Installing/Running Windows in EFI Mode

[compaqdrew]

Hi guys, I am trying to run Windows x64 (either 7 or 😎 in EFI mode.  I'm using VMWare Fusion 5.0.3.

I have added the line "firmware=efi" to the vmx file to enable EFI mode. 

I have mounted the Windows 7 or 8 ISO to the IDE CDRom drive (same behavior for either one).

However, I always get the boot message "EFI VMware Virtual IDE CDRom Drive (IDE 1:0) ... unsuccessful"

Whenever I get to the shell, the devices appear as block devices (e.g. blk0, blk1).

But when I try to see what is on them, I get "Not Found" errors.  They are mapped to blk0, blk1, etc., but nothing can be seen on the filesystem:

Shell> blk0:

blk0:\> ls

ls/dir: Cannot open current directory - Not Found

Exit status code: Not Found

On a hunch, I wondered if perhaps VMWare doesn't support booting to UDF filesystems in EFI, (which happens to be the case for VirtualBox).  So I got out a set of ISOs that I have converted to the ISO9660 filesystem that work in VirtualBox.  But there is no change in behavior for VMWare.

Obviously I can boot if I remove "firmware=efi".  But I am specifically trying to test in EFI mode.

[dariusd]

Hi compaqdrew, and welcome to the VMware Communities!

Although EFI firmware is officially supported on Fusion for only Mac OS guests, it should work for booting Windows guests as well.  I frequently install Windows guests in EFI mode on Fusion here, and it happily boots directly from images of the original installation media.

If you don't see any filesystems (i.e. no fsn: but some blkn:) in the shell startup messages, it means that your boot CD/DVD/image is corrupt or incorrectly prepared.  An EFI implementation is not required to support UDF or even ISO9660, and neither of those drivers are required in order to boot x64 Windows 7/8 from CD/DVD.  If you are remastering or re-imaging the disc, you'll need to ensure that you have included the El Torito EFI boot partition, or it'll fail to boot in the way you describe.  I recommend using a disc-imaging utility to create an .iso image of the whole disc of your original Windows media, and then using that as your installation source.

With correctly prepared media, you should be prompted to "Press any key to boot from CD or DVD" shortly after powering on the VM.  Press a key, and the installer should launch.

Cheers,

--

Darius