To UEFI or not to UEFI?

[545646674116]

So, I just built a new system and have ordered an 256GB Plextor M.2 SSD drive to use as the OS drive. I have looked around the net and it seems that if you are building a new system that UEFI, with or without secure boot enabled, seems to be the way to go. I've read the "advantages" of going UEFI, however just wondered if anyone here has any real life expierence with installing and daily operation with UEFI. The motherboard I'm using is a ASUS Z-97 Pro (Wi-Fi ac) with Windows 8.1 Pro. Current OS drive is a 256GB Samsung EVO SSD which is formated using MBR rather than GPT, as is required with UEFI. I plan to use the UEFI tutorial over at eightforms.com for the install. Thanks in advance for any insight anyone may be able to provide on this subject. :)

[Aergan]

UEFI without secure boot. You wont really notice a difference other than it has the potential to boot faster via Fast Boot.

Rather than a MBR, you will load an .efi file off a FAT based partition on the start of your HDD. Other boot loaders can also be copied in to boot other operating systems e.g. Ubuntu.

Windows and Ubuntu will sort any of this out for you as apart of a normal installation.

You can use Rufus to prepare a USB stick with your OS's ISO file as GPT / FAT32 and your motherboard should pick it up as a UEFI boot device. Once it has been booted as UEFI, the OS setup will do the rest.

[xendrome]

UEFI without secure boot. 

 

Why without? Just curious

[545646674116]

I've already prepared my USB install with Rufus plus Win8.1 ISO, so that's ready to go. Also the tutorial I mentioned in the original post is very detailed giving a step by step through each stage of the install so I'm quite clear on that aspect. As for having secure boot off or rather not enabled, if I utimately decide to go th UEFI install route I will have secure boot enabled - I only mentioned maybe not having it enabled since I read in a few different sites that some people will opt to not use that feature, for whatever reason. I guess my real question is there a down side to going the UEFI route when compared to the standard route?

[xendrome]

As far as I can tell not really, I just reinstalled my Windows 8.1 install yesterday just to take it from the BIOS method to UEFI. I can tell you my boot time from UEFI init to login screen is about 3-4 seconds now, it was previously 7-9 seconds.

 

That's why I was wondering why he recommended Secure Boot off.

[Decebalvs Rex]

On a normal HDD , I haven't noticed any speed improvements.

[spaceelf]

As far as I can tell not really, I just reinstalled my Windows 8.1 install yesterday just to take it from the BIOS method to UEFI. I can tell you my boot time from UEFI init to login screen is about 3-4 seconds now, it was previously 7-9 seconds.

 

That's why I was wondering why he recommended Secure Boot off.

I'd definitely recommend with Secure Boot on if you've got a Windows 8.1 only box.  That's probably why his recc, though most Linux builds should support it by now I'd think.

[xendrome]

Yeah I am seeing with Secure Boot enabled, one benefit is Windows 8.1 defender loads prior to all other kernel drivers, I suppose this will cut down on rootkits loading/installing.

[Aergan]

Why without? Just curious

 

There are times when you might want to boot something that isn't an EFI signed bootloader e.g. Older (Stable) builds of CloneZilla, some Linux distributions, testing non-EFI based bootable media for non-EFI machines, Chamelon/Chimera etc.

 

That aside, there's not really a good reason not to install your OS via EFI if your hardware supports it.

[xendrome]

There are times when you might want to boot something that isn't an EFI signed bootloader e.g. Older (Stable) builds of CloneZilla, some Linux distributions, testing non-EFI based bootable media for non-EFI machines, Chamelon/Chimera etc.

 

That aside, there's not really a good reason not to install your OS via EFI if your hardware supports it.

 

So just disable Secure boot in the UEFI bios if the need arises?

[Radium]

UEFI is hands down the way to go, no question about it.

 

- Convert drive to GPT. (The Windows installer does this when booted into UEFI mode and the drive is clean)

- Enable secure boot. (You don't want malicious EFI modules to be loaded at boot, just as you don't want malicious code in the MBR)

- Boot installer in UEFI mode. (This is done by making sure that the UEFI system loads the UEFI boot loader on the installation media)

- Make sure ESP (~100 MB) and MSR (~300 MB) partitions are created when you allow the installer to create the partitions automatically. (This is a clear sign that UEFI mode is loaded)

- When secure boot prevents you from doing what you want, disable it temporarily.

 

- GPT has a better partition table structure and allows up to 128 partitions and larger partitions. There's also a copy of the partition table at the end of the disk.

- UEFI makes the operating system boot faster and access new features that are only supported by UEFI.

 

- Make sure that AHCI is enabled for all your drives. ('Powerlink management' is good too)

- Make sure that SSD's are aligned to 1 MB (2048 sectors) for optimal wear and tear. (Alignment should be done automatically by Windows installer)

 

Powerful tools to use for managing partitions are 'diskpart' in Windows or 'gdisk'/'cgdisk' in GNU/Linux.

If you want to to dig deeper into benefits and features, read about UEFI and GPT on Wikipedia.org. The articles are accurate enough for this level of technicallity since they are open standards.