the preboot authentication application cannot be found

[Henrique338]

Hello,

A message always appears when i turn my pc on: the preboot authentication application cannot be found
And then, i need to press some button to start the windows many times the windows restart and start the loop, start, restart.

Could anyone help me?

[Maverick_Nik]

Hi @Henrique338,

Is there any Setup password or Power-On password set on this unit?

>> If yes, then try to clear it in BIOS.

>> If No, then try to perform BIOS default.

To reset the BIOS settings, follow the steps below.

1.Turn on or restart the computer.

2.While the display is blank, press the f10 key to enter the BIOS settings menu.

3.Press the f9 key to reset the BIOS to the default settings.

4.Press the f10 key to save the changes and exit the BIOS settings menu.

I hope that answers your question. 🙂

I am an HP employee, the opinions expressed here are my personal opinions, not of HP.

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[Henrique338]

Hello, thanks for the answer but did not solved my problem.

I tried all those things:

- Reset bios from Setup
- Reset bios by press down the yellow button on the motherboard.

- Install Windows 10 again.

My hp elitedesk came with windows 7 by default. After sometime, i updated to windows 8 and windows 10. The problem starts at windows 10.

[Skylarking]

As a disclosure, i don't have your PC or use Pre Boot Authentication on my PC's

Basically PBA can be implemented in various ways and requires some form of password or token to be used when powering up your PC.

One such implementation requires a PBA password that has been set in BIOS. In such cases, resetting BIOS to default does not remove this PBA method and it's password (otherwise it would be pointless if it was so simple to get into a PBA locked PC). So if in your case a PBA password has been set in BIOS, it can be cleared by doing a change password where the old PBA password is entered and the new and confimed password fields are left blank before accepting the change. This should remove PBA from the BIOS. Note that the PBA password could be called something not less obvious like system password or boot password or such, so look around your BIOS.

And note that PBA is often used with Full Disk Encryption so you may need to unencrypt your disc also.

Another point is that Windows 10 requires some form of PBA as provided by UEFI so maybe you need to look at updating your BIOS to ensure you have the latest available from HP as this may help...

Googling "the preboot authentication application cannot be found" should have found a number of relevant pages for you to read. One such page is this one and this one but there are also other pages worth reading, especially this HP document.

Note, if a  PBA password has been set in BIOS and you don't know it, then you are basically stuck 

[edited to add link to HP UEFI pre-boot guidelines DPF download which OP should also read, especially the section about not encrypting the HP_TOOLS partition]

[API_Support]

I have a system returned to us that has this very thing happening. I've looked at the BIOS and there is no password for boot or anything for that matter. I went so far as to set a boot password and then reset to nothing and am still getting this message.

I need to get this fixed...the system is used as a server running 2012 R2 Server and OS reboots happen fairly regularly during off hours. Without user input, the system will not be ready when they get to work in the morning.

I've flashed the BIOS to update it and it hasn't fixed it either.

Any other ideas?

[API_Support]

I've been able to isolate it...but I am confused as to why "this" machine is acting this way compared to the other identical systems I have.

Under Security>System Security the <Embedded Security Device> cannot be reset without first enabling a Setup Password. Once that's done I can go in and Reset to Factory Settings on the <Embedded Security Device>, save and reboot and the system comes back up as normal.

When I go back in and take the Setup Password out the system reverts back to the same Preboot Authentication Application message.

I've Reset to Factory the BIOS, I've reset using the onboard reset...I've even updated the BIOS to latest available.

This make zero sense to me...:smileyfrustrated: