Changing BIOS to UEFI mode

When I first got my XPS 13 2015 with the Windows 8.1 running on it, I clean installed Windows 10. I used a USB boot device to do so and had to change my BIOS mode from UEFI to Legacy. I was then able to install Windows 10 and everything has been working fine so far. But I recently learnt that UEFI provides faster boot up times and have been trying to get back to UEFI mode from legacy. I am unable to change it back to UEFI in the BIOS. How can I get UEFI back?

 

If it helps, changing to uefi mode doesn't do anything. It doesn't make your computer faster, or boot faster.

The primary benefit is "Secure Boot", which locks your boot device down to a single known and authorized boot device. And since you intentionally disabled it so that you have more manual control over boot devices, you don't want to turn that back on.

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It might make it a little faster, that's what I am hoping for. Some people have reported boot times as less as 10 seconds while mine goes up to 30 seconds and more, which isn't a lot I know. And I just want to be able to turn UEFI mode on even if it doesn't speed up boots, not being able to do is gnawing at me.

 

If windows is installed in legacy mode, you can't change it to UEFI without reinstalling

 

Would I have to format the whole SSD or a simple re-install will do that job?

 

As less than 10 sec is only fast boot aka hibernate. Only Uefi without fast boot give maybe 0.5 sec faster boot than Legacy. I always prefer a coold boot.

 

Depends if the SSD is in MBR or GPT partition table, if GPT you might get away with reinstall, if MBR then would need to reformat.

 

I prefer hibernating to cold boot but I do it so often that I am worried it might wear out the SSD sooner than I want it to.

 

MBR it is sadly, I am going to have to reformat the whole thing. *sigh* Thanks anyway.

 

It won't happen. Wearing out an SSD is a myth started a few years ago when SSDs first came out, and people didn't understand the technology. Use your SSD all you want. You won't wear it out.

Tech Report actually did a test where they hooked up a bunch of SSDs to a test setup, and just wrote data to them non-stop at full SATA 6Gbps speeds. The top few drives took literally thousands of terabytes, and almost 2 full years, of full speed non-stop writing before they died. You could literally write 1TB per day (2-4 full SSD capacity fills) every day for the next 5 years. Or, hibernate a 16GB machine 65 times a day, every day, for the next 5 years. A measly 8GB-16GB hibernate that you occasionally use isn't going to do anything to shorten SSD lifespan.

So use your drive all you want, without even bothering to think about it. You are going to eventually replace your SSD a few years down the line for capacity or speed reasons... Not because of write life cycle reasons.

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