P370EM , Windows 8 Upgrade Assistant says firmware not Compatible with Secure Boot

Hi,

As the thread title says, I got a P370EM this month, and I'm considering installing Windows 8 (mainly because I can't get any Linux installs to dual boot nicely in this and am thinking about using Hyper-V) but when I run the Upgrade Assistant it tells me the Firmware is not compatable with secure boot, which isn't a huge issue just means I can't use secure boot which I'm not overly concerned about, but I'm wondering why that's the case. I can see this is a UEFI laptop since I have the option to launch an EFI file in the BIOS, and the hard disk is in the correct format. Is it a matter of the Clevo UEFI not being UEFI2 (and if so has there been anyword on if we'll get an update for this)?

Thanks

 

Turns out my reseller had formatted the disk as MBR, and so Windows was launching in MBR mode. After considerably messing around in Linux and an EFI shell I converted the disk to GPT, setup a UEFI partition and got Windows to repair its bootloader into UEFI mode. Windows 8 Upgrade Assistant is happy now.

Now to see about getting Linux to launch in UEFI mode. Weee.

 

Hey, do you mind typing some hints on how to convert the disk to GPT and setup a uefi partition?

I tried to setup a GPT via technet's suggestion but when trying to install windows 8 it said it can't install to GPT....

Thanks!

 

Sorry that it took me a while to respond. I've been installing Windows 8 and persuading Linux and Windows 8 to play nice. Still have some minor issues with the raid setup in linux but I've got a computer that can boot both now.

If you've setup the GPT properly then it sounds like your problem is that the Windows 8 install DVD isn't booting in EFI/GPT mode.

The default BIOS that Clevo laptops ship with makes it almost impossible to boot a DVD in EFI mode if your hard disk was setup in MBR mode first. You need to put your own EFI shell on media that your system can read, make sure its named shellx64.efi (personally I'd recommed in your EFI System Partition, but an external USB should work as long as its FAT32 (aka VFAT) formatted but I haven't tested that) and then use that to launch the Windows 8 installer in EFI mode.

I don't have the link to the EFI shell I used handy right now but I'll dig it up when I get home. Likewise I don't have easy access to the EFI shell so I can't remember the steps needed to launch the install but I'll write it up at the same time (if you're technically inclined: the short (but unhelpful) answer is to use FSx: , where x is the file system representing the DVD to change to that file system , then you can use ls or dir and cd to navigate around the file system to find an EFI file, you can launch that just by typing its file name , after that the install will run in EFI mode and can install to a GPT. If you're not technically inclined I don't recommend doing this, you can mess things up *horribly* in the EFI shell if you do something stupid)

 

Ok that makes sense, I figured it's because I didn't boot from EFI. If you can figure out the name of the EFI shell, I would appreciate it.

My other question would be how did you repair windows so that it would still function? I'm hesitant to reinstall for the 3rd time in a week, lol.

 

Hi,

After some searching around this is where I got my EFI Shell:

UEFI - Gentoo Linux Wiki

Under the EFI Shell heading you want the 64 bit one. (Remember to rename it to shellx64.efi and copy it to your EST).

There are some UEFI 2.0 shells around there, unfortunately the stock Clevo BIOS (even 1.02) is still UEFI 1.0 which means the 2.0 shells won't launch, hopefully we'll get an update to rectify that. It also means we can't use secure boot with Windows 8, since it requires the latest UEFI beta specification.

I don't have a windows 8 installation DVD (I only have a Windows 8 upgrade one and a Windows 7 one) , for windows 7 though, there appears to be a bootmgr.efi in the root of the DVD though, and I expect windows 8 is similar.

So launch the EFI shell from the BIOS,

When you go in you'll see a whole pile of data (corresponding to devices), you're interested in the ones at the very top that are labelled FS0 , FS1 etc. you're looking for the one with DVD in its description. If that information has scrolled off screen you can use map to display it again. Once you identify the FS you want use the command FSx: , to change to that Filesystem , and use ls or dir and cd to navigate around. If its structured like the Windows 7 one is though you should just be able to type bootmgr.efi to launch it, you'll have to press any key when promped to launch the installer and then you're in EFI mode. You can either install in EFI mode or use the EFI recovery tools to repair a previous MBR install into an EFI one.

Hope that helps.

 

After some poking around I found out it was my alternative EFI shell that had issues the Clevo BIOS seems to be UEFI 2.3 compliant, it just lacks a BIOS option to disable secure boot (or possibly only shows it when Secure Boot is activated) but it ships without any keys , so you'd have to activate it yourself, which without a clear option to deactivate secure boot in the BIOS is risky.

Don't suppose anyone else can comment one way or another on that ?

 

Yeah I got no options for secure boot either, and the only way to boot the installer in EFI is to use an alternative EFI shell for me. Looking for update on this issue also.