Booting to a USB toolkit on a Windows 8 UEFI system

[othersteve]

Hey guys,

Working on my first XPS 8500 Windows 8 machine today and I can't seem to find an easy way to boot directly to my USB toolkit since the standard BIOS has been replaced with the UEFI stuff. Any easy way to make this work without screwing something up in the configuration? It'd be ideal if I didn't have to boot to Windows first to do it.

I guess I need to read up some more on UEFI.

 

[Larry Sabo]

I understand you need to do a full shutdown, then start up to get the boot options and BIOS setup menu, from which you should be able to boot your USB-hosted OS.

Edit: Here's the Fred Langa article about it in Windows Secrets.

 

[brandonkick]

I helped a local repair shop work on a new toshiba that had this UEFI BIOS crap.
It also had a boot security T_T


We had to boot into windows first, go into account settings and somewhere in there is the ability to switch to legacy BIOS mode and turn the boot security off.

After we did that, we were able to boot into the bios (to set the machine to boot from the DVD drive) and then it booted our windows 7 disk so we could wipe the junk (windows 8) from it.

 

[othersteve]

Thanks guys,

For what it's worth, the solution in this case was easy enough.

By hammering F12 at POST (the usual Dell Boot Menu key), a menu appears which lists just a few options. One of the options is "Change Boot Mode", under which you can select "Legacy, Secure Boot OFF". The system them reboots and you can select a boot device normally from the F12 menu.

What was interesting (and relieving) to me was to discover that there are no negative implications of switching this feature off, doing what you need to do, and then switching it back on. So that's what I did.

Hope this helps someone else!

 

[johnrobert]

The first thing I always do is press F12 when I want to boot from DVD etc
its pretty standard glad it was so easy

I was perseverating when I first read about this UEFI stuff
if our job was'nt already hard enough

 

[othersteve]

The first thing I always do is press F12 when I want to boot from DVD etc
its pretty standard glad it was so easy

I was perseverating when I first read about this UEFI stuff
if our job was'nt already hard enough

Well, it was the first thing I tried also, but the catch here is that you actually have to change the boot mode entirely and then reboot for it to recognize external boot devices and boot to them. Not even changing the UEFI boot order in setup does the trick.

 

[smashedbotatos]

Well, it was the first thing I tried also, but the catch here is that you actually have to change the boot mode entirely and then reboot for it to recognize external boot devices and boot to them. Not even changing the UEFI boot order in setup does the trick.

Correct unless what you are booting is UEFI capable. I normally just turn off secure boot and turn it back on when I am done.