sofakng Posted February 13, 2010 Share Posted February 13, 2010 I'm still trying to learn about BIOS/EFI and all the OS X86 stuff so please forgive me if this is a stupid question. My motherboard is an Asus P5B Deluxe which only supports BIOS. From what I've gathered, this means I can't format my boot drive as GPT and I must use MBR. If I format my drive as MBR, can I create an EFI partition? I like the idea of installing a "clean" copy of OS X86 to a different partition and using a separate, hidden, partition to store my custom kexts, etc. Thanks for any help! Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/210700-can-i-create-an-efi-partition-on-an-mbr-drive/ Share on other sites More sharing options...
Onixs Posted February 13, 2010 Share Posted February 13, 2010 No. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/210700-can-i-create-an-efi-partition-on-an-mbr-drive/#findComment-1409242 Share on other sites More sharing options...
techmech911 Posted February 13, 2010 Share Posted February 13, 2010 No Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/210700-can-i-create-an-efi-partition-on-an-mbr-drive/#findComment-1409681 Share on other sites More sharing options...
sofakng Posted February 13, 2010 Author Share Posted February 13, 2010 Thanks. That sounds pretty definitive. Can I create something similar to an EFI partition? (eg. a separate partition that stores extra kexts and my bootloader, etc) Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/210700-can-i-create-an-efi-partition-on-an-mbr-drive/#findComment-1409695 Share on other sites More sharing options...
srs5694 Posted February 14, 2010 Share Posted February 14, 2010 My motherboard is an Asus P5B Deluxe which only supports BIOS. From what I've gathered, this means I can't format my boot drive as GPT and I must use MBR. If I format my drive as MBR, can I create an EFI partition? I like the idea of installing a "clean" copy of OS X86 to a different partition and using a separate, hidden, partition to store my custom kexts, etc. First, your question is based on a false premise: It is possible to use GPT on a BIOS-based computer. I've got several computers booting this way. Windows can't boot from GPT on a BIOS-based computer, but that's because it's well behind the curve on this matter. Second, "EFI partition" is vague, which makes it difficult to answer precisely; however, there is an MBR partition type code (0xEF) for MBR-based EFI System partitions, which is probably what you meant. There's also a type code 0xEE, which is often referred to as "EFI GPT," but that's used to indicate that the disk is partitioned as a GPT disk rather than as an MBR disk. See this page for a pretty complete listing of MBR type codes. Finally, I think you misunderstand the purpose of an EFI System partition (if indeed that's what you mean by "EFI partition"). Its purpose is to store data used by the EFI firmware, not OS files. That said, some OSx86 users and boot loaders are starting to (ab)use the EFI System partition to store their own data, but that's not its intended purpose, and using it to store OS X files could conceivably lead to problems down the road. If you just want to isolate custom kexts from your main install, I'd just put them on a separate partition with a normal type (0xAF in MBR, or the standard Apple HFS/HFS+ GUID for GPT). Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/210700-can-i-create-an-efi-partition-on-an-mbr-drive/#findComment-1409792 Share on other sites More sharing options...
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