Originally written: 3/14/2012; last Web page update: -1/3/2014, referencing rEFInd 0.7.7
+10/29/2016, referencing rEFInd 0.10.4 -I'm a technical writer and consultant specializing in Linux technologies. This Web page is provided free of charge and with no annoying outside ads; however, I did take time to prepare it, and Web hosting does cost money. If you find this Web page useful, please consider making a small donation to help keep this site up and running. Thanks!
+This Web page is provided free of charge and with no annoying outside ads; however, I did take time to prepare it, and Web hosting does cost money. If you find this Web page useful, please consider making a small donation to help keep this site up and running. Thanks!
Let's get the easy case out of the way: If you have a Macintosh with an Intel CPU, it's got EFI capabilities, and you'll be able to use rEFInd. Earlier Macs with PowerPC CPUs use OpenFirmware, and rEFInd can't be used with them.
+Let's get the easy case out of the way: If you have a Macintosh with an Intel CPU, it's got EFI capabilities, and you'll be able to use rEFInd. Earlier Macs with PowerPC CPUs use OpenFirmware, and rEFInd can't be used with them. If your computer shipped new with Windows 8 or later, it almost certainly supports EFI; Microsoft requires that computers that bear a Windows 8 logo support EFI, and boot in EFI mode.
For everything else, it can be harder to tell. Your best bet is to locate a PDF version of your computer's or motherboard's manual and search it for the string EFI. Checking your firmware's options via the firmware setup utility (typically access by pressing Del, F2, F10, or F12 at boot time) is also worth doing, but you'll need to check every option yourself. Most EFI-enabled PCs include at least one reference to an option you can set; however, manuals and firmware setup tools often don't make a big deal of this feature, particularly on boards with relatively primitive EFI support. For instance, the manual for a Gigabyte GA-78LMT-S2P motherboard includes the following paragraph, on p. 28:
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The most reliable way I know of to identify your boot mode is to examine your partitions. Microsoft has tied use of the GUID Partition Table (GPT) to EFI booting. If you've booted from a GPT disk, then you must be using EFI, and if you've booted from a Master Boot Record (MBR) disk, you must have booted in BIOS mode. Therefore, you can check your partition table type as a proxy for your boot mode. To do this in Windows 7, follow these steps:
+Note that there are other ways to launch the System Information tool, so feel free to use one of them if you prefer it. Unfortunately, although Windows 7 provides the System Information utility, that version of the tool does not provide the boot mode information, so if you're using Windows 7, you must use another method to determine your boot mode.
+ +If you can't use System Information to determine your boot mode, you can examine your partitions to identify your boot mode. Microsoft has tied use of the GUID Partition Table (GPT) to EFI booting. If you've booted from a GPT disk, then you must be using EFI, and if you've booted from a Master Boot Record (MBR) disk, you have almost certainly booted in BIOS mode. (I've heard of some exceptions to this rule, but they're exceedingly rare.) Therefore, you can check your partition table type as a proxy for your boot mode. To do this in Windows 7, follow these steps:
An important caveat with this method is that you must examine your boot disk. It's possible to use GPT on a data disk even on a BIOS-based computer, or to use an MBR data disk even on an EFI-based computer. Thus, if you examine the wrong disk, you can be led to an incorrect conclusion about your computer's boot mode.
+Another caveat relates to the use of a hybrid MBR, which is a variant on a GPT disk that's most often used on Macs to permit booting Windows in BIOS mode and OS X in EFI mode. Most Windows tools will identify a hybrid MBR disk as an MBR disk, but most non-Windows tools will identify it as a GPT disk. Of course, as hybrid MBRs are generally used to enable dual-booting Windows and OS X, and as OS X boots in EFI mode, you should be able to install rEFInd from OS X to help manage such a dual-boot configuration.
+copyright © 2012–2014 by Roderick W. Smith
+copyright © 2012–2016 by Roderick W. Smith
This document is licensed under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License (FDL), version 1.3.
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