# Some clarifications about FreeBSD in a UEFI/GPT system



## pablox (Oct 1, 2014)

Right now, my system has two systems (Windows 7 and GNU/Linux), I would like to try FreeBSD (so, yes, triple-booting). The problem is that right now, my system uses a UEFI and a GPT partition, so using  FreeBSD-10.0-RELEASE-amd64-memstick.img resulted in to being loaded at all. From what I read from the FreeBSD wiki, I understand that UEFI support was merged in HEAD so I tried the newest revision I could find FreeBSD-11.0-CURRENT-amd64-20140918-r271779-memstick.img. Afaik, that image should already have UEFI support, but at least on my system, nothing happened either. On both cases, when using the "compatiblity mode" (or something like CSM), resulted in being able to correctly load the boot menu and both were created as suggested by the handbook (with `dd`).

After reading/researching, I'm not quite sure if this is actually a bug; the image created using `dd` with that revision should have been able to boot; or I am missing something?

The second thing, I've read that there are some ways to try to trick UEFI, or using a bootloader like refind, if I do that, do I lose something important, relevant or there are any known drawbacks?


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## usdmatt (Oct 1, 2014)

Try using a proper UEFI image of FreeBSD, like this BETA3 copy of 10.1:

ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/ISO-I ... mstick.img


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## pablox (Oct 1, 2014)

usdmatt said:
			
		

> Try using a proper UEFI image of FreeBSD, like this BETA3 copy of 10.1:
> 
> ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/ISO-I ... mstick.img



Thanks for the link, then it means the other snapshot doesn't work, because it actually didn't have any uefi support?


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## usdmatt (Oct 1, 2014)

For UEFI to boot in "full" UEFI mode (i.e. without CSM), the disk needs to have a UEFI system partition. This is basically just a FAT formatted partition with the correct GPT partition ID. (It doesn't even need to be the first partition). This FAT partition contains the OS loader.

As far as I'm aware, only the FreeBSD images that contain "uefi" in the file name have this partition (along with any other changes that may be required). The rest will only boot in CSM mode or with a traditional BIOS. I'm not sure if there will eventually be a unified release that supports both (if that's possible).

They did provide CURRENT UEFI snapshots for a while but they seem to have disappeared. However 10.1 is coming out in a few weeks and they do seem to be providing UEFI images of all the BETA's.


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## Terry_Kennedy (Oct 2, 2014)

usdmatt said:
			
		

> I'm not sure if there will eventually be a unified release that supports both (if that's possible).


According to this post, yes.


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## pablox (Oct 7, 2014)

Terry_Kennedy said:
			
		

> usdmatt said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Thanks, it actually works and I could install it, but now I can't boot there . I opened a different post though.


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