osx86 [OSx86] UEFI Dual-Boot Setup on Single Drive. Need some help on where to start.

[Gary2MBz]

Hi everyone! I'm finally able to jump ship and do a dual boot hackintosh more or less successfully thanks to my new rig compared to my previous Athlon 64 rig. I have finally ordered a Samsung 840 EVO 250GB SSD seeing as my current 120GB Crucial m4 isn't gonna be enough to split and have room to install apps on Windows 8.1 and Mavericks without being down to ~15GB free on both ends. This is where I wanna give both a break even ~116GB from actual 232GB available.

 

My specs are below; I'm trying to shoot for a vanilla OS X install alongside Windows 8.1 without any major conflicts. Sleep isn't an issue to me as this machine is only restarted after updates or if its been up for 3 weeks at minimum. I don't want any weird clock issues which was the case on my laptop but that was in the past using MBR. From what I see, using the Clover bootloader in EFI works on both worlds pretty damn good! I do not want to flash any customized BIOS' because I'm not comfortable with bricking a $250 board anytime soon and don't mind using a DSDT-free patch. I've restored my overclock to stock and am using XMP Profile #1 which boosts my RAM to DDR3-2133 and I've yet to have stability issues. I have a RAID1 array active formatted in GPT on the 3Gbps SATA ports. I'm on BIOS ver. 1805 for my board but am gonna flash soon to 2104.

 

NOTE: I do have a 3rd party USB 3.0 PCI-e card added on using an NEC/Renesas controller. More specifically here is the devices IDs:

PCI\VEN_1033&DEV_0194&SUBSYS_01941033 - Renesas Electronics USB 3.0 Host Controller
NUSB3\ROOT_HUB30 - Renesas Electronics USB 3.0 Root Hub
 

 

TL;DR, Where do I begin with formatting the drive:

 

• Do I use Clover first to boot the OS X installer and prepare using Disk Utility, followed by reboot and Windows 8.1 install?
• Do I install Windows 8.1 in EFI first to a partition sized at whatever I want to give it, set up this end, then fire up Clover + OS X install?
• Which method is usually more preferred/successful in terms of partition layout, Windows or Disk Utility? (I know they create recovery partitions which is why I ask.)

 

In any case, I'm still satisfied by my Crucial m4 in terms of performance for such a veteran SSD. Should I use two drives and cut myself a bit of a break with the partitioning crap? I'll use the m4 for Windows 8.1 and the 840 EVO for OS X as I know a LOT of OS X apps are pretty heavy in size compared to Windows apps (namely iWork, iLife, Final Cut Pro, and Adobe's software). I'll also do vice-versa on the drives if majority rules in favor of dual-drive setup.

 

All the guides I found while searching had to do with dual-drive setups vs single-drive partitioned. Some of you Mac guys will also help me get TRIM activated as well since Apple is so nice!

 

I'll hopefully report back with another success story on the Sabertooth Z77! Thanks everyone! :)