windows 8, uefi, gpt, annoyances. How are you doing this?

16k_zx81

16k_zx81

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Apologies in advance for the fact that I just dont have my head around this stuff. Need some assistance from those with better understanding as I am at a bit of a loss right now :)

I just spent a lot of time on another windows 8 machine. This one had no optical drive, so had to legacy boot a usb win 8 installer.

just wondering what others are doing in regard to windows 8 installs.

1. anyone using universal images? Whats your setup for this? - we have images for everything 7 and before, but I wanted to see how others are tackling this on 8. Are your images GPT or MBR?

2. Whats the story with switching a machine to Legacy boot? Will this cause hassles with an OS thats already set to UEFI? Can they be swapped back and forth or not?

Thanks to anyone who can shed some light.

Jim
 
16k_zx81 said:
2. Whats the story with switching a machine to Legacy boot? Will this cause hassles with an OS thats already set to UEFI? Can they be swapped back and forth or not?
Click to expand...

Don't have any images of an 8 install, but as for #2, it doesn't work sadly. Switching to Legacy will make windows unable to boot. At least with the laptops that I've used which were bought new with Win 8. I'm not sure if it will work if you have a UEFI capable motherboard in a machine that came with Win 7 installed under Legacy. I would suspect not though.
 
Krynn72 said:
Don't have any images of an 8 install, but as for #2, it doesn't work sadly. Switching to Legacy will make windows unable to boot. At least with the laptops that I've used which were bought new with Win 8. I'm not sure if it will work if you have a UEFI capable motherboard in a machine that came with Win 7 installed under Legacy. I would suspect not though.
Click to expand...

I have managed to get one to work.

Also have had a lot of hassle making bootable USB keys. Several not working.

Pretty fed up actually. Dont know why they changed a perfectly good system. Im sure advantages were perceived, but at the point you make it hard to boot from external devices you stuff up a system thats been around for over 20 years, and people rely on that functionality to get things done. This is something that messes about with end users on a large scale also :mad:
 
Bump. 115 views and no one else has any ideas? Looks like Im not alone.

Any thoughts would be appreciated though, please, Community.
 
16k_zx81 said:
Also have had a lot of hassle making bootable USB keys. Several not working.
Click to expand...
Are you referring to getting it to activate on installing.
I found the media has to be a retail ISO and not a upgrade ISO. Even though it is supposed to work.
I use Rufus to make the bootable usb stick and it activates fine.

I do agree it's more complicated now. :rolleyes:
 
16k_zx81; said:
Im surprised at how quite this thread is, actually. :/
Click to expand...

We are all just in denial about how much of a pita this stuff is gonna be once the volume of W8 computers coming into the shop starts picking up over the next year or so. ;)

Personally I have never taken the time to deal with images after XP. 7+ loads quick, almost never have to hunt for drivers, offline updater runs unattended, and ninite does the rest. When I am working on 6-15 computers at a time, waiting for a reload to finish has not been a problem.

I remember a year ago when there was concern about the "Refresh PC" thing stealing business from us, I have had plenty of customer use it and still bring it in after the fact with issues.

Ultimately as techs we adapt to these changes faster than our customers which then need us even more than they do with older tech.
 
2. Whats the story with switching a machine to Legacy boot? Will this cause hassles with an OS thats already set to UEFI? Can they be swapped back and forth or not?
Click to expand...

What exactly are you asking here? The only reason to switch to legacy boot is turn off Secure Boot and Fastboot. Both of which can interfere with booting from a diagnostic disk that doesn't have a signed boot loader. If you want to do a fresh install of Windows 8 then it is better to have the system in it's full UEFI mode if the system supports that.

If you are working with a damaged/infected Win 8 system then you may have to turn the system to legacy run your diagnostic tools and then undo your changes in BIOS so that the repaired/cleaned Windows 8 system can boot.

OR find diagnostic tools that have properly signed Microsoft boot loaders. Other then DaRT I know of none that do this properly.
 
I've viewed this thread 2 or 3 times already to keep up with responses.

Truth is, so many views and little replies means that we're all in the same boat.
 
I have fortunately not encountered this nightmare yet, but the day will come sooner rather than later
So I am eagerly watching this post.
I thought I basically understood it but apparently not
 
Ok so just to thresh out what Im seeing, and hopefully others will correct any errors below.

1. UEFI has 'secure boot'* - which on machines shipped with Windows 8 has 'keys' embedded in it that prevent any 'non-signed' device from being bootable on the system. The device, in order to boot, needs to have a secure signature. Apparently there's no such thing as a boot disk thats not made by MS that fits this 'signature' criterion?.

Note that 'secure boot' is NOT a microsoft invention, but MS-keyed systems are probably the most widely implemented.

*A really short, sharp, informative summary of 'secure boot' HERE for anyone interested

2. So, if you want to boot from a 'non signed' device, you have to go to the BIOS and switch off secure boot.

The process and language for doing this varies between manufacturers.

Acer:
AUTHENTICATION - SECURE BOOT - DISABLED
BOOT OPTIONS - LAUNCH CSM - ALWAYS

Source: www.eightforums.com/tutorials/17058-secure-boot-enable-disable-uefi.html

-

Asrock:
SECURITY - SECURE BOOT - DISABLE
- note - to re-Enable - select "Install default Secure Boot keys" - YES

Source: www.eightforums.com/tutorials/17058-secure-boot-enable-disable-uefi.html

-

Asus:
UEFI SETTINGS - BOOT - SECURE BOOT - OS TYPE - OTHER OS

-

HP
- NOTEBOOKS
SYSTEM CONFIGURATION - BOOT OPTIONS - SECURE BOOT - DISABLED

- DESKTOPS
SECURITY - SECURE BOOT CONFIGURATION - SECURE BOOT - DISABLE
LEGACY SUPPORT - ENABLE

source: http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?cc=uk&lc=en&dlc=en&docname=c03653226

-

MSI

ADVANCED - WINDOWS 8 CONFIGURATION - SECURE BOOT - STANDARD

source: http://65.244.195.67/support/formviewer.asp?esoformid=3058

-

Toshiba

SECURITY - SECURE BOOT - DISABLED
ADVANCED - SYSTEM CONFIGURATION - BOOT MODE - CFM BOOT

source: https://aps2.toshiba-tro.de/kb0/TSB2B03F30002R01.htm

-

Sony

SECURITY - SECURE BOOT - DISABLED

Source: docs.esupport.sony.com/pc/SVT1112_1312_1411_series/EN/contents/07/02/08/08.html?search=secure

-

Not an exhaustive list, but indicates how much time wastage can occur for anyone not familiar with the particular nuances of the system being worked on. ("CSM mode" setting, for example, has tripped me up in the past with Legacy enabled and still not able to boot to anything). Hopefully something there will save someone else some time.

-

By default, Windows 7 installers do not support secure boot. FWIU Secure boot prevents Windows 7 from being installed using a standard DVD. That means that if it is enabled on a dual boot machine, it can prevent windows 7 from booting. Conversely, if disabled on a machine that came pre-installed with Windows 8, Windows 8 will not boot.

A solution to the Windows 7 install issue is to make a UEFI bootable Windows 7 Flash drive (So that its not necessary to disable Secure boot to install Windows 7) INSTRUCTIONS

A caveat for us techs working on a W8 machine with a boot disk is that we have to go back and re-enable secure boot to get back into the machine's OS :rolleyes:


-

Secure boot can break the OS when new hardware is installed

"Windows may no longer boot after the changes are made. You may encounter behaviors such as hanging at a black screen, Windows crashing with a blue screen, or BIOS error messages to change your settings"

source: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2800988

-
 
16k_zx81 said:
Ok so just to thresh out what Im seeing, and hopefully others will correct any errors below.

1. UEFI has 'secure boot'* - which on machines shipped with Windows 8 has 'keys' embedded in it that prevent any 'non-signed' device from being bootable on the system. The device, in order to boot, needs to have a secure signature. Apparently there's no such thing as a boot disk thats not made by MS that fits this 'signature' criterion?.

-
Click to expand...

The News page on the Parted Magic website reports:

"Parted Magic 2013_09_26
This version of Parted Magic includes a new GUI for Secure Erase, a GUI for DDRescue, it now boots normally on Windows 8 machines with Secure Boot enabled, a completely new layout for the panel menu, and many updated programs.
...
That's right, you no longer need to disable Secure Boot on Windows 8 machines to use Parted Magic. :)"

So there is a boot image not created by Microsoft which is reported to work.
I've not upgraded to the latest Parted Magic yet, so can't confirm it works, but it looks promising.
 
16k_zx81 said:
Ok so just to thresh out what Im seeing, and hopefully others will correct any errors below.

1. UEFI has 'secure boot'* - which on machines shipped with Windows 8 has 'keys' embedded in it that prevent any 'non-signed' device from being bootable on the system. The device, in order to boot, needs to have a secure signature. Apparently there's no such thing as a boot disk thats not made by MS that fits this 'signature' criterion?.

Note that 'secure boot' is NOT a microsoft invention, but MS-keyed systems are probably the most widely implemented.

*A really short, sharp, informative summary of 'secure boot' HERE for anyone interested

2. So, if you want to boot from a 'non signed' device, you have to go to the BIOS and switch off secure boot.

The process and language for doing this varies between manufacturers.

Acer:
AUTHENTICATION - SECURE BOOT - DISABLED
BOOT OPTIONS - LAUNCH CSM - ALWAYS

Source: www.eightforums.com/tutorials/17058-secure-boot-enable-disable-uefi.html

-

Asrock:
SECURITY - SECURE BOOT - DISABLE
- note - to re-Enable - select "Install default Secure Boot keys" - YES

Source: www.eightforums.com/tutorials/17058-secure-boot-enable-disable-uefi.html

-

Asus:
UEFI SETTINGS - BOOT - SECURE BOOT - OS TYPE - OTHER OS

-

HP
- NOTEBOOKS
SYSTEM CONFIGURATION - BOOT OPTIONS - SECURE BOOT - DISABLED

- DESKTOPS
SECURITY - SECURE BOOT CONFIGURATION - SECURE BOOT - DISABLE
LEGACY SUPPORT - ENABLE

source: http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?cc=uk&lc=en&dlc=en&docname=c03653226

-

MSI

ADVANCED - WINDOWS 8 CONFIGURATION - SECURE BOOT - STANDARD

source: http://65.244.195.67/support/formviewer.asp?esoformid=3058

-

Toshiba

SECURITY - SECURE BOOT - DISABLED
ADVANCED - SYSTEM CONFIGURATION - BOOT MODE - CFM BOOT

source: https://aps2.toshiba-tro.de/kb0/TSB2B03F30002R01.htm

-

Sony

SECURITY - SECURE BOOT - DISABLED

Source: docs.esupport.sony.com/pc/SVT1112_1312_1411_series/EN/contents/07/02/08/08.html?search=secure

-

Not an exhaustive list, but indicates how much time wastage can occur for anyone not familiar with the particular nuances of the system being worked on. ("CSM mode" setting, for example, has tripped me up in the past with Legacy enabled and still not able to boot to anything). Hopefully something there will save someone else some time.

-

By default, Windows 7 installers do not support secure boot. FWIU Secure boot prevents Windows 7 from being installed using a standard DVD. That means that if it is enabled on a dual boot machine, it can prevent windows 7 from booting. Conversely, if disabled on a machine that came pre-installed with Windows 8, Windows 8 will not boot.

A solution to the Windows 7 install issue is to make a UEFI bootable Windows 7 Flash drive (So that its not necessary to disable Secure boot to install Windows 7) INSTRUCTIONS

A caveat for us techs working on a W8 machine with a boot disk is that we have to go back and re-enable secure boot to get back into the machine's OS :rolleyes:


-

Secure boot can break the OS when new hardware is installed

"Windows may no longer boot after the changes are made. You may encounter behaviors such as hanging at a black screen, Windows crashing with a blue screen, or BIOS error messages to change your settings"

source: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2800988

-
Click to expand...

That is the gist of it.

There's also the issue of GPT formatting which some tools might not be familiar with. But 95% of the stuff out there if it is Windows based or Linux based should be able to handle it.
 
I did indeed come across this issue and knew about the secure boot issue. I disabled it, worked on the os using a bootable erd disc and re-enabled secure boot. Simple?

Not in my case, I got the new version of a BSOD upon every boot afterwards.

Windows 8 doesn't like new files to be written or changed while not in the operating system. I had to run a chkdsk and got it back up and running, only with Windows 8's advanced startup options.

It seems to just throw a fit if anything 'new' is there upon booting a second time. I found out the hard way, a little tip for other techs is to turn off the fast boot option in the power options within control panel.

Once this is unchecked you can then proceed to shut down and the hybrid boot no longer messes with the hard drive and avoids any corruption.

You can then of course boot in to any cd of your choice after disabling secure boot in the BIOS, restart, then enter the BIOS again to re-enable secure boot.

Once then in the OS everything should be fine and any changes you made still intact. You can then proceed to re-enable fast boot within the OS.

Very long winded, makes things harder on us techs, I was tearing my hair out (not that I have much left anyway). I hope it saves people a lot of time.

I am considering making an informative thread with this information to perhaps become a sticky.
 
Keep in mind that turning off Secure Boot Does NOT prohibit using the BIOS in UEFI mode or GPT formating or even using fastboot in most bios. Most of the time you can turn it off and Windows 8 will still boot up. A few only have a UEFI or Legacy mode. Those suck.
 
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