Tag Archives: rEFInd

Switching Windows 7 and Ubuntu to UEFI

UEFI Logo

UEFI Logo

After upgrading my hard disk on my Laptop I planned to switch to a GPT (GUID Partition Table). But since I’ve a Windows 7 installation as well I had to switch to UEFI boot mode because Windows 7 does not support booting from GPT using the old BIOS/MBR bootmanager/bootloader (You can find a good Q&A about GPT support of Windows at MSDN). Luckily my old HP Elitebook 8530w already includes an UEFI enabled BIOS (without Secure Boot). It supports (like many others) the old boot mode as well as the new UEFI boot mode. By selecting the “UEFI” entry in the boot menu one can make sure that the UEFI boot mode is enabled. After reading some documentation (especially the once from Roderick W. Smith) I decided to use the rEFInd boot manager and the kernel provided EFI stub bootloader (part of the mainline kernel since 3.3.0). I’m using Ubuntu 12.10 which comes with Linux 3.5 and enabled EFI stub bootloader in the stock kernel… Read more »