[SOLVED] Having a problem to get my system on UEFI

KalleSh · Nov 29, 2021

Hello guys😊

I am having a problem to make my system runs on uefi instead of legacy!
First I converted my system disk drive (Kingston A2000 M.2 ) to a gpt disk using EaseUs Partition Master, then when I changed the boot in the bios sittings into uefi instead of legacy the computer did not recognize the sys disk at all and I got an error message.
I also burned win 10 on flash disk using Rufus (the Partition scheme was GPT and the Target system was UEFI) but I couldn't run it either when I changed the booting into UEFI nor on Legacy!

But I noticed 2 things actually
1-in the bios I can see that my system disk and the flash disk without U letter meaning they are not uefi disks or something like that, here is an example
2-In Disk management, the c disk located as disk nr.2 and it doesn't have any other shrinks as disk 0 or 1 as you can see here
So any ideas regarding what can the problem be 🤔???

Best regards

Kalle

[Moderator note: Moving post from Systems to Storage.]

Drew125 · Nov 29, 2021

I'm afraid you cant change the system like that. Once installed under legacy mode its stuck. Same goes for UEFI. Only way to change is to re-install windows using UEFI boot from the usb stick or cd. Switching it from MBR to GPT could lead to an unbootable system as GPT does not support the use of a bootcode as MBR did. GPT is a read only MBR. The system makes a boot partition with a EFI file that the Bios reads to boot. Where MBR wrote a bootcode to the MBR.

KalleSh · Nov 30, 2021

Drew125 said:
I'm afraid you cant change the system like that. Once installed under legacy mode its stuck. Same goes for UEFI. Only way to change is to re-install windows using UEFI boot from the usb stick or cd. Switching it from MBR to GPT could lead to an unbootable system as GPT does not support the use of a bootcode as MBR did. GPT is a read only MBR. The system makes a boot partition with a EFI file that the Bios reads to boot. Where MBR wrote a bootcode to the MBR.

Thanks for your answer, but how can I reinstall the Windows using flash disk with uefi mode? I tried to do that with Rufus and I installed it as I wrote in my question above, but when I changed the booting in the bios into Uefioä pnly, I couldn't boot from the flash disk drive! Do you mean that I have to burn Windows on it in another uefi system?

Drew125 · Nov 30, 2021

KalleSh said:
Thanks for your answer, but how can I reinstall the Windows using flash disk with uefi mode? I tried to do that with Rufus and I installed it as I wrote in my question above, but when I changed the booting in the bios into Uefioä pnly, I couldn't boot from the flash disk drive! Do you mean that I have to burn Windows on it in another uefi system?

Use the windows 10 media creation tool. It allows you to make an ISO to burn a CD, or install the installation to a USB. Ive used it several times. Go the website below and click download tool and run it. Make sure you backup your data first. When you boot the flash drive and procced with the install all your data will be erased. Making the usb wont delete anything.

Once your ready put in the usb, reboot. Access your boot menu most BiOS's its F12, hp is F9. Some very few are F11. You should see several boot entry's. The one you want should be something to the effect of UEFI: Sandisk Cruiser Windows something. You want the one that has the UEFI: in it.

Link: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

Uefi: https://www.biostar.com.tw/app/en/support/faq_content.php?S_ID=468

cl42 · Nov 30, 2021

hi, i'm no pro or anything. ive been partial education/self taught. anyway i've had 2 gateway lappys with that dam uefi bios i've been trying to figure out how to get it redone. they were my dead brother's. with all my accumulated " homework" i HAVE discovered that my uefi bios a fAT32 formatted usb is needed for ISO. i'm not sure if that's your issue or not. most of my experience has been w/win 7, win 10. it's the win 8 era CPUs i'm having trouble with. i'm sorryy to bother you if this is not relevant but i can't help feeling you might need to check that out. i think i googled specs of cpu to find out about bios.fat32.&gpt i don't know for sure tho. i've been fighting with it for 4 years. 🙁 good luck

Drew125 · Nov 30, 2021

cl42 said:
hi, i'm no pro or anything. ive been partial education/self taught. anyway i've had 2 gateway lappys with that dam uefi bios i've been trying to figure out how to get it redone. they were my dead brother's. with all my accumulated " homework" i HAVE discovered that my uefi bios a fAT32 formatted usb is needed for ISO. i'm not sure if that's your issue or not. most of my experience has been w/win 7, win 10. it's the win 8 era CPUs i'm having trouble with. i'm sorryy to bother you if this is not relevant but i can't help feeling you might need to check that out. i think i googled specs of cpu to find out about bios.fat32.&gpt i don't know for sure tho. i've been fighting with it for 4 years. 🙁 good luck

Somewhat true. The boot partition of GPT is FAT32. Every time I use the Windows 10 media creation tool it formats the drive ntfs. UEFI requires a 64 bit OS as well. The only real "plus" UEFI has is a disk size > 2 TB. Using the old MBR scheme the max size drive is 2 TB. The reasoning for this is MBR uses a 32 bit addressing format. The new setup GPT uses a 64 bit addressing and protects you from MBR viruses which are very nasty; on top of that it supports Secure Boot which stops pre-boot viruses.

I am self taught on PC's as well. I got into working on computers when i was 13 or so. I'm 27 now.

SkyNetRising · Nov 30, 2021

KalleSh said:
First I converted my system disk drive (Kingston A2000 M.2 ) to a gpt disk using EaseUs Partition Master, then when I changed the boot in the bios sittings into uefi instead of legacy the computer did not recognize the sys disk at all and I got an error message.

That's wrong way to do it. Bootloader partition doesn't get changed properly for system to remain bootable.
You have to use mbr2gpt utility.

SkyNetRising · Nov 30, 2021

Drew125 said:
I'm afraid you cant change the system like that. Once installed under legacy mode its stuck. Same goes for UEFI. Only way to change is to re-install windows using UEFI boot from the usb stick or cd.

Not true.
You can convert from legacy boot system to UEFI with mbr2gpt utility.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/deployment/mbr-to-gpt

Drew125 · Nov 30, 2021

SkyNetRising said:
Not true.
You can convert from legacy boot system to UEFI with mbr2gpt utility.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/deployment/mbr-to-gpt

Thank you. I did not know they made such a tool.

KalleSh · Nov 30, 2021

SkyNetRising said:
Not true.
You can convert from legacy boot system to UEFI with mbr2gpt utility.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/deployment/mbr-to-gpt

I couldn't convert it using this tool so I was forced to do it with that program! Every time I tried to use mbr2gpt I failed although i did it step by step, so what is the problem in this case?

SkyNetRising · Dec 1, 2021

KalleSh said:
I couldn't convert it using this tool so I was forced to do it with that program! Every time I tried to use mbr2gpt I failed although i did it step by step, so what is the problem in this case?

What was the error? There are specific requirements for it to work. Info in the link provided above.

From your Disk Management screenshot -
you have UEFI bootloader on Disk 1 and
you have legacy bootloader on Disk 0.

If UEFI bootloader is properly configured, then you should be able to boot from Disk 1 in UEFI mode.
Choose windows boot manager as first boot option in BIOS.

It may be necessary to fix UEFI bootloader after converting OS drive from MBR to GPT.
Do it this way. Execute from elevated command prompt. Regular command prompt will give error on last step.

diskpart

list disk

select disk 1

list partition

select partition x

(select 99MB EFI partition, x=2 or x=3)

assign letter=K

(assign drive letter to EFI system partition, drive letter K must be unused)

exit

bcdboot c:\windows /s K: /f UEFI /v

Show screenshot with the result. Should be "Boot files successfully created".

How to Open the Command Prompt as Administrator in Windows 10

Much of the time, opening the Command Prompt as a regular user is all you need. Sometimes, though, you’ll need to open the Command Prompt as an administrator so that you can run commands that require administrative privileges.

www.howtogeek.com

KalleSh · Dec 4, 2021

SkyNetRising said:
What was the error? There are specific requirements for it to work. Info in the link provided above.

From your Disk Management screenshot -
you have UEFI bootloader on Disk 1 and
you have legacy bootloader on Disk 0.

If UEFI bootloader is properly configured, then you should be able to boot from Disk 1 in UEFI mode.
Choose windows boot manager as first boot option in BIOS.

It may be necessary to fix UEFI bootloader after converting OS drive from MBR to GPT.
Do it this way. Execute from elevated command prompt. Regular command prompt will give error on last step.

diskpart
list disk
select disk 1
list partition
select partition x
(select 99MB EFI partition, x=2 or x=3)
assign letter=K
(assign drive letter to EFI system partition, drive letter K must be unused)
exit
bcdboot c:\windows /s K: /f UEFI /v

Show screenshot with the result. Should be "Boot files successfully created".

How to Open the Command Prompt as Administrator in Windows 10

Much of the time, opening the Command Prompt as a regular user is all you need. Sometimes, though, you’ll need to open the Command Prompt as an administrator so that you can run commands that require administrative privileges.

www.howtogeek.com

I am sorry for late replay due to health issues!
Actually the system on disk 2, disk 0 and 1 both are for games and storage, and I don't know why there is such this mess in the ordering between the disk's numbers and why one of my storage disks has UEFI bootloader and the other has legacy one and my system disk has nothing, so what to do in this situation?

SkyNetRising · Dec 5, 2021

KalleSh said:
I don't know why there is such this mess in the ordering between the disk's numbers and why one of my storage disks has UEFI bootloader and the other has legacy one and my system disk has nothing, so what to do in this situation?

That's because you installed windows with multiple drives connected.
Legacy bootloader got installed on Disk 0,
UEFI bootloader got installed on Disk 1 and
windows got installed on Disk 2.

In post #11 - I provided you with instructions, how to fix UEFI bootloader on Disk 1.

Proper way of cleaning this mess up would be

creating UEFI bootloader on Disk 2 and

deleting bootloaders from Disk 0 and Disk 1.

Do you want to do that?

KalleSh · Dec 5, 2021

SkyNetRising said:
That's because you installed windows with multiple drives connected.
Legacy bootloader got installed on Disk 0,
UEFI bootloader got installed on Disk 1 and
windows got installed on Disk 2.

In post #11 - I provided you with instructions, how to fix UEFI bootloader on Disk 1.

Proper way of cleaning this mess up would be

creating UEFI bootloader on Disk 2 and
deleting bootloaders from Disk 0 and Disk 1.
Do you want to do that?

Thanks for your response, yes I want to do that if it will solve the issue, but I did as u wrote above and it didn't work 🙁

SkyNetRising · Dec 5, 2021

KalleSh said:
Thanks for your response, yes I want to do that if it will solve the issue, but I did as u wrote above and it didn't work 🙁

I'd need to see, how you did it.
Can you show a screenshot with result of those commands?

KalleSh · Dec 6, 2021

SkyNetRising said:
I'd need to see, how you did it.
Can you show a screenshot with result of those commands?

I did correct this time and got "Boot files successfully created", and I changed the booting to ''windows boot manager'' in the bios successfully, so what's next? is it fixed now or what?

SkyNetRising · Dec 6, 2021

That would mean, your system has been booted into UEFI mode now.
You can check it with msinfo32.

KalleSh · Dec 6, 2021

SkyNetRising said:
That would mean, your system has been booted into UEFI mode now.
You can check it with msinfo32.

Yeah thanks a lot for u r being patient and for ur help, but if I want to reinstall windows again so am I going to do these steps again or what?

SkyNetRising · Dec 6, 2021

KalleSh said:
if I want to reinstall windows again so am I going to do these steps again or what?

Have only single storage drive connected and clean it before installing windows.
Then there will be no such issues.

[SOLVED] Having a problem to get my system on UEFI

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