PC starts with boot menu offering Windows Boot Manager or EFI, only proceeding to ask for Sparekey

[DaveMck24]

On powering up, Omen 30L PC will always boot to grey 'Boot Menu', offering the Windows Boot Manager and EFI as options.  This started out of the blue, without warning.

If WBM is selected, PC will immediately request the HP Sparekey.   I have never set up Sparekey and hadn't heard of it until this problem.

If EFI is selected, I can manually navigate and either use the \microsoft\bootmgrfw.efi or the \efi\bootx64.efi, and the PC will boot into windows without problem.

I have created a Windows Recovery Drive USB, and set the BIOS to boot from USB.  However, it takes me back to the grey 'boot menu' and now includes the USB boot option.  If that is selected...the PC immediately asks for the HP Sparekey again.   I cannot boot to the recovery USB.

I have updated BIOS to F.29, which had no effect.  Have used the clear CMOS jumper on motherboard also without success.

How do I get rid of the boot menu and enable the PC to just boot when turned on again, without reference to HP Sparekey?

[DaveMck24 · Accepted solution]

Update:  Fixed it.

Manual download of the F29 revA BIOS and re-applying this from within Win11 did the trick.

Still no idea why the F28 and initial install of the F29 didn't work, and left me with the Sparekey boot hassles - but happy ending at least.   Only thing I can think of is that I'd applied the F29 through the HP softare support rather than via its own install file.

Hopefully of help to someone else in future!