Booit Bare Metal or Bootit UEFI for new laptop?

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machare
Posts: 22
Joined: Wed Jan 06, 2016 11:56 am

Booit Bare Metal or Bootit UEFI for new laptop?

Post by machare »

I have used Bootit for a number of years. I have always liked being able to have several OS copies and being able to choose which one to boot.

In January 2016 I bought an HP UEFI laptop which had a GPT partition. You told me how to delete this and install Booiti Bare Metal. This has worked well.

I have just bought a similar new HP laptop model 14-cf1502sa and I am wondering whether to try and do the same again or whether to try and use Bootit UEFI. Which would be better? What are the pros and cons of the UEFI approach?

I did find that Bootit BM did not recognize the laptops mouse pad, but it did work with a USB mouse.

Mike Chare
CyberSimian
Posts: 137
Joined: Wed Aug 10, 2016 12:13 pm

Re: Booit Bare Metal or Bootit UEFI for new laptop?

Post by CyberSimian »

machare wrote:
> I have just bought a similar new HP laptop model 14-cf1502sa and I am
> wondering whether to try and do the same again

Before making any changes, you should go into the BIOS of your new laptop and check if it allows booting in "compatibility mode" (the exact words may be somewhat different). If compatibility mode is not supported, you don't have a choice.

I think that at some point manufacturers will stop producing motherboards that support booting in MBR mode (compatibility mode), although this may happen first with complete systems such as laptops, and happen only later with separately-sold motherboards for desktop systems.

Me? I will continue to use MBR mode for as long as possible.

-- from CyberSimian in the UK
machare
Posts: 22
Joined: Wed Jan 06, 2016 11:56 am

Re: Booit Bare Metal or Bootit UEFI for new laptop?

Post by machare »

Thank you for your reply. The Bios can be changed to "Legacy Mode", and only if I make this change does the laptop recognize a USB stick with Bootit BM.

I did wonder whether if I changed to MBR mode whether I could ever boot the copy of W10 that came on the laptop and boots in UEFI mode. (No great loss if this is not possible!)

Mike Chare (UK)
DrTeeth
Posts: 1289
Joined: Fri Aug 12, 2011 6:58 pm

Re: Booit Bare Metal or Bootit UEFI for new laptop?

Post by DrTeeth »

On Sat, 8 Feb 2020 01:50:13 PST, just as I was about to take a herb,
CyberSimian disturbed my reverie and wrote:

>Me? I will continue to use MBR mode for as long as possible.

+1
--
Cheers,

DrT

** Amateurs built the Ark, but professionals built the Titanic.**
CyberSimian
Posts: 137
Joined: Wed Aug 10, 2016 12:13 pm

Re: Booit Bare Metal or Bootit UEFI for new laptop?

Post by CyberSimian »

machare wrote:
> The Bios can be changed to "Legacy Mode", and only if I make
> this change does the laptop recognize a USB stick with Bootit BM.

Some USB memory sticks can boot in either UEFI mode or legacy mode. The Windows 10 installer is like this, because the Windows 10 installer contains the boot files for both modes (so the installer selects the correct files for the mode).

Other memory sticks can boot in only one mode, because they contain only the boot files for that mode. I would guess that this applies to the BIBM memory stick.

> I did wonder whether if I changed to MBR mode whether I could ever boot the
> copy of W10 that came on the laptop and boots in UEFI mode.

I do this with my Lenovo laptop. My Lenovo has two separate disks:

(1) 128GB M.2 NVMe SSD that has a GPT and boots in UEFI mode.
(2) 2TB 2.5 inch SATA SSD that has an MBR, contains the BIBM partition, and boots in legacy mode.

The BIOS is set to boot from the SATA SSD, and BIBM allows me to select which of several operating systems on the SATA SSD I want to boot, but I cannot boot the copy of Windows 10 that is installed on the GPT disk.

To boot Windows 10 on the GPT disk, I need to use the separate BIOS Boot Menu (note: this is NOT the panel in the BIOS that specifies the device boot order). The BIOS Boot Menu lists those devices that are bootable in the current mode. So if "legacy support" is enabled, it lists both GPT disks and MBR disks. If "UEFI only" is enabled, the BIOS Boot Menu lists only GPT disks.

If you wanted to do this with your HP laptop, your laptop would need to have two physical disks, and the HP BIOS would need to offer the equivalent of the Lenovo BIOS Boot Menu.

My Lenovo was supplied with Windows 10 booting in UEFI mode. The reason that I have retained it is because on the Lenovo, BIOS updates can be done only by using Windows 10 booting in UEFI mode. If I changed the disk to MBR, I would not be able to perform any more BIOS updates (although the system is now sufficiently old that there will probably not be any more BIOS updates). The system originally came with a 1TB HDD in addition to the 128MB NVMe SSD; I removed the HDD and replaced it with a 2TB SATA SSD in order to get the better performance of an SSD (since I was going to use it for the operating systems).

-- from CyberSimian in the UK
machare
Posts: 22
Joined: Wed Jan 06, 2016 11:56 am

Re: Booit Bare Metal or Bootit UEFI for new laptop?

Post by machare »

Well I installed Bootit UEFI on my laptop but when it starts up it always boots W10, I think this is something to do with a setting in the Bios. By going via F9, the boot menu it was possible to run Bootit from the hard disk.

Is there any kind of signing key for Bootit which would help with this problem? - Or anything else I should try?
CyberSimian
Posts: 137
Joined: Wed Aug 10, 2016 12:13 pm

Re: Booit Bare Metal or Bootit UEFI for new laptop?

Post by CyberSimian »

machare wrote:
> Well I installed Bootit UEFI on my laptop but when it starts up it always
> boots W10.
> Is there any kind of signing key for Bootit which would help with this
> problem? - Or anything else I should try?

I have not used BootIt UEFI, so I will have to leave it to someone else to answer your question.

-- from CyberSimian in the UK
AGH1965
Posts: 85
Joined: Sat Jul 09, 2016 1:36 pm
Location: Netherlands

Re: Booit Bare Metal or Bootit UEFI for new laptop?

Post by AGH1965 »

Machare, I think you need to change the boot order in BIOS. Likely Windows is still selected as first boot option.
machare
Posts: 22
Joined: Wed Jan 06, 2016 11:56 am

Re: Booit Bare Metal or Bootit UEFI for new laptop?

Post by machare »

AGH1965 wrote:
> Machare, I think you need to change the boot order in BIOS. Likely Windows
> is still selected as first boot option.

The Bios has UEFI and Legacy boot options as follows:

UEFI boot order
------------------
OS boot manager
USB Diskette on Key/USB hard drive
Internal CD/DVD ROM drive
USB CD/DVD ROM drive
Network adapter


Legacy boot order
---------------------
Notebook Hard Drive
Internal CD/DVD ROM drive
USB Diskette on Key/USB hard drive
USB CD/DVD ROM drive
Network adapter

The UEFI boot order shows OS boot manager at the top and there is no obvious way to make the OS 'Bootit UEFI' rather than 'Windows 10'!

I have a similar 4 year old HP laptop. I changed that from GPT to EMBR and run Bootit NG in legacy mode. There was no Bootit UEFI when I did that!
Brian K
Posts: 2214
Joined: Fri Aug 12, 2011 1:11 am
Location: NSW, Australia

Re: Booit Bare Metal or Bootit UEFI for new laptop?

Post by Brian K »

Mike,

Boot your BIU media and see if there is a Reactivate option. Otherwise install BIU again (over the top). BIU should boot first.
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