UEFI vs. Legacy Boot Mode - Installing Windows 8

[artemicion]

Is there a substantial advantage to booting in UEFI mode versus Legacy Boot Mode? I couldn't figure out how to get my system to boot and install Windows 8 from a flash drive in UEFI mode, so I enabled Legacy Boot Mode, which recognized the flash drive and installed Windows 8 fine.

I'm not familiar with BIOS settings and whatnot, but I guess you can't just flip back to UEFI mode after installing the OS? When I tried, the system would just hang during boot up.

 

[PliotronX]

Yeah, UEFI will not recognize the MBR and vice versa. You might have to install from optical media or WDS/PXE. The UEFI will recognize a certain boot file from the Win8 image. AFAICT the only tangible benefits are faster bootup and support for a system/primary drive larger than 2TB, but I haven't looked into it extensively.

 

[artemicion]

Figured out how to boot from USB in UEFI mode. Apparently I had to tab through some options in the "Add Boot Device" menu.

Also took a long time figuring out how to get the Win 8 installer to recognize my hard drive. Apparently, I had to change the SATA settings from "Intel Smart Response Technology" to "AHCI". I have no idea what those two settings mean, but we'll see how it goes. Is it something I can toggle back after Windows is installed?

 

[mechBgon]

Installing in UEFI mode will also allow you the option of using Secure Boot, which prevents advanced malware known as bootkits from getting a persistent foothold on the system. For most ATers, the practical downside to enabling Secure Boot would be that they'd have to disarm Secure Boot if they want to dual-boot with a non-Secure Boot-capable OS, e.g. Win7.