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UEFI boot on Asrock Z87M Extreme4

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MulliganClose View Drop Down
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    Posted: 08 Jul 2015 at 1:56am
Hello,

I'm having some trouble UEFI booting with my mobo. In boot menu and in UEFI boot option priorities, only usb-sticks list UEFI as a boot option. UEFI booting from usb-stick works very well. But from SSD-disk not so much. It only lists AHCI as option (should it list/say UEFI?) and booting that wont work.

If I disable CSM it only boots/lists UEFI usb-sticks, not the hard drives.

Hard drive mode is set to AHCI. Aggressive link power management, dynamic storage accelerator and S.M.A.R.T. is disabled. Hot Plug disabled, SATA Device type is set to Solid State Drive.

I have read many documents of how to partition for UEFI boot and what filesystem to use. And tried different things.

I have exactly same (gpt, tried dos/mbr also) partitioning on stick and 2,5" ssd. Partitions have same filesystems (fat16, tried fat32 also) with exactly same contents.

It works from stick but not from SSD.

As a last resort i tried just dd'ing stick contents to ssd, to no avail.

My UEFI version is P2.10 and SSD is Kingston SH103S3120G

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odiebugs View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote odiebugs Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 08 Jul 2015 at 10:53pm
UEFI is the new BIOS. USB sticks and HDD or SSD are not a BIOS / UEFI. 

To make use of the UEFI and not legacy BIOS the only thing needed is a USB flash drive formatted in Fat 32 and made bootable  with the OS written the the flash drive.

You must boot from the flash drive by selecting the boot option ( F11 )  when you boot up the motherboard.  Now you see a list, you must select the flash drive you have the OS on and it must be the choice that say's UEFI.  Such as, for an example - UEFI Adata flash.

If you do not pick UEFI  ( your flash drive ) then you will be installing the OS with Windows using  MBR.

When you install in UEFI mode, windows will make GPT. 

If you can, I would use Rufus and make a bootable USB flash drive with windows on it.

You do not need to partition anything, Windows will partition the drive for either MBR or GPT depending on how you boot from the flash drive. 

If you boot from a DVD, you will get windows installed in MBR. 

I would leave CMS diabled, set Sata 0 port to AHCI,  Take your bootable flash drive and place in a USB 2.0 port,  then when booting PC hit the  (F11 )  for boot device and pick the UEFI ( flash drive ).

Ignore what you see in the UEFI menu  for USB as a UEFI. 

Don't forget, secure erase the SSD if you can,  and when you get to the windows installer and see the SSD, do not format the drive, just set the size or make any extra partions if you want and then install windows to the main partition, NOT THE THREE SMALL PARTITIONS MADE BY WINDOWS FOR GPT. 

 
asrocking
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote odiebugs Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 08 Jul 2015 at 11:07pm
Here is a pic of what it will look like when you set the size and windows makes the GPT.



Ignore the bottom line Unallocated  space, that is a extra partition that they made.

You want to install to the Drive 0 Partition 4 PRIMARY  . 
asrocking
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote odiebugs Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 08 Jul 2015 at 11:31pm
P.S. 

Now I think I get the first sentence you posted.  

Yes, you must pick the (  usb-sticks list UEFI as a boot option  )   You don't want to boot from a DVD drive and you can't boot from the SSD drive if there is no operating system written to it.

So you boot from the choice UEFI  flash drive, then you will see windows load and  pick install now and then pick custom install. 
asrocking
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MulliganClose View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote MulliganClose Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09 Jul 2015 at 12:00am
Hey, thanks for your reply.

I worked around the issue by having os kernel with efi-stub permanately sit on usb-stick. Since it's only one 4MB file which is loaded to memory on boot, and not accessed after, it makes little difference compared to having it on hdd.

I think it's good use for old 256MB thumbdrive Clap

I don't have Windows so can't check if something extra is required to making SSD bootable compared to stick. Maybe Asrock UEFI is searching for something Windows specific from harddisk to enable EFI boot, but has more standard requirements for USB?
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote parsec Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09 Jul 2015 at 1:12am
The description that odiebugs gave you about creating a UEFI/EFI booting OS installation is exactly right, at least for Windows. For Linux, I can't say since I've never installed it in that way, but why should it be different?

Given the AMI UEFI firmware that ASRock uses, in the Windows "ecosystem" with CSM disabled, you'll see the following entries in the boot order list:

Only USB flash drives will be seen with the prefix "UEFI".

EFI bootable Windows installations will appear as "Windows Boot Manager". Multiple EFI bootable Windows installations will also appear as "Windows Boot Manager", with nothing else in the entries to tell them apart.

Storage drives, even when formatted as GPT, will not appear in the boot order list. This is different than MBR formatted drives when CSM is enabled (or with legacy BIOS firmware), that do appear in the boot order list.

While that might appear as a limitation of an EFI booting/CSM disabled configuration, the MBR formatted storage drives shown in the boot order list do not contain a bootable OS installation. What is the purpose of that?

The morale of the story is, when using UEFI firmware in non-CSM enabled mode, which is actually using the UEFI firmware with all its capabilities enabled, only EFI booting OS installations will be listed in the boot order list. That does not mean a drive is not able to become bootable, but just that it is not yet configured as EFI bootable.

As odiebugs explained, a fully configured EFI booting drive with all the partitions required (done automatically by the Windows installation media) are the only drives that will appear in the boot order list. That is a difference compared to legacy BIOS/CSM enabled UEFI configurations that is simply how it works. It seems that Linux is also affected by UEFI firmware fully enabled in the same way. That makes sense to me.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote MulliganClose Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09 Jul 2015 at 1:31am
Originally posted by parsec parsec wrote:


As odiebugs explained, a fully configured EFI booting drive with all the partitions required (done automatically by the Windows installation media) are the only drives that will appear in the boot order list.

It would be interesting to know what that required configuration is.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote odiebugs Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09 Jul 2015 at 2:01am

Quote
It would be interesting to know what that required configuration is.
I apologize,  I didn't get that you were installing Linux. 

Edited by Xaltar - 09 Jul 2015 at 2:03am
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Xaltar Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09 Jul 2015 at 2:04am
I may look into that when I set up my next system. It seems like something I would have fun tinkering with, installing Linux via UEFI.

Edited by Xaltar - 09 Jul 2015 at 2:05am
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote odiebugs Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09 Jul 2015 at 2:12am
Originally posted by Xaltar Xaltar wrote:

I may look into that when I set up my next system. It seems like something I would have fun tinkering with, installing Linux via UEFI.
Can you tell us what you will be installing, like-  Mint, Ubun,  Manjaro, Fedora, Open,  Debian,   ???

Have you put any on a Z9 and had no problems with drivers ? TY
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