This new bios has me confused re reinstalling

[haryo]

Hi All,

My X230 came with Windows 8 (home), and I'm concerned that I won't know what to do if my hard drive dies. I've made images, but haven't figured out how to load them if I have a new hard drive in the machine. With previous computers I set the boot order to cd, usb or external drive first, so I could reinstall windows on a new formatted hard drive if the old one died with no warning. However, many of the restore or other options 'appear' to be ON the hard drive, which would make them inaccessible if the drive failed, or if I was starting with a new drive. I've tried pressing this and that on booting, but don't get anywhere useful (no doubt I'm missing something). How do I set the machine to always, automatically check to see if there is a usb stick or other external device to boot from first, before going to the internal drive (or what do I press to make a choice)? I'm sure it's simple, but simple ain't what it used to be. The bios options are more complicated than I'm used to, and I don't know what to turn on or off. Can I just turn off the UEFI features and go back to something more familiar?

P.S. I updated the bios today, reset the bios to default settings. When I boot tapping the F12 key according to the manual, I do not get any menus, I just boot into Windows 8.



Thanks.

[ducky2802]

Im on an x230 win 7 UEFI so it may not be a 100% apples to apples comparison, but F12 should take you to the boot options, unless you have it disabled in the bios. You can set boot order in the bios and include/exclude disks in the bios as well.

If your win 8 is UEFI now, you cant just turn it off (and use normal method) without reinstalling the OS (I believe, 99% sure).

[haryo]

HI,

I tinkered with the bios settings, and had it such that holding Enter and tapping F12 on booting gave me the boot order menu. Did it a few times to be sure. I confirmed that I could use the restore from an image feature. However, now when I do the same thing, it just boots to Windows. Very frustrating. I thought I had cracked it.

[haryo]

Well, I've concluded that on my Windows 8 machine there is no always-works way for me to interrupt the boot process and access a boot menu. I can do so if I start the process from within Windows, which of course I couldn't do if the hard drive died. However, it seems that Windows 8 will present the boot menu on its own if it detects problems such as the OS not loading. So, getting to the boot menu under the circumstances I was worried about looks like will be done for me. There may be some key combination and bios settings that would do what I would have liked to, but I haven't found them...

[ducky2802]

Interesting... could be the nature of UEFI to load up processes faster? or non-sequentially? (I forget the details of why UEFI was better), which allows it to maybe overlook keyboard presses unless they happen at the right time. I would suspect with a USB key recovery media + blank HDD, you will not have any issues starting the restore process as you have stated.

[haryo]

Of interest on the topic from: http://support.lenovo.com/es_VE/detail. ... SF13-T0025


"By default, a Windows 8 shutdown is not a real shutdown. Instead, it is hybrid shutdown where contents of memory are saved to disk. This allows for a faster startup. However, turning on the PC after a hybrid shutdown does not allow for pressing F1 or F12 during startup."

Solution: There are several ways to enter Setup Utility (F1) or the Boot Menu (F12) on a Microsoft Windows 8 PC as explained below:

-Press and hold the Shift key while selecting the Shutdown option in Windows 8. This will make the PC perform a full shutdown instead of a hybrid shutdown. Then F1 or F12 can be pressed successfully during startup.
-Select Restart instead of Shutdown. Then F1 or F12 can be pressed successfully during startup.
-Disable the fast startup option in Control Panel -> Hardware and Sound -> Power Options -> Choose what the power buttons do.