TeraByte Unlimited

Hello,

Is it necessary to have both BootIt UEFI and Image for Windows or can the Bootit software image without IFW? I'm trying to decide what extra capabilities are included with your bundled option. Also, what is the difference between Bootit BareMetal and Bootit UEFI. Will I need to have both installed or only one, as the collection seems to include both?

Thank you.

Image for Dos (IFD) is included with BootIt Bare Metal (BIBM) and Image for UEFI (IFU) is included with Bootit UEFI (BIU), so, for practical purposes, the BootIt software can image without IFW.

BIBM vs. BIU: You'd only install one. Which one depends on your system. BIU is for UEFI systems with GPT disks. BIBM is for legacy (BIOS) systems with MBR disks. Many UEFI systems can boot in legacy mode. You'd install BIBM if you have a UEFI system that can do that and you choose to do that, but you'd probably have to convert your GPT disk to MBR.

I never could get BIU to work correctly on my current UEFI system (probably faulty UEFI firmware), so I had to enable legacy booting and convert the HDD from GPT to MBR. I'm perfectly satisfied with the result (I choose to also use IFW), but neither installing and setting up BIU or converting a GPT disk to MBR is particularly straightforward.

Does the bundle include IFW?

When you say converting to a MBR disk is not straightforward, I assume you mean it is difficult. Why is installing BIU not straight forward? My laptop is UEFI, and when trying to boot to disks, I’ve had a lot of trouble trying to legacy boot.

JoRene41 wrote:
> Does the bundle include IFW?

It includes "everything".

You will use BIU with your laptop. The installation procedure is almost identical to installing BIBM but iI's probably an easier install as there is no manual installation option. The bootit files are installed into the EFI System Partition and not into a dedicated bootit partition as with BIBM.

If you understand how to use BIBM, learning to use BIU won't take long.

Thank you!


Brian K wrote:
> JoRene41 wrote:
> > Does the bundle include IFW?
>
> It includes "everything".
>
> You will use BIU with your laptop. The installation procedure is almost identical to
> installing BIBM but iI's probably an easier install as there is no manual
> installation option. The bootit files are installed into the EFI System Partition and
> not into a dedicated bootit partition as with BIBM.
>
> If you understand how to use BIBM, learning to use BIU won't take long.

JoRene41:

Not to be cantankerous here. Brian is far more expert in this stuff than I and I've greatly appreciated his assistance more than once, but he knows or will probably recall that as mentioned above, I never succeeded in getting BIU to work properly on my three year old, relatively inexpensive HP desktop and that he has or had one system that (mis)behaved like mine.

If, as seems likely, you have a newly purchased laptop, that may well increase the likelihood that you won't have any problems. If you don't, everything that Brian says is probably correct, but if you do, who knows? I'm not trying to discourage you here. I agree that installing BIU should be the simplest thing to do, but I think you should know that BIU doesn't always work as its supposed to. I certainly don't advise you to not try it, but I strongly encourage you to create a full disk backup/image before changing anything.

On Sun, 14 Jun 2020 15:18:39 PDT, just as I was about to take a herb,
Bob Coleman disturbed my reverie and wrote:

>Brian is far more expert in this stuff than I and I've greatly appreciated his assistance more than once

Me too. He certainly is the 'go to' chap for things UEFI. When is see
the issues that people have with UEFI, I am glad that I am staying
with MBR. I just move my hard drives from computer to computer as I
upgrade.
--
Cheers,

DrT

** Amateurs built the Ark, but professionals built the Titanic.**