Can I safely disable SecureBoot on a laptop? Will Win8 boot after disabling


Recommended Posts

I have a friend's Samsung laptop with SecureBoot enabled. I need to boot from a CD to perform some backups and partition resizing, but I can't do that because SecureBoot is enabled. If I disable it, will it break the current Windows 8 installation from booting, or will it not change a thing?

Okay, so I disabled SecureBoot.

Windows 8 boots normally.

USB sticks and CD/DVD disks still don't boot. What the...?

edit - sorry for replying to myself like that, maybe a moderator could merge it with the original post?

Are you getting error message, or is the system just continuing on and booting Windows?

Are you trying to boot from the the USB stick/DVD drive using the systems boot menu, or by setting the other devices higher up in the boot order?

I tried moving the the devices boot priority in the BIOS settings screen.

I tried using the boot menu shown after holding F10 when booting up.

When the computer tries to boot from the DVD, for example, the LED flashes on the drive for a few seconds before Windows 8 starts to boot. So it seems the computer is trying to boot from the optical disk... but doesn't.

I'm kind of disoriented right now :D

Perhaps the system is trying to boot the media in EFI mode, and the media doesn't have an EFI bootloader? Sometimes the boot menu you can invoke will give you two options for each device (e.g. Boot to CD, as well as Boot to CD EFI).

Hopefully systems aren't being made that will ONLY boot EFI configured media.

Are you sure your boot disks are "bootable" for real? Did you miss some BIOS/UEFI setting that should be enabled to let the computer boot from secondary devices like USB sticks and optical disks?

My disks are bootable on other devices. I just noticed that another computer with UEFI gives me the option to boot from "legacy" devices. This laptop (Samsung NP300) does not - it only lists bootable devices. So it seems it's trying to boot in EFI mode and EFI mode only. Is there a way to boot, for example, Hirens Boot CD on this computer or am I stuck with being able to boot nothing? :D

edit - I searched all over the EFI settings screen and found no further boot options. Only boot priority, SecureBoot, clock, Hyperthreading, battery charging mode (80% od full), passwords...

Sounds like you're stuck, and I'm very concerned about how this is going to affect me in the future when I have to deal with this issue. I wonder if it might be possible to chain-load non-EFI media from a multi-purpose EFI boot CD or USB flash?

I have to say that your situation truly does suck.

Found it. Appears "SecureBoot" options are scattered around a bit. I thought I disabled it, but... I didn't :D

Everything boots nicely now, but many utilities on Hiren's Boot CD reboot the machine. The bootable CD of Acronis Disk Director works fine, though :)

Thanks for all the help and sorry to bother you, as it all came out to be a non-issue at the end :p

  • 2 months later...
Found it. Appears "SecureBoot" options are scattered around a bit. I thought I disabled it, but... I didn't :D Everything boots nicely now, but many utilities on Hiren's Boot CD reboot the machine. The bootable CD of Acronis Disk Director works fine, though :) Thanks for all the help and sorry to bother you, as it all came out to be a non-issue at the end :p

Hello Soulburner, how are you today? I got the NP300 and I've been trying to do what you just did for the last 2 weeks! First of all, well done. How did you get the UEFI media to show up? I appears I disabled the Secure boot and selected CSM OS. I also tried the other secure boot menu but doubt it worked. Please assist (with screen shots if possible).

Thanks.

  • 1 month later...

Good day, sorry to bring this up again but I have tried for two months to sort this out. Does anyone know of any solution? I had to leave the shiny new windows 8 and continue working with my mini that is Windows 7. The boot options do not show "UEFI" beside it when trying to boot Windows 7 from USB.

Help, help, help. These charms are annoying! If I want to play games then it is all fine, but serious business can not take place always running round for basic tasks.

  • 4 months later...

I know that I'm replying to a 6 month old post but I found a solution to this problem that others may

find helpful.

 

I have a Samsung NP355E5C (aka '355E') laptop and could find no way to boot with anything but the

internal hard drive.

 

I was getting rid of Win 8 and installing Win 7 from a DVD, which wasn't happening because you can't

boot from a CD/DVD.

 

Ok here's the steps I took: (a couple may not have anything to do with anything but a couple are very

important because you can boot with USB or CD/DVD afterward)

 

Boot computer (turn it on, for those technologically challenged)  :)

 

Hold or continually tap F2 key to enter BIOS Setup. If you see the Win 7 "Starting Windows" or the Win 8

"spinning circle" you waited too long and will have to try again.

 

Once inside Setup, under the 'Boot' tab, I set 'Secure Boot' to 'Disabled'.

 

This will cause an 'OS Selection Mode' to appear beneath 'Secure Boot' that wasn't previously visible.

 

Change the 'OS Selection Mode' from 'UEFI OS' to 'UEFI and Legacy OS'.

 

Now go back up to the top listing on this page, 'Boot Device Priority' (still under the 'Boot' tab), which

previously only showed that the internal hard drive was the only bootable device.

 

Highlight it and press Enter. Note that it will probably still show only the internal hard drive listed.

Don't worry as this only requires an 'Exit Saving Changes' or use the F10 key shortcut for this same action.

 

Now, during the restart, press F2 again and once again enter the BIOS Setup.

 

If you go to the 'Boot Device Priority' under the 'Boot' tab, you'll now be able move up or down the devices

that you want to boot first.

 

(Despite advising to look in here again, when I simply changed the 'OS Selection Mode' to

'UEFI and Legacy OS', it booted from my DVD on the next restart i.e. I didn't have to go in a second time

and set the boot order up or down as desired. It defaulted to my DVD boot.

 

 

Under the 'Exit' tab, it will say 'Boot Override' along with the name of your internal hard drive.

 

 

So, now it will boot from a USB device or CD/DVD drive.

 

 

.

 

This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Posts

    • A coalition of publishers sued OpenAI and Microsoft over scraping content without consent by Hamid Ganji Image via Depositphotos.com AI companies often rely on readily available internet content to train their chatbots and provide users with instant answers. This method of AI training is fast and relatively inexpensive, but using a website’s content without permission or compensation is not something publishers like to see, and this is exactly why Microsoft and OpenAI are now being sued. As reported by Bloomberg, a group of publishers that collectively own nearly 400 newspapers has filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft. The coalition argues that the two companies scraped their content to build AI chatbots like ChatGPT and Copilot without paying any compensation. The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, argues that while AI products have generated billions of dollars in market value using publishers’ work, none of that value has been shared with the publishers. The plaintiffs are seeking statutory damages and injunctive relief for alleged copyright infringement and violations of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. “Defendants systematically and secretly crawled the Publishers’ websites—including content behind paywalls and other access restrictions—and copied the Publishers’ articles, stories, and other original works onto their own servers without authorization,” the complaint states. The publishers also described the AI boom as a “death knell for local journalism” if AI companies that scrape content for free are not held accountable. Former New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin and his law firm, Platkin LLP, are representing the publishers. “Our models empower innovation, are trained on publicly available data, and are grounded in fair use,” OpenAI spokesperson Drew Pusateri told Bloomberg. This is not the first lawsuit involving the unauthorized use of publishers’ content by AI firms, but it is one of the largest coalitions ever formed against the free use of content by AI chatbots. In 2024, OpenAI and Microsoft also faced a similar lawsuit from eight newspapers that claimed AI products were benefiting from their content without permission.
    • Rufus alternative Ventoy now supports Windows 11's mandatory update, fixes major boot bug by Sayan Sen While Microsoft has its own official Media Creation Tool used for making bootable USB media, there are some popular third-party utilities as well which offer additional options like bypassing system requirements, Microsoft Account creation, and more. One of these is Ventoy, and the software has received its latest update today. In fact, the app actually got a slew of updates over the last couple of days, three version releases in total, to be specific. The first release, version 1.1.13, was pulled as there was some unspecified error in the update, and as such, the corrected version 1.1.14 was pushed out. Following that on very short notice, 1.1.15 was published as well. For those unfamiliar, Ventoy is an open-source utility that lets users create a bootable USB drive once and then simply copy ISO, WIM, IMG, VHD, or EFI files onto it without repeatedly formatting the drive. It supports both legacy BIOS and UEFI boot modes, Secure Boot, and a wide range of operating systems, making it one of the most versatile tools in the category. The biggest change in version 1.1.14 is an updated Secure Boot shim file aimed at resolving the UEFI CA 2023 issue, which is basically a compatibility problem that has affected Secure Boot environments on some systems. If you recall, we reported about severe boot issues on HP devices following the release of updated Secure Boot 2023 keys. For anyone who may not be aware, back in early 2024, Microsoft announced that it was updating Secure Boot keys as they were going to become 15 years old in 2026, which is also when they are set to expire. As such, the new 2023 certificates have been rolling out with the newest Windows 11 updates. Updated boot manager and Secure Boot certificates are crucial for protection against malware like bootkits. These are mandatory updates. Alongside that, the VentoyPlugson graphical plugin configurator was updated in sync with the release. The update also introduces a new VTOY_SECURE_BOOT_POLICY option within the Global Control plugin, giving users more flexibility in managing Secure Boot behavior. Ventoy has also received a fix for a startup issue when Secure Boot was disabled. Microsoft does officially allow users to boot systems without Secure Boot as long as the PC is Secure Boot capable. The full changelog is given below: Update secure boot shim file to solve the UEFI CA 2023 issue. The new release use a new CA, so you need to enroll the new key for the first boot time. VentoyPlugson update synchronously. Global control plugin add a VTOY_SECURE_BOOT_POLICY option. Fix the boot issue when Secure Boot is disabled in the UEFI firmware. You can download the latest version of the app here on Ventoy's official GitHub repo or from Neowin software stories.
    • Windows 11 is fine, no issues on any of the machines I've run it on since release. The stricter security requirements are a good thing, sometimes the baseline needs to change and people will winge, but it is what it is. Happened with the move from 9x to NT - broke compatability Happened with XP SP2 when security started to become a serious consideration Certainly happend with Vista that brought in UAC, the concept of not running as admin (something that has been the norm in Linux/Unix from pretty much the start) and a completely new driver stack. Windows 11 will probably get looked back at as the point where even consumer and SMB IT was dragged kicking and screaming into a somewhat secure by default configuration.
    • Bluestacks has been emulating Android on Windows for fifteen years. It's janky and riddled with ads though, so WSA looked like it was going to be a huge improvement over the emulator experience. Too bad Microsoft dropped the ball on that.
    • Classic. China would be nothing without Western, Japanese, and South Korean technology.
  • Recent Achievements

    • Rookie
      krychek57 went up a rank
      Rookie
    • Grand Master
      Jaybonaut went up a rank
      Grand Master
    • One Year In
      Philsl earned a badge
      One Year In
    • Dedicated
      Scoobystu earned a badge
      Dedicated
    • First Post
      Tom Schmidt earned a badge
      First Post
  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      441
    2. 2
      +Edouard
      172
    3. 3
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      134
    4. 4
      Michael Scrip
      78
    5. 5
      Xenon
      77
  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!