fast startup versus restart

[shmu26]

I usually do a full restart, rather than shut down and boot.
Am I gaining anything from EUFI secure boot and fast startup?
Or would I be better off switching to legacy boot?

My hard drive is formatted as GPT, but I understand that it can be converted to enable legacy boot. That is what EasyBCD tells me, anyways.

 

[rcxtra]

As far as I know, you can't convert between MBR (legacy) and GPT without reformatting the disk (i.e. lose all your data). Besides, GPT is a safer style of formatting because it has redundant tables.

And yes, UEFI boots just a hair faster - even when restarting. Secure boot just protects other programs from writing to the boot record.

 

[shmu26]

let's say I reformat to MBR. Can I restore my windows installation onto it, from a system image?

 

[rcxtra]

let's say I reformat to MBR. Can I restore my windows installation onto it, from a system image?

If you installed Windows with UEFI enabled, then no. UEFI boot requires the disk to be in GPT format. Although I've never tried it, restoring a disk image that is from a GPT formatted disk to one that is MBR formatted should fail. And even if the backup software doesn't report an error during the restore process, Windows would fail to boot. The partition table between GPT and MBR are completely different.

 

[shmu26]

thanks.
Macrium Reflect has a set of instructions for this exact process, it includes the creation of an MBR boot partition, and it assumes the boot will fail, and it goes on to explain how to fix the boot with their built-in boot-fixer tool. Sounds interesting, although I am not sure it's worth it for me to jump through all those hoops, when I don't know what my chances of success are.

Basically, what I am looking for is the ability to easily switch between MBR boot and UEFI boot. With MBR boot, the multi-boot options are much richer. I can add non-windows operating systems, such as the bitdefender rescue mode. Whereas with UEFI, the boot is assumedly faster and more secure.

 

[rcxtra]

If dual boot is what you're after, then just install the other OS on a separate HDD (make sure you unplug the Windows drive while installing). Then you can just use the motherboards Boot Select menu during boot (usually F11, check your manual for hot key).

I leave my default boot order in BIOS to boot to the Windows drive. Then when I want to run Linux I just tap the Boot Select key during boot to override the BIOS boot order. However, if the other OS you install won't run in UEFI mode you would need to save two different profiles in your BIOS and then load that profile before booting. Still pretty simple though...

 

[shmu26]

I already have my ubuntu installation on a different hard drive, with the grub boot over there. If I want to boot to ubuntu, I choose the other hard drive, like you said.

Now what I am trying to figure out is how to set up bitdefender rescue mode. It tells me that if I have secure boot on my system, it can't be set up. Is secure boot the same as UEFI boot?

I used to have a computer with a MBR hard drive and legacy boot, and I had bitdefender rescue as one of my multi-boot options.

 

[rcxtra]

Can't help with bitdefender rescue - I've never used it.

But you don't need Secure Boot enabled for UEFI or Windows 10 (Windows 8 was the only OS that needed it enabled). I don't see any reason why you couldn't load bitdefender rescue on the drive with Ubuntu and the Grub bootloader. Just remember to ALWAYS unplug the other OS drive when making boot changes to the other (i.e. installing or making changes to the other drive's boot record. When you're just running one OS or the other it's fine to have both drives plugged in, but when installing or making changes to one it can screw up the other.

 

[shmu26]

how do I turn off secure boot?
I have an asus mobo, and I only found there an option for fast boot, not for secure boot. turning off fast boot didn't satisfy bitdefender rescue's requirements.

 

[shmu26]

okay, I found instructions
https://www.all4os.com/windows/disable-asus-motherboards-uefi-secure-boot.html
thanks