No boot loader?

[im4eversmart]

Hi, Just a quick question

I recently brought a new laptop that runs on windows 8, I noticed that when I power on my computer it doesnt have any boot loader/bootstrap and Im not given any options to access BIOS or safemode

Is this normal?

 

[David Bailey]

Try pressing the Delete key at startup.

 

[Mystere]

Those are different things. First, there's something called POST, or Power On Self Test. This is the screen you often see that has a logo on It, or if you have the logo disabled it shows text with initialization info.

This is largely gone now that UEFI has taken over, as the BIOS is long gone. You may still be able to access the UEFI firmware via DEL, ESC, F1, F2, etc.. depending on what your vendor has setup.

You can still get into safe mode by using Shift-F8, but you have to hit it just right, and that is often a challenge with the speed of which UEFI boots. It's a catch-22... people want their PC's to be nearly instant-on, but they also want it to wait for them to enter safe mode when they want it to.. can't have both.

The typical way is described here:

How To Start Windows 8 in Safe Mode

 

[XweAponX]

Windows 8 uses a Graphical Boot GUI, which makes it difficult to get to Safe Mode. You can set BCDedit to Legacy mode, and get the old style Vista/7 bootloader behaviour back.