The Basic Input / Output System (BIOS) is the firmware of a PC. It is the central modern successor: With its graphical user interface, UEFI-BIOS can be operated much more comfortably than the BIOS and also offers significantly more functions. Interface between the hardware of your computer and an operating system installed on it. The BIOS ensures that, after switching on the PC, its components such as the graphics card, the hard disk and the network interface are correctly recognized and initialized before Windows starts – otherwise the OS would not run.
Tip 1: BIOS and UEFI-BIOS: These are the differences
Lesetipp: Windows 10 Intallation with UEFI-PC
Tip 2: The benefits of the UEFI BIOS
UEFI, the "Unified Extensible Firmware Interface", is basically exactly the same as the BIOS, but it brings significantly more features, supports the latest hardware and looks much more modern. Whether you are dealing with a BIOS or a UEFI BIOS on your computer is therefore easy to see. A UEFI BIOS is typically graphically complex, can be controlled by mouse, and resembles a Windows application with respect to its user interface design.
Tip 3: To get the BIOS to
While the BIOS is limited to the VGA image format of 640 x 480 pixels, the UEFI BIOS uses significantly higher resolutions and color depths, which also contributes to a more comfortable operation. On the other hand, the BIOS from the 1970s is optically very old-fashioned, reminds with its simple menu structure to a relic from the MS-DOS era and accepts only input from the keyboard.
The UEFI BIOS not only looks much more modern than the BIOS but already contains all the important drivers that Windows needs for system startup. Compared to a BIOS computer, this shortens the boot process significantly, and without any tuning measures. UEFI equipment also includes a standard driver for the network card. This allows you to use the network port even before you start Windows, for example, to install firmware updates or to boot over the network.
Depending on the vendor, the UEFI-BIOS can also include a RAM test, games and even a web browser, which allows you to surf the Internet without any operating system. The UEFI-BIOS also supports the so-called "hot-plugging" of USB devices, thus allowing the USB keyboards and mice to be inserted and used even after switching on the PC. Access to USB data media via the UEFI-BIOS is just as convenient in this way.
To access the BIOS or the UEFI BIOS, you must press a specific key, which is displayed on the start screen after switching on the computer. You usually have a few seconds to do this. If the push button is pressed, the operating system installed on the PC is booted. Which button can be used to call up the BIOS is sometimes not quite clear. This can be due to the fact, for example, that the start screen appears only within such a short time window, so users do not have a chance to keep track of it.
Often it also happens, that apart from the logo of the mainboard manufacturer no information is on the display to be seen. But you do not necessarily have to look into the manual, because the BIOS manufacturers use a quite similar fundus of keys or key combinations. Most frequently, the BIOS can be accessed by pressing the [Delete] key.
In many cases, the keys [F1], [F2], [F8], [F10], or [F12] also work as well as [Alt], [Tab] and [Esc]. Common keyboard shortcuts are, for example, [Ctrl] + [Alt] + [Esc] and [Ctrl] + [Alt] + [S]. On some PCs under Windows 8, on the other hand, there is no keypress to succeed if the system is set to Fast start. The box on page 82 tells you how to get into the BIOS anyway.
The BIOS menu is simple to build and often uses an English-language interface. Depending on the BIOS manufacturer, either the most important system parameters or the individual BIOS submenus appear in the BIOS main menu. To select a menu item, use the arrow keys, use the [Return] key to move to it and exit it via [Esc]. Because the vast majority of PCs are equipped with AMI or Award / Phoenix BIOS, you will most likely find the following menu names.
Under the menu item Standard CMOS Features, you can set the date and time as well as configure the drives connected to the computer. You specify the boot order under the Advanced CMOS features or the Advanced BIOS features. There is sometimes also a setting called Full Screen Logo Display or meaningful. If you change this from enabled to disabled, the regular BIOS screen appears when you start the computer, including a note that you must press to enter the BIOS.
Other important menu items are the Integrated Peripherals or the Peripherals Setup. Here you make the settings for the interfaces of the computer, for example for the USB ports, the SATAController or the Soundchip. How the UEFI-BIOS looks in detail and which functions it brings, is left to the respective motherboard manufacturer. Usually, however, there is a two-part graphical user interface. This includes, on the one hand, the start screen, which summarizes the most important configuration settings, as well as an extended mode, in which you can adjust the system parameters in detail, just as with the BIOS, only significantly more comfortable
Example Asus: On the UEFI boot screen, you can set the boot order on the UEFI boot screen at the click of a mouse and can adjust the system performance via the three preconfigured profiles Silent, Power and Energy Saving. The start screen also provides information about the CPU type, the total memory, as well as the temperature and voltage values as well as the speed of the processor fan. The procedure is similar for other manufacturers.
Tip 4: The menu structure of BIOS and UEFI-BIOS in detail
Unlike a conventionally formatted hard disk, a UEFI volume carries its own boot menu, which is stored on the EFI system partition. For data carriers that are formatted with the MBR partitioning scheme, you must retrofit the boot menu with an additional tool such as the Grub Bootloader. If you have several operating systems installed on the UEFI disk using the method described in Tip 8, an entry is automatically added during the setup of its EFI system partition, and the boot menu is expanded accordingly. You can call the UEFI boot menu either via the UEFI BIOS and determine which operating system is to be started.
Alternatively, you can do this directly under Windows 7, 8 and 8.1. To do so, enter the system information with [Windows] + [Pause]. Then, click Advanced System Settings, followed by clicking Start and Restore Settings. Now you can select the operating system, which should be loaded after switching on the computer, under Standard operating system. You can accept your setting by clicking on OK. In order to edit the entries of the boot menu and, for example, change their names, we recommend using additional tools such as EasyBCD (tinyurl.com/6nm2x8j)
Tip 5: Edit entries in the UEFI boot menu
On a UEFI-PC, Windows only starts from a hard disk or SSD, which is formatted with the GPT partition scheme. If your computer comes with a preinstalled Windows 8 or 8.1, this is almost always the case as Microsoft has committed the PC manufacturers to use UEFI. To find out if Windows is running in UEFI mode, follow these steps: In Windows, press Windows + R and enter diskmgmt.msc in the dialog box that appears.
Click OK to start Windows disk management. Click the right mouse button on the system drive on which Windows is installed, usually the volume 0. From the context menu, select the properties and go to the Volumes tab. If there is the entry GUID partition table (GPT) under partition style, Windows runs in UEFI mode. On the other hand, if the entry is Master Boot Record (MBR), Windows was installed in a conventional way.
If you want to prepare a disk or SSD for the UEFI installation of Windows, you must format it as a GPT drive. In the data carrier administration (call see hint 6) delete all partitions of the drive. Then, right-click the drive label (such as disk 1), and then select Convert to GPT Disk Context Menu. You can then install a fresh Windows as described in Tip 8 in the UEFI mode. However, an MBR volume with an existing Windows installation can not be converted to a GPT drive by volume management, because system files are excluded.
Tip 6: How to find out if your Windows is running in UEFI mode
Tip 7: Make your PC fit for a UEFI-Windows
Tip 8: Install in UEFI mode
With the free tool Aomei Partition Assistant Standard (http://tinyurl.com/q2ovnac) it still works. The software converts an MBR disk into a GPT drive, even if Windows is on it. To do this, you must either remove the hard drive and copy it to another machine using the tool - because it is not a system disk - or create a bootable recovery CD containing the tool directly under Aomei Partition Assistant Standard by. Another prerequisite: To boot in UEFI mode, you must also have a 64-bit version of Windows.
Lesetipp: Set up multiboot with UEFI
With the 64-bit editions of Windows 8 or 8.1, Windows 7, and Windows Vista with Service Pack 1 installed, you are on the safe side as they meet all UEFI requirements. Some current PCs with UEFI BIOS can load the so-called "Compatibility Support Module" (CSM) at the start of the system and also allow it to install the 32-bit version of Windows 7, which is actually incompatible with UEFI. However, the 32-bit Windows does not support GPT partitions and may not be on the same disk as a 64-bit Windows version installed under UEFI
Using the standard installation method - inserting and installing the setup DVD - allows Windows to be installed on a UEFI-PC just as easily as on a BIOS PC. If you follow this scheme, you do not have any of the UEFI advantages. For Windows to boot from the UEFI system, you must install it in UEFI mode. To do this, proceed as follows: After starting the computer, do not boot from the installation DVD, but start the UEFI boot loader.
To do this, call the UEFI BIOS and change to the boot menu. If the installation DVD from Windows is in the drive, the volume in the boot menu is listed twice. Select the entry before which a UEFI is placed. The Windows Setup now starts in UEFI mode and runs the same way as you would from a "regular" installation. After installation, Windows will boot in UEFI mode.
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