Why Is BIOS Insecure On New Windows 8 Laptop
Dec 20, 2012
I just received my new Dell Inspiron 15R-5520 64 bit laptop running Windows 8. It came with a new BIOS that supports both UEFI and Legacy. Compared to the BIOS on my old Dell Inspiron laptop it seems very insecure. I'm referring to access to the boot order. In my old BIOS I could set a password which was necessary for changing the boot order and either enabling or disabling devices within the boot list. Thus one could select the HDD and disable all other devices such as CD/DVD and Flashdrives. The new BIOS includes passwords as well, but they don't restrict access to the boot order and there doesn't seem to be any way to disable devices from the boot list. In the case that my laptop is stolen it's nice to prevent the thief from quickly booting off a CD or flashdrive and accessing all my files, etc. why the new BIOS removed this seemingly important security feature?
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Sep 11, 2013
I have a new Windows 8 laptop and have acquired Windows 8.1 RTM. The install, unlike the Windows 8 install, prompts me for a key. When I installed Windows 8, the installer simply picked up the key stored in the BIOS, as there was no prompt.
Now, however, in 8.1, there is a prompt, and of course I have no way of obtaining the actual key in the BIOS. Is there a way to either force it to pick the key somehow, or is the true way to read the encrypted key in the BIOS so as to enter that at the prompt?
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Mar 9, 2013
In the advanced option I got no BIOS options there. How do I find it or I missed something?
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Nov 13, 2013
Have a toshiba laptop with the UEFI encrypted windows 8 key. The hard drive was broken as it was dropped. No sticker on the bottom as is now microsoft policy. Download of the windows install needs the windows key. Cant get it as it's encrypted. Found generic windows 8.1 keys which worked but it said it was the wrong key for those installs. Generic windows 8 keys don't work for the download. Going around in circles and not sure what to do.
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Oct 19, 2013
I have an Acer Aspire laptop which has recently stopped booting up. It doesn't display anything when powered on. I know it is not a problem with windows because it doesn't even display the Bios boot screen. Why is this? The fans start but I cant hear the hard drive.
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Jan 24, 2014
My wife has a new Asus X750j Laptop.
I've spent the last day and a half setting it up.Now I want to make a system image of the C: drive using Paragon.
I do this from a bootable DVD, but it isn't set to boot to the DVD first in the boot order.
I've tried tapping the F11, F8, Del, Esc and F2 keys and it just boots into Windows 8.
My computer which has an ASUS motherboard, shows a message when I boot, saying select "Delete" to boot into the UEFI Bios.
But I can't seem to get either a boot menu of the bios option on the laptop.
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Aug 22, 2014
I have just bought a Toshiba Satellite laptop. Before installing everything I wanted to partition the hard drive, for various reasons. To do so, I installed EASUS Pro. (Have used that many, many times on my W7 PC without a problem.) Anyway, it went away to resize the boot partition and now I can't do a !@#%$ing thing. The laptop boots to a 0xc0000225 error screen, and that's it. I entered the UEFI Firmware Settings, and managed to firstly change the fn keys to standard (YAY!) but I CANNOT use the F10 key to save the boot priority to CD/DVD or anything else, so I have nowhere to go from there.
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Nov 16, 2013
I have a samsung laptop. I turn it on and I can see the bios screen. After that, the screen just goes black and stays that way and doesn't boot. I am able to get into BIOS and I can see all bootable options. I am not able to get into recovery settings or the advanced boot menu.
I burned my Windows 8 iso to my flash drive and plugged it into the computer. I tried automatic repair with it and that didn't fix it. I tried doing a system restore, but it failed saying "System Restore failed while copying the registry from the restore point. The registry in the restore point was damaged and could not be restored." The computer was working during that restore point that. I will try another one though.
It appears that something is corrupt within Windows, but I'm not sure exactly what. I can issue the command in command line, since I can boot to my flash drive, but I'm not sure what files I need to fix or if I'm correct.
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Jul 31, 2013
I have lenovo g580 cori7 and installing windows8 64bit. I tried to update the bios but i got this just like the screen shot.
Now my labtop working on legacy mode and I am not comfort with this mode.
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Dec 12, 2013
I just built a desktop with a sabertooth x79 motherboard, and am running Windows 8.1 pro 64-bit. When I click the UEFI BIOS Firmware live tile via the change PC settings>update and recovery>recovery>etc. my computer reboots normally to Windows and will not open BIOS. I have tried accessing it using the delete and f2 keys, but this does nothing either.
I am up to date in terms of my BIOS, and am definitely running UEFI and not legacy.
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Apr 25, 2014
Where I can download an 8.0 iso. My product key is contained within the bios.
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Feb 18, 2014
I was installing nvidia gfx card update today when my computer crashed. When I went and restarted it and tried signing in I get preparing windows forever and nothing seems to happen.
So I held shift and pressed restart to get to the troubleshoot/bios menu and then click troubleshoot when I click anything in there such as restart in safe mode or open cmd in order to run a scandisk my computer seems to crash and go to a black screen but the blue light indicating power on my computer stays on.
My OS is installed on a ocz ssd and the only thing I can think of is that my harddrive died.
[URL]
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Mar 10, 2013
Applied new SSD to Laptop but can't use the Product key as I don't know what it is as it's in the BIOS. Key is needed for Windows defender to function.
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Jun 13, 2013
I have a question about the looks of my BIOS startup screen. I have a relatively new ASUS laptop and i instaled windows 8 on it as soon as possible because ASUS had a free upgrade action.
Everything went well but what i noticed is that when i boot up and the BIOS runs i get in stead of the windows 8 logo with the loading-circle the ASUS logo with the logo circle. Its not annoying or something but i just want the windows logo because i think its nicer.
My friend said it had to do with a BIOS or boot configuration with a ASUS fancy patch switched on.
Ans yes ive already tried replacing my bootres.dll file but it wont give me permission to rename the old bootres file and the new file does not contain the windows logo.
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Oct 12, 2014
After a thorough search, I didn't find anyway possible to embed a key inside BIOS just like the OEM manufacturers do. The case scenario is quite simple:
Using NoOS(Ubuntu/Dos) laptops that also get marketed with pre-installed Windows 8.X. Purchase bulk OEM, and prepare the laptop to work with exactly the same setup (e.g. UEFI BIOS embedded Windows key) as if it was purchased pre-installed.
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Jun 23, 2013
I have a pretty new computer. Just a few months old. It is supposed to be a good one.
Dell XPS 8500
Quad core i7 processor
lots of memory and extras
This computer also has the 64 bit edition of Windows 8 installed on it. Windows 8 is driving me up the wall!!! I have had numerous problems with it since day 1.
As recently as a few days ago, my system was running reasonably okay. Then I downloaded a driver for my network card from the dell.com website. From that point on, I cannot get my computer to boot up properly. I have turned my computer off and on multiple times in hopes that it would correct whatever is wrong.
When I first turn my PC on, it will stay stuck at the Dell logo window for a while.
Sometimes it will make it past that and it will give me an error message that says:
"error sending end of post message to ME, system HALT!"
Also, I sometimes get a message which says:
"the last USB device you connected to the computer malfunctioned, and Windows did not recognize it.
Try reconnecting the device. If windows still does not recognize it, your device may not be working properly."
This is insanity. I have NOT connected any new USB devices to my computer.
I do not know what to do. I figured that the easiest thing might be to try simply reinstalling Windows 8 from scratch. So I inserted my Windows 8 reinstall disk that Dell sent me when I bought this thing. However, my computer will not boot from this disk. So I guess I am stuck.
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May 24, 2013
How do you open the BIOS in windows 8. It doesn't show up on the boot up screen. I want to enable the Turbo Boost on the CPU which requires getting into the BIOS. Owns Acer Aspire V3-571, how to get into the BIOS.
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Oct 12, 2014
I have windows 7 already installed.my hard disk have 3 partitions and there are data in them.so,if i want to install windows 8.1 with uefi do I need to format all my partitions or only the windows 7 installed partition?
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Jul 14, 2014
I have an error message at boot time that says [fail] twice then boots normally.
I have tracked it down in other posts to the bios which I change and it works for awhile but then mysteriously changes itself back.
Here is what I do.
F2 at Dell logo
move tab to "boot"
Reorder the boot order to the following:
Windows Boot Manager
UEFI Onboard LAN IPv4
UEFI Onboard LAN IPv6
then save and exit
machine reboots without error message
Runs/boots fine for awhile then message reappears.
Going back into BIOS shows Windows Boot Manager has moved to the bottom of the list again.
Repeating the fix is only temporary.
How can I set up the BIOS to stay where I put it?
I have a Dell running Win 8.1
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Apr 11, 2013
what settings are required in the UEFI Bios to run recovery USB/ disks or Linux live CDs. It all used to be so simple. The manufacturer seems unaware that it supplies UEFI systems - so I am working blind. Have tried boot CDs and USBs but all have booted straight into Windows to date. I don't wish to change settings I have no understanding of.
I have a Medion /Lenovo desktop with an AMI UEFI Bios (12 July 2012) and Aptio Setup.
The following seem relevant are supplied as enabled in "Bios":
Intel Rapid Startup Technology
Quiet Boot
Boot Select Mode [UEFI]
UEFI Hard Disk BBS Priorities - Boot Option #1 - Windows Boot Manager
Secure Boot - Secure Boot Mode [Standard]
What do these all mean and what effect do they have on how Windows 8 runs and how boot drives run?
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Nov 9, 2012
I just bought a new Lenovo G580 that came with Windows 8 on it and I can't get into the BIOS settings in order to change the boot order....
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Jul 4, 2013
Bought a new laptop with preinstalled Windows 8, didn't like it, went into laptop bios, think i deleted some drivers or commands to get me into windows 8 again. dont see any driver options, boot options priorities and cant add new ones
Think i deleted the default one, have nothing under boot options. Once I started the machine it goes right to the bios
the boot devise driver into windows i think is missing.
Unrelated images not mine, but kinda looked like this: [URL] .....
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Dec 9, 2013
I dual boot Windows 8.1 and linux, and I was wondering how to boot into the windows BIOS. I would like to enable virtualization so that I can run 64 bit virtual machines, but it does not give me the option to boot into the BIOS. No pressing Esc, delete, F11, or F12 boots me into the BIOS. I was not able to boot into the BIOS even before dual booting.
Have a sony viao laptop with Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-3632QM.
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Feb 18, 2013
Windows 8 moves to BIOS-based product keys Product keys for Windows 8 computers aren't printed on a sticker. They're encrypted in the BIOS. How might that affect you?
My question: is this possible..?? Can a OS write to BIOS..?
If it true you can NEVER switch to a other OS..!!! You need to buy a new PC...
Source: Windows 8 moves to BIOS-based product keys | Windows 8
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Aug 15, 2014
I have an acer aspire computer with corrupted key windows files. So i am unable to even boot windows. When i start windows i get a BSOD.
What i am trying to do is retrieve my product key from the BIOS with a program that is bootable outside of windows. Like from a USB for example.
My intention is to restore my computer with a clean install by downloading my windows 8 version on another computer to a usb through the windows website after i retreive my product key. Then use this usb to install my windows 8 version back onto the BSOD computer. But as i have stated, i am unable to use the conventional product key finding programs since i cant even boot windows 8.
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May 31, 2013
On my computer there is a pre-installed Windows 8 which works fine for UEFI boot (Secure boot not necessary).
Now when I switch in UEFI setup at boot time the UEFI mode into the CSM (BIOS) mode and restart then Windows 8 is not starting any more.
As far as I find out an UEFI-based Windows 8 can only boot with UEFI mode enabled.
So my question is: Can I turn an existing UEFI based Windows 8 installation into an CSM/BIOS based installation (=a Win8 which boots successfully even when I enable CSM in UEFI setup) ?
If yes: How do I do that?
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Jun 2, 2014
I cannot install windows 8 in BIOS or UEFI mode.
it's getting boot and install only in EFI mode. after trying to reinstall it won't allow me to select the disk partition, as it gave me the error "
Windows 8 cannot be installed to this disk. The selected disk has an MBR partition table. On EFI systems, Windows can only be installed to GPT disks." i tried all the given solutions on GOogle. even i cannot recover or refresh using windows 8 environment. many times it gives me BSOD. cannot vonvert to MBR as it says it cannot be done on virtual HDD.
tried many things nothing works, need to install windows 8 after every 1 or 2weeks, many a times my BCD data gets corrupt, and windows wont start. Also tried many things to repair this, but only thing that works is reinstalling windows 8.
That gpt or MBR error was solved by selecting UEFI:CD drive. in boot options by pressing F12 after inserting the disk.
My system configuration:
System Info Utility version 1.0.0.2
OS Version: Microsoft Windows 8 Pro, 64 bit
Processor: Intel(R) Pentium(R) CPU G645 @ 2.90GHz, Intel64 Family 6 Model 42 Stepping 7
Processor Count: 2
RAM: 3029 Mb
Graphics Card: Intel(R) HD Graphics, -1813 Mb
Hard Drives: C: Total - 102399 MB, Free - 33011 MB; D: Total - 374009 MB, Free - 51233 MB;
Motherboard: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd., H61M-DS2
Antivirus: Windows Defender, Disabled
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Jun 6, 2014
I have recently built a new computer and installed Windows 8. All was running fine (including USB devices such as iPhone, flash drive etc), however since upgrading to Windows 8.1, none of my USB devices are showing up at all. Oddly, the mouse and keyboard still work.
When I go into the BIOS, all my devices (iPhone, Flash drive, keyboard and mouse etc) all show up in there, so I'm guessing it's a driver/Windows 8.1 issue that I'm missing?
I have been to the ASUS website and downloaded all the drivers I can find, but still no luck.
My motherboard is an "Asus Z97 Pro". I have tried contacting Asus support, but they are completely useless!
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Sep 15, 2014
My problem is that I want to install a higher version of win 8, respectivily win 8 pro in a computer that already came with another version of win preinstalled (win 8.1). It's possible to do this in a bios that prevents csm launch.
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Jun 13, 2013
Question: How would you approach this migration?
I just bought a copy of Acronis True Image 2013 with Plus Pack. It appears that this is all I need as True Image will install the new motherboard drivers as part of the migration process. But do I stay with MBR or move to GPT?
Presently both Win7 (on a 120GB SSD drive) and Windows 8 (on a different 120GB SSD drive) are both MBR format. I don't want to start over from scratch. That's why I bought the Acronis 2013 with Plus Pack.
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May 14, 2014
When I boot to windows 8 I get a blinking cursor in the top left corner for about 1 second, then I get sent to the BIOS. If I boot to my Linux hard drive however everything works fine.
I figured I would just install a fresh copy of windows, but when I boot to the install disk (I tried both 64 and 32 bit), the windows 8 icon shows up and I get the spinning dots for maybe 10 seconds or so then I just get a blank back lit screen. Is it just coincidence that my drive failed at the same time as both disks failed or is there maybe something hardware related?
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