which is understandable, I suppose. Is there any recourse?
The way I see it, there are a few potential solutions:
- Having an alternate bootloader for the Windows kernel. NOT a chainloader. As far as I know, none exist. That's a shame.
- Storing as little as possible on an alternate MBR-based disk. Not liking this idea, but it's doable. I'm not sure I'd call this a solution to the problem as much as a workaround.
- Emulating EFI enough to get the EFI bootloader to work... I remember hearing a bit about a UEFI-on-BIOS emulator, but I can't find anything about it now. I assume this is doable, but there's probably not much demand for it yet, and it's probably no fun at all to setup. GRUB 2 seems to be able to boot a hackintosh with necessary EFI emulation, but I guess there's no interest/UEFI 2 is harder to approach (and I would assume other EFI emulators used for hackintosh are on the same boat.)
- Coreboot with TainoCore. Coreboot does not work on my motherboard (as far as I know,) and I'm quite sure the last effort to do this during GSoC was a failure. I'd absolutely love this solution, if it did work, though.
Am I missing anything?
1Not quite. I know it can run on hybrid MBR/GPT and I'm not afraid to use it. More, I'm dissatisfied with that solution and want to know if there is another, better way. I'm still working on this issue, though, and I might find my own solution. – John Chadwick – 2011-10-22T07:40:14.527
1I'm pretty sure That question is a duplicate of this one, given the 2 year disparity. Besides that, there is really no answer to the question there, or at least not a direct one, whereas this question has a direct answer. – John Chadwick – 2014-02-04T02:49:24.637
Did you check my answer? It's new, and no one else has done it this way. Would like some testing on it. Guaranteed non hacky. – Milind R – 2014-02-08T22:06:03.800
It really won't work on a laptop, though. But again, I find it awfully strange to flag this question as a duplicate after it was sufficiently answered nearly 2 years before that question was even asked. I do not find running a UEFI implementation to be hackish; just outlandish, but it has the advantage of not requiring additional disk drives. – John Chadwick – 2014-02-09T10:47:18.970
There is a single disk implementation in the works, will update when it's tested... Also, it's a hack in the sense that you're lying to windows about the system : in hybrid MBR, lying about the partition type, in DUET, lying about the firmware. – Milind R – 2014-02-11T06:25:15.327
Also, I did not get a notification, please mention @MilindR so that it notifies... – Milind R – 2014-02-11T06:45:01.223
got the duplicate situation fixed :) – Milind R – 2014-02-11T07:35:53.673