Solved UEFI (GPT) - Is it worth me re-installing Win 8?

lilbudro

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Greetings everyone,

I've recently upgraded from win7 to 8 and did a clean install. My BIOS is capable of UEFI but has no secure boot option and UEFI mode was turned off in BIOS at the time I installed Win8. Would have been nice if Win8 setup could have informed me of this before I installed and loaded all my programs. So I am wondering, would there would really be any great boot time improvement by wiping my hard disk, formatting as GPT, and reinstalling Win8 with UEFI enabled in BIOS?
As installed currently (MBR), Windows 8 is already much faster than 7 was.. and I don't see any reason to go through all the work of reinstalling, if UEFI only increases boot time by a tiny amount.
One other question: If I did reinstall with UEFI on, will Win8 setup format my hard disk as GPT once I create a partition and click "format", or is there some advanced settings for this?

Thanks in advance:
Budro
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8 Pro 64 Bit
    System Manufacturer/Model
    ASUS G73SW
    CPU
    i7-2630QM @ 2 - 2.9GHz
    Motherboard
    ASUS - Unknown - Intel® HM65 Express Chipset
    Memory
    8GB DDR3 1333 MHz SDRAM
    Graphics Card(s)
    NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 460M 1.5GB GDDR5 VRAM

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    ME, XP,Vista,Win7,Win8,Win8.1
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    Other Info
    Notebooks x 3

    Desktops x 5

    Towers x 4
Thank you for the info on Win8 install with UEIF
I've been searching for any benchmarks on MBR vs GPT boot times, that could help me decide if reinstalling Win8 would be worth the effort. So far I haven't found any solid statistics and some people saying there really isn't a noticeable difference.
I'm not really concerned with the security aspects.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8 Pro 64 Bit
    System Manufacturer/Model
    ASUS G73SW
    CPU
    i7-2630QM @ 2 - 2.9GHz
    Motherboard
    ASUS - Unknown - Intel® HM65 Express Chipset
    Memory
    8GB DDR3 1333 MHz SDRAM
    Graphics Card(s)
    NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 460M 1.5GB GDDR5 VRAM
Here is a comparison that may help. It is not perfect for drawing pertinent conclusions, but if you assume that Win7 and Win8 boot times are about the same under BIOS/cold boot, then you can argue pretty reasonably that booting Win8 under UEFI/fast startup is faster percent-wise (30% to 70%--as derived from another article dealing with the same graph) than booting Win8 under BIOS/cold boot.

Now suppose, without calculating precisely, that booting Win8 under BIOS/cold boot takes 40 secs. Well, OK, does booting, say, 12 secs (40 secs - (.7 X 40 secs)) to 28 secs (40 secs - (.3 x 40 secs)) faster matter? Continuing, let's say, without calculating precisely, that the average faster boot is 50%. Then, does faster booting by 20 secs (.5 X 40) secs matter? I can't answer for you. But, given the number of times I reboot, it wouldn't matter to me if I was a practical day-to-day user. In this regard MS argues that frequent restarting, to clear the cobwebs, is not needed on Win8. But, would I reinstall under UEFI? Yes, because I like to tinker, and it probably would bug me every time I started up if I had not reinstalled.

Now, if we assume reasonably that Win8 Boots faster than Win7 under BIOS/cold boot, then the key numbers of secs mentioned above (12 secs, 28 secs, and 20 secs) would be reduced by probably small magnitudes. So, ignoring calculation detail, would smallish decreases in these values change things in your mind? Not in mine. I already said I'd reinstall. :D
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Win7 Ult on DIY; Win8 Pro on MBP/Parallels; Win7 Ult on MBP/Boot Camp; Win7 Ult/Win8 Pro on HP
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    DIY Rig; MacBook Pro (MBP)/Parallels/Boot Camp; HP Pavilion dv6500t Laptop
    CPU
    Intel i7-2600K (sometimes OC'd to 4.8 GHz)
    Motherboard
    ASUS P8P67 Deluxe Rev B3
    Memory
    16 GB Corsair Vengeance
    Graphics Card(s)
    EVGA 570 SC
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Gateway
    Hard Drives
    Dual Boot:
    Win7 Ult RAID 0 on OCZ Revo x2 and
    Win7 Ult RAID 0 on Caviar Black SATA 3's
    PSU
    Cooler Master Silent Pro 1000W
    Case
    Cooler Master 932 HAF
    Cooling
    Zalman CNPS9900MAX-B CPU Fan
    Keyboard
    Logitech Cordless Desktop MX 5500
    Mouse
    Logitech Cordless Desktop MX 5500
    Internet Speed
    20 Mbps Download/2+ Mbps Upload
    Other Info
    Pioneer Blu-ray Burner/DVD Burner
Thanks for that input Znod. I probably will reinstall sense I don't have a ton of apps loaded yet, and the Win8 image is still on USB drive. I just hope everything gos smoothly, sense I've never messed with GPT formats. Ill try later this evening, and update post once I'm up and running.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8 Pro 64 Bit
    System Manufacturer/Model
    ASUS G73SW
    CPU
    i7-2630QM @ 2 - 2.9GHz
    Motherboard
    ASUS - Unknown - Intel® HM65 Express Chipset
    Memory
    8GB DDR3 1333 MHz SDRAM
    Graphics Card(s)
    NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 460M 1.5GB GDDR5 VRAM

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Win7 Ult on DIY; Win8 Pro on MBP/Parallels; Win7 Ult on MBP/Boot Camp; Win7 Ult/Win8 Pro on HP
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    DIY Rig; MacBook Pro (MBP)/Parallels/Boot Camp; HP Pavilion dv6500t Laptop
    CPU
    Intel i7-2600K (sometimes OC'd to 4.8 GHz)
    Motherboard
    ASUS P8P67 Deluxe Rev B3
    Memory
    16 GB Corsair Vengeance
    Graphics Card(s)
    EVGA 570 SC
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Gateway
    Hard Drives
    Dual Boot:
    Win7 Ult RAID 0 on OCZ Revo x2 and
    Win7 Ult RAID 0 on Caviar Black SATA 3's
    PSU
    Cooler Master Silent Pro 1000W
    Case
    Cooler Master 932 HAF
    Cooling
    Zalman CNPS9900MAX-B CPU Fan
    Keyboard
    Logitech Cordless Desktop MX 5500
    Mouse
    Logitech Cordless Desktop MX 5500
    Internet Speed
    20 Mbps Download/2+ Mbps Upload
    Other Info
    Pioneer Blu-ray Burner/DVD Burner
Well I'm back up and running, all updates installed and most all my needed apps. I didn't need to re-create or modify the USB installer.. the one that the Upgrade assistant made works well for both UEFI and standard boot. Just turned UEFI on in BIOS and selected that mode to boot from USB. Did have one hickup that was my own fault.. when I hit "Install" Win 8 setup asked for a media driver. Problem was only that I had the thumb drive plugged into my one USB 3.0 port that requires drivers. Restarted with it in a 2.0 port and the rest completed with out a hitch. As far as booting goes.. I think it may actually be a bit faster now ^_^. Also, for some reason when I installed my touchpad driver this time, it started functioning correctly and turning off pad when mouse is plugged up.. so YAY! Thanks for everyone's help, and have a great evening.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8 Pro 64 Bit
    System Manufacturer/Model
    ASUS G73SW
    CPU
    i7-2630QM @ 2 - 2.9GHz
    Motherboard
    ASUS - Unknown - Intel® HM65 Express Chipset
    Memory
    8GB DDR3 1333 MHz SDRAM
    Graphics Card(s)
    NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 460M 1.5GB GDDR5 VRAM
You are welcome, and great. All is very :cool:.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Win7 Ult on DIY; Win8 Pro on MBP/Parallels; Win7 Ult on MBP/Boot Camp; Win7 Ult/Win8 Pro on HP
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    DIY Rig; MacBook Pro (MBP)/Parallels/Boot Camp; HP Pavilion dv6500t Laptop
    CPU
    Intel i7-2600K (sometimes OC'd to 4.8 GHz)
    Motherboard
    ASUS P8P67 Deluxe Rev B3
    Memory
    16 GB Corsair Vengeance
    Graphics Card(s)
    EVGA 570 SC
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Gateway
    Hard Drives
    Dual Boot:
    Win7 Ult RAID 0 on OCZ Revo x2 and
    Win7 Ult RAID 0 on Caviar Black SATA 3's
    PSU
    Cooler Master Silent Pro 1000W
    Case
    Cooler Master 932 HAF
    Cooling
    Zalman CNPS9900MAX-B CPU Fan
    Keyboard
    Logitech Cordless Desktop MX 5500
    Mouse
    Logitech Cordless Desktop MX 5500
    Internet Speed
    20 Mbps Download/2+ Mbps Upload
    Other Info
    Pioneer Blu-ray Burner/DVD Burner
Thank you for the info on Win8 install with UEIF
I've been searching for any benchmarks on MBR vs GPT boot times, that could help me decide if reinstalling Win8 would be worth the effort. So far I haven't found any solid statistics and some people saying there really isn't a noticeable difference.
I'm not really concerned with the security aspects.

Hi there
Boot time isn't actually the significant difference (in any case an SSD will always improve this).

What GPT DOES buy you are these advantages

1) You aren't restricted to 4 partitions
2) You can use almost any size for your disks (with MBR 2TB is the max --there are a lot of disks of 3 TB and more these days).
3) If you create large spanned volumes > 2 TB also fine --you might well have large music and multi-media libraries --some software for these restricts you to One volume -- but by spanning the system sees your aggregate of disks as a SINGLE volume so allowing you to have a library of almost any size you want and your software will still run. (Remember though like always backup important data regularly - spanning does have a disadvantage in that if one of the volumes in the group fails you have to re-create the volume over again -- but disks are decently reliable these days and with decent backup this shouldn't be a problem.

Cheers
jimbo
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Linux Centos 7, W8.1, W7, W2K3 Server W10
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    Monitor(s) Displays
    1 X LG 40 inch TV
    Hard Drives
    SSD's * 3 (Samsung 840 series) 250 GB
    2 X 3 TB sata
    5 X 1 TB sata
    Internet Speed
    0.12 GB/s (120Mb/s)
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