Hello. First of all i would like apologise for my english skills. Second i want to now how to recognise EFI "bios" in acer notebooks? I spent one week reading many topics and i didn't find any answer. Only ways to see whether windows is installed in bios or uefi mode. But. There is always talking about uefi mode, switching boot mode and secure boot. Both options are absent in my Bios. I sent technical question to acer, why my manufactured in 2012 notebook hadn't uefi. They said it was preinstalled linux or windows 7 so producer didn't implement UEFI Bios. I also read that insyde H2O bioses are EFI. So the question is how to check it? Because, maybe, my "bios" isn't even EFI and it's really just old BIOS. And finally main question. If it's EFI, so can i reinstall windows 7 using gpt partitions and make it somehow efi mode? I asked because i received notification (as many people) of free upgrade to windows 10 and don't how this installation will treat my MBR HDD (of course i will make a backup of entire hdd) . I called to microsoft, my country departament and they did't answer, maybe question was to difficult, they don't know. If it possible i would like make it GPT before upgrading to Win10. I found many topics how to install windows 7 in uefi mode but i didn't find it clear whether it's only for UEFI based mobo or for EFI "bioses" too. Thank You for any assiastance.
Lets start with the basics first. 1. You can install/upgrade Windows 10 in MBR mode. 2.What is the exact model of your laptop?
It's acer aspire 5733. I read that win8 and 10 can be install in bios mode but i saw as well that windows on my friend's notebook starts and close faster, and works faster (acer aspire 5750). He has bios with UEFI. For my there is no uefi bios on acer site. So i was wondering if any actions with changing partitions and "EFI" installation is possible and will change anything to work faster.
Hello Lockdown and welcome to the forum. I'm just going to tell you what I think, please take it for what it's worth. 1.) If your machine originally came with a BIOS designed to use MBR boot, don't expect Acer to release a new BIOS version that's UEFI capable. That's just not in the cards. 2.) Modding the BIOS yourself in order to make it UEFI capable, or having someone else mod it for you, would be very complex if not impossible. And you'd run the risk of turning your machine into a brick if things went wrong. 3.) Having a UEFI BIOS and a GPT disk does nothing to speed up your boot time. I have a very strong suspicion that your friend's machine has either Windows 8 or 8.1 installed, and machines using 8/8.1 don't entirely shut down, they enter a state of deep hibernation instead. The result is, when they're powered up, they boot much faster than a machine using Windows 7. Plus, you friend's machine may also have a faster processor, more memory, or a solid state hard drive - see #4. 4.) I think the simplest and easiest thing you could do is to install a SSD on your own machine and clone your current Windows 7 OS from your hard drive to the SSD. That one thing will do more for speeding up your boot time than anything else.
Hello John. Answer from acer was quite strange. Aspire 5733 is based on HM55 Chipset with integrated Intel HD Graphics. Aspire 5750 on HM65 with NVidia graphics. CPU in my is i3-380M. His with i3-2310M, also with preinstalled windows 7 like mine was. Both of us after buying our notebooks threw away preinstalled windows to do clean install and reactivated again. Since then i have never done it again. My is MBR, his GPT. But i'm not sure whether few first releases of his BIOS was with uefi support. I know that he (or someone) did on his laptop windows 7 with GPT. Perhaps my friend has SSD, he changed HDD year ago. My is normal 2.5 HDD as producer gave. I don't want to do any modding of bios. Just want to know what kind of bios i have, how to recognize EFI, UEFI, BIOS? How windows 8 and 10 installer acts when installing on clean HDD? It creates GPT or just MBR partition when notebook hasn't uefi? Need windows 8 or 10 uefi to create GPT partitions when installing? I know that windows 7 by default install MBR and on UEFI machine is not bootable from DVD until we switch to legacy mode. If there is no noticeable differences why some people wanted so much windows 7 with GPT when they don't use hdd over 1TB (maybe for many partitions that are not logical extension partitions)? I read topics not only on MDL forum that some persons tried to install windows 7 that boot from gpt hdd when they hadn't in bios switching feature secure boot/ boot mode/ legacy bios. Or just maybe i did't understand precisely what i read? I wonder if my laptop has some hardware restrictions to have EFI/UEFI (ex. integrated graphic). I'm not expert but i don't see any reason that he has release with UEFI, me not. HM55 with integrated Intel Graphic, Arrandale. 5750 is sandy bridge. I assume that only Uefi (with options secure boot) is windows 7 gpt installation capable from usb fat32 stick, yes? EFI "bioses" without this feature in boot tab are uncapable? I read that 4 years ago (or more) many models were EFI machines (without UEFI features like switchable between uefi and legacy) instead of BIOS.
In Boot tab i have: -IDE 0 -IDE 1 -USB HDD -Network boot -USB FDD -USB DVD When pushing F12 i see: IDE 0: HDD IDE 1: DVD Network boot: legacy PCI Device I installed program HWiNFO64. In section BIOS there is "UEFI BIOS" and its state is capable. What does it mean? I found this too - UEFI Specification Support: Not Present So i have EFI but without UEFI specification support, thus no matter how hard i try and which windows I will install it always create MBR partition style?
look for Boot Mode CSM = legacy MBR not GPT (most bios that are EFI have similar setting) or secureboot enable then restart and look for it. ( might not be option in it)