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BIBM and new Laptop (UEFI?)?

Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2012 4:22 am
by ohaya
Hi,

I just got a new laptop, a Toshiba C855-S5803, that has Windows 8 installed on it, and a UEFI BIOS, so I guess that I'm getting a rude introduction to the 'new' world of UEFI BIOSes :(...

The BIOS came with UEFI and Secure Boot enabled, with the Win8 pre-installed. I was originally thinking that I could do things like I use to with BING, i.e., repartition, etc., but I guess not now. I tried setting the BIOS to "CSM" which diables UEFI, and was actually able to boot to a BING CD, but BING saw only 1 ~2TB partition with an error (the laptop actually has only a 500GB drive).

So, I think that I may need to think about moving to BIBM for this laptop, plus I am building a new PC, with a new mobo, an Asus P9X79 LE, which I think also has a UEFI BIOS, but have some questions:

1) Assuming that both the laptop and the new P9X79 mobo allow disabling secure boot and UEFI, then, would both the laptop and new PC work the same way as before, and I could just use BING with both of them, just like before? Or, do I have to move to BIBM to work with the laptop and the P9X79?

2) From what I can tell, most, maybe all of the BIOSes that support UEFI allow you to disable secure boot and UEFI, so I was wondering, is there something that would force me to use those in UEFI/secure boot mode, rather than non-UEFI mode?

3) Assuming that I *did* want to keep the laptop/PC BIOSes in UEFI mode, if I used BIBM instead of BING, could I do everything that I use to do with BING but with BIBM? I think that one thing that going to UEFI would give me is support for 3TB drives, but I don't have (or need) any 3TB drives (my largest drives are 2TB, which work fine with BING).

Sorry for all the questions!!

Thanks,
Jim

Re: BIBM and new Laptop (UEFI?)?

Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2012 4:31 am
by ohaya
Hi,

BTW, I don't really want to have WIn8 on this machine. I want to be able to just run Win 7 64 bit, plus XP, and Win2K3 on this machine, multi-booting. The only reason that I got the new laptop was because I can get 16GB memory on it, whereas I couldn't on any of the older laptops. Similarly, the reason that I'm building the new P9X79 PC is to be able to get 64GB on one machine (I run lots of VMware guests... currently running out of RAM on my current machine that has 32GB RAM).... I don't really care about Win8, GPT partitions, or UEFI, and like I said, I don't have any >2TB drives (or anticipate getting any).

So, if that's the case, and if I just turn off UEFI/secure boot, can I just use BING like before, and install/multi-boot Win 7, etc. like I did on my previous machines?

Thanks,
Jim

Re: BIBM and new Laptop (UEFI?)?

Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2012 5:29 am
by Brian K
Jim,

I built a computer recently and had similar concerns. Just turn off Secure Boot in the UEFI BIOS and create a MBR drive. All is well.

In your case I suspect you will have to delete Win7 and start again if you want to use BootIt.

Re: BIBM and new Laptop (UEFI?)?

Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2012 5:39 am
by ohaya
Brian,

Is it just secure boot that I'd need to disable, or do I need to disable BOTH secure boot and UEFI in the BIOS?

FYI, I've got a new 750GB drive coming in for the laptop, and I'm planning to remove the original factory 500GB that has Win8 on it, and replace that with the new 750GB drive, and start with that clean, installing Win7, etc. (no Win8 for me :)!!).

If I turn off both secure boot and UEFI in BIOS after I replace the drive, should I then be able to just use BING the way that I use it on my older non-UEFI machines? Or do I need BIBM?

Thanks,
Jim

Re: BIBM and new Laptop (UEFI?)?

Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2012 6:16 am
by ohaya
Hi,

BTW, a somewhat off-topic question: Assuming that I did disable UEFI and secure boot on the laptop, and then installed, say, Win7, on a clean MBR drive, would it somehow be possible to clone the factory installed Win8 partition to the new drive and have Win8 work dual-boot? I guess that what I'm asking is that since the factory installed Win8 was installed with the BIOS set for UEFI and secure boot, would that Win8 partition work if I could somehow clone it to a partion on an MBR partition? Or, is there something about the WIn8 that's installed already that's bound to UEFI?

Jim

Re: BIBM and new Laptop (UEFI?)?

Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2012 6:28 am
by Brian K
Jim,

I can't answer your second question about cloning.

I just looked in my BIOS (Asus motherboard) and Secure Boot is Enabled and can't be changed. I have a setting called OS Type with two options...

Other OS
Windows UEFI mode

I use Other OS.

Re: BIBM and new Laptop (UEFI?)?

Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2012 7:11 am
by ohaya
Hi Brian,

Ok, thanks. The Toshiba laptop has the two settings, which can be changed independently. I don't have the P9X79 yet, but will post back after I get it. Which Asus MB do you have?

Jim

Re: BIBM and new Laptop (UEFI?)?

Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2012 7:32 am
by Brian K
Asus Sabretooth Z77.

Off topic but I meant to post this before. I have 2 Intel SATA III ports, 4 Intel SATA II ports and 2 Asmedia SATA III ports. I initially had my SSD and first HD on the Intel SATA III ports and the second HD on the Asmedia SATA III port. The SSD was HD0 in BIBM but the two HDs kept swapping from HD1 to HD2 and vice versa in BIBM, which affected the partitions seen in Windows. I now have my second HD on an Intel SATA II port and everything is stable.

Apparently the Asmedia ports are regarded as an Add In card and aren't seen in the BIOS. Others have reported issues with these ports and some just use them for the optical drives.

Re: BIBM and new Laptop (UEFI?)?

Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2012 7:59 am
by ohaya
Hi,

Oops. Just trashed Win8, trying to shrink the C: partition :(... Earlier, I had tried using Windows Disk management, and it did shrink C: successfully, but it took it from ~500GB down to ~250GB, and I'd been trying to figure out how to get it down to a more reasonable size (~70-100GB), and in the process, it looks like I messed things up. So, I now get to test Toshiba's recovery. Thank goodness I made a set of recovery DVDs earlier :)...

Jim

Re: BIBM and new Laptop (UEFI?)?

Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2012 10:55 am
by DrTeeth
On Sun, 16 Dec 2012 22:28:01 PST, just as I was about to take a herb,
Brian K disturbed my reverie and wrote:

>I just looked in my BIOS (Asus motherboard) and Secure Boot is Enabled and can't be changed

I thought that it is meant to be able to be changed? That means you
cannot run Linux, right? I just want to clarify this as when I look to
upgrade in a years or so (sooner if I come into some unexpected cash)
I want to be able to turn off secure boot for maximum flexibility.
--

Cheers

DrT
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