Anyway to remove EFI from Windows 8?

ibookg497

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Hi everyone! Last month I tried to install Windows 8 on my Acer Aspire 5560 laptop. Now, due to acer's HORRIBLE EFI, I am unable to boot Windows 8. I actually came close to bricking my laptop, it wouldn't let me adjust BIOS settings or anything else until I pulled the battery. I re-installed Windows 7, and now I'm stuck. Is there a way I can use Windows 8 without EFI? Can I just remove the EFI directory on my flash drive? Or what. Help would be great. Thanks guys!
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 7 Home Premium
Hi there
actually there's nothing wrong with EFI -- although you need to find out if the machine can use "Traditional BIOS" as well -- it probably will as pure EFI machines AFAIK are at the moment just APPLE machines.

Go into your BIOS and see if you can see UEFI option YES / NO.

Windows 8 will use UEFI if it can by default rather than the other way around -- and this will mean creating a GPT type disk.

I'd suggest you try and set the option off in your BIOS if you can.
Then image your W7 system in case W8 gives problems again so you can restore if it all doesn't work.

Now re-install W8 again

Cheers
jimbo
 

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System One

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    Linux Centos 7, W8.1, W7, W2K3 Server W10
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Hi there
actually there's nothing wrong with EFI -- although you need to find out if the machine can use "Traditional BIOS" as well -- it probably will as pure EFI machines AFAIK are at the moment just APPLE machines.

Go into your BIOS and see if you can see UEFI option YES / NO.

Windows 8 will use UEFI if it can by default rather than the other way around -- and this will mean creating a GPT type disk.

I'd suggest you try and set the option off in your BIOS if you can.
Then image your W7 system in case W8 gives problems again so you can restore if it all doesn't work.

Now re-install W8 again

Cheers
jimbo
Hi Jimbo! Believe it or not the EFI option was the first thing I checked for in my BIOS after I got the laptop. No option to turn it off. It is always on, and it doesn't work right. I would LOVE to use my EFI, (I know it's supposed to be better and stuff) I just can't make it work. I had to remove the EFI directory on my Ubuntu installer to get it to boot. And of course, it's slower now. So, any other ideas?

Thanks
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 7 Home Premium
When you boot the flash drive, do you have an option to boot a non-UEFI version in the boot device menu?

I have installed UEFI versions of Ubuntu, Window 7 and Windows 8 and they seem to work well.

But your system seems to be in a intermediate stage. Having Ubuntu installed on the same drive, may be causing some confusion for the system. And Windows UEFI installs do not like logical partitions, although Ubuntu seems to be OK with them.

Maybe if we start from scratch with a clean drive. But it may be, although I have no confirmed info, that some OEM repair utilities might interfere with other OS installs.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1 x64
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Home Grown
    CPU
    i7 3770K
    Motherboard
    ASUS P8Z77 -v Pro, Z87-Expert
    Memory
    16 G
    Graphics Card(s)
    EVGA GTX 680 Classified (2)
    Hard Drives
    Kingston SSD 240 GB
When you boot the flash drive, do you have an option to boot a non-UEFI version in the boot device menu?

I have installed UEFI versions of Ubuntu, Window 7 and Windows 8 and they seem to work well.

But your system seems to be in a intermediate stage. Having Ubuntu installed on the same drive, may be causing some confusion for the system. And Windows UEFI installs do not like logical partitions, although Ubuntu seems to be OK with them.

Maybe if we start from scratch with a clean drive. But it may be, although I have no confirmed info, that some OEM repair utilities might interfere with other OS installs.

Hi. Actually I don't have Ubuntu on my system right now, I just had it installed before. I only have W7 X64 right now. Any ideas?
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 7 Home Premium
Well, maybe an update might be needed.

You currently have a UEFI version of Windows 7 installed on your laptop and you only have one hard drive.

You want to remove Windows 7 and install Windows 8 without EFI.

To do that, just boot the flashdrive in the non-uefi mode. Use the Boot Device Menu, or go into the bios and see if there is a boot menu option to do that . Once you boot, you should be able to reinstall in a Legacy (MBR) mode. If it gives you problems, prior to installing, use Shift+F10 to open a command window and use the Diskpart clean command to clean your hard drive. If you have a recovery partition on the drive, or anything else, this will wipe it out.

There is probably a tutorial for that, but type the following with enter after each:

diskpart
lis dis
select dis 0 <-- make sure this is the correct drive.
clean
exit
exit


But UEFI should work fine for a Windows 8 install, not sure why you are having problems. Hopefully you have a System Image of your current install somewhere protected.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1 x64
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Home Grown
    CPU
    i7 3770K
    Motherboard
    ASUS P8Z77 -v Pro, Z87-Expert
    Memory
    16 G
    Graphics Card(s)
    EVGA GTX 680 Classified (2)
    Hard Drives
    Kingston SSD 240 GB
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